The ‘Occupy’ movement
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ALB wrote:Pity you couldn’t make it since it seems to have been a bit of currency cranks convention, with only one person saying anything sensible:Quote:Question: Banks’ money is balanced because each deposit is balanced by a debt?
Confirmation of why we need to be there to take part in these discussions.
A member has emailed to say that he was the person who posed that question, adding
Quote:along with talking about the social relations that exist in capitalism which seem to have been conveniently ignored in his summing up.So, we were there after all.
More news from St Paul’s. We were there yesterday for a couple of hours or so to leaflet and discuss with occupiers and passers-by. One discussion was with someone who had apparently flown over specially from Oakland in the US to be there. She was a member of the “Freedom Socialist Party” which seems to be a trotskyist organisation. For the record, one of the leaflets she was handing out criticised the Occupy Wall Street people for being opposed to leaders (a position we can commend them for), saying
Quote:… a ‘leaderless’ movement with no clear programme will be easily diverted by Democrats … A movement that doesn’t have leadership directly opposed to the system will be co-opted by it.Par for the course from a would-be vanguard of course. And the “clear programme” was (again of course) a list of reforms such as “Nationalize the banks under workers control”, “Cancel the debts on student loans”, “Establish a national public works job program at union wages”, “Tax the rich and corporations to restore social services for those hardest hit by the economic crisis”.The Occupiers have their own list of reforms but not these tired old trotskyist “transitional demands” which pretend to presume that capitalism can be reformed to benefit the “99 percent”. But, to be fair to the “Freedom Socialist Party”, they weren’t the only trotskyist group there putting them forward. Also doing so was the SWP and another US group which I can’t remember whether it was called the “Workers League” or the “Communist League”. Perhaps some leftwing trainspotter here can identify them, though I’m not sure it’s really worth the bother.The leaflets we were handing out said (among other things) that we want “a world of equality without leaders or followers”.
Worth a read on non-violence and the Occupy Movement. Reminded me of our usual slogan “Peacefully if Possible – Forcibly if Necessary ” and added a couple of other useful slogand for future use by myself. “A few people making decisions that affect everyone else is not what revolution looks like; it’s what capitalism looks like.” “The master’s tools won’t dismantle the master’s house. And they sure won’t build a better house.” “our word is our weapon” http://www.zcommunications.org/throwing-out-the-master-s-tools-and-building-a-better-house-by-rebecca-solnit
A comrade from the Midlands reports:Myself and a fellow party member visited the Occupy Birningham protest today. To be quite frank they nearly drove me mad with boredom. ‘Underwhelmed’ does not even get off the mark as a description of how I felt upon bidding them goodbye. There were three very nice prim and proper youngsters from the ‘Food not Bombs’ campaign who were dishing out ‘reclaimed food’ and a few confused types who seem to be groping at some solutions to the vagaries of capitalism. One guy quite earnestly told me in no uncertain terms we should all strive to be capitalist when I suggested a moneyless, stateless, leaderless world in common. He said – “Look Man, I am a capitalist, we should all have the chance to be capitalists.” Another woman told me she was simply ‘against everything’ and while we gave a free copy of Ron Cook’s Yes Utopia to another chap he said – “hey, I don’t dig politics, it’s the environment I care about!”
First it was Oakland, now it’s Wall St, the police have moved in to clear the protesters. It is an on-going situation and perhaps, hopefully, like the first failed attempt at Oakland, the police will be forced to withdraw again. However as the WSM wrote previously we cannot be overly optimistic.”What we’re facing is the simple fact that our class enemies hold state power, and will use it, ruthlessly to protect their interests and defend themselves from the threat of democracy. Which is why the Socialist Party argues for the prime importance of taking state power out of their hands.”http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2011/no-1277-january-2011/editorial-cold-reality-state-power
Went down to the Occupy Norwich camp last night for their ‘monetary reform’ working group.There was a fair amount of amicable discussion, though with the majority in favour of some kind of ‘monetary reform’ (perhaps not surprising as this was the subject for the meeting)I made some comments, well quite a few, and ones about the fractional reserve being a red herring and how commercial banks going bust disproves that they can make money out of fresh air, got funny hand signals which are a kind of silent applause.Unfortunately the idea of a Norwich pound seemed quite popular.There where also two local people present who today I have found out have written a book critiquing banking from a Muslim perspective.I intend to go down again. This is definitely something worth persisting with and a good forum for discussion. How often do groups of people gather outdoors to discuss the nature of the society we live in?
DJP wrote:Went down to the Occupy Norwich camp last night for their ‘monetary reform’ working group.There was a fair amount of amicable discussion, though with the majority in favour of some kind of ‘monetary reform’ (perhaps not surprising as this was the subject for the meeting)I made some comments, well quite a few, and ones about the fractional reserve being a red herring and how commercial banks going bust disproves that they can make money out of fresh air, got funny hand signals which are a kind of silent applause.Unfortunately the idea of a Norwich pound seemed quite popular.There where also two local people present who today I have found out have written a book critiquing banking from a Muslim perspective.I intend to go down again. This is definitely something worth persisting with and a good forum for discussion. How often do groups of people gather outdoors to discuss the nature of the society we live in?Well done DJP; we need to do much more of this type of activity.For those in London this Sunday (and every Sunday leading up to Xmas) don’t forget the regular attendance at the Occupy Stock Exchange camp at St.Paul’s by party members.More here:-http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/occupy-london-stock-exchange-stpauls-literature-stall-and-discussion
..Another high point was when I found myself in a minority of one for not agreeing that Money = Debt.Perhaps next time I’ll do a presentation on Leibniz Law of Identity!
Has anyone seen this? David Harvey speaks at the Occupy Stock Exchange camp at St.Paul’s.http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/climateandcapitalism/pEtD/~3/VmGn-LFa-R4/
Just watched it. A bit disappointing considering some of the things he has written. Although he identifies the 1 percent global elite as “the capitalist class” and calls them that by name, the main point he seems to be making is the need for a mass political movement not to end capitalism, but only to reverse and end Thatcherism and restore the situation that existed before her. He looks a bit like the Archbishop of Canterbury and in this respect sounds like him. Not a bad outdoor speaker though.
Thanks for the comment, Adam. At least I now know I haven’t missed a lot by not being able to download the video.By the by, I’ve been getting more and more frustrated trying to get access to this forum. Luckily the ever-decreasing circles led me here at last and I can breathe a sigh of relief.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression. He began and ended with a call for political action to “end Thatcherism” (probably because he was speaking in Britain). In between he did say that there should be a global movement to try to stop capital accumulation and did instance movements by illegal workers in the US and by indigenous peoples in Bolivia and India as examples of this, but he didn’t outline any alternative to capitalism except to mention once the need for a “zero-growth, non-capitalist” economy without going into any more detail.I think this brings out the difference between “anti-capitalist” and “anti-capitalism”. I’m sure he is anti-capitalism but what he was advocating was resistance to the activities of capitalists within capitalism.It’s a pity you can’t see the video to judge for yourself.
I think this brings out the difference between “anti-capitalist” and “anti-capitalism”. I’m sure he is anti-capitalism but what he was advocating was resistance to the activities of capitalists within capitalism. – (you wrote.)Yes, This is what an awful lot of commentators are doing; picking and choosing individual sectors of capitalists for a bashing, and sometimes pointing out how they need to be reined in or their activities curtailed somewhat – however, falling short of wanting rid of the whole caboodle. It’s very disappointing just how close some of them get to advocating a total change of system but then end without spitting it out. Do they not believe it themselves or are they afraid of putting their names to it for whatever reason? – rhetorical question. So, it’s up to all of us to continue getting the word out as loud and clear as possible.Re the video downloading thing – it’s a pain in the proverbial and we do take laptops around with us to beg, borrow, steal bandwidth, but you can imagine how it complicates life.
A couple of posters from the colonnade at St Paul’s yesterday:One for us to adopt, I think?There really is a Wall Street in London, in Islington.There were ten of us yesterday, including two contacts. Which meant that we had more discussions, ran out of leaflets and disposed of more Socialist Standards and pamphlets.One troubling thing was a City of London policeman going around making notes about all the stalls. Apparently the police are thinking of cracking down on “hawkers”, probably as part of a plan of petty harrassment of the Occupation. Police have tried this on us in the past to try to stop us selling the Socialist Standard in the streets. There were in fact hawkers there selling souvenir posters and badges of the Occupation and there is a possibility that the Occupiers (who are pursuing the intelligent policy of strictly following the law so as not to give the authorities any excuse to intervene) might go along with banning them. Hopefully this will only be a remote possibility as for them to agree to others who have set up stalls without permission being moved on would be the height of irony (or would it be hypocrisy?).Anyway we are not hawkers. We are just there to discuss and hand out leaflets and other publications.
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