People before profit "Without social justice there is no freedom. My political goal is democratic socialism, a peaceful and democratic society for all people, free from exploitation."(Gesine Lotzsch leader of Die Linke)
Saturday 15 October 2011
You don't have to be a Marxist to see that the capitalist system isn’t working, ask the 99% protest
There's a sociological shift in our assumptions as the protesters jeers and boo on the way to the London Stock Exchange, and all over the world people are taking to the streets against a failing economic and political system.
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You don't have to be a Marxist to see that peoples sociological perspectives have changed
ReplyDelete‘‘We are the 99%’’ ‘‘no justice, no peace’’
Lenin said ‘‘Every particular slogan must be deduced from the totality of specific features of a definite political situation’’
London occupy of the Stock Exchange
ReplyDeleteSo far about 1,000 protesters have massed outside St Paul's Cathedral in a bid to occupy the London Stock Exchange. The square has been closed off by police and private security guards and the demonstration remains focused on the steps around the cathedral.
An unemployed 24 year old protester said
ReplyDelete‘‘This protest is more global, there is people from all around the world and they have focused on financial institutions and powers’’
The latest estimate puts the figure at around 2,000 people protesting in London with organisers expecting more to turn up to send a message of defiance against Government cuts and corruption. Police numbers increased throughout the afternoon as more and more demonstrators joined the protest. Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder made an appearance which drew lots of applause from the crowd. The police officers kept their riot helmets off and have not shown any aggressive posturing with only a few skirmishes being reported, and police officers have been joking with people protesting. Protestors feel they are making a difference, people want answers and they want change, but will those in power listen?
ReplyDeleteA protester named Laura said ‘Why are we paying for a crisis the banks caused? More than a million people have lost their jobs and tens of thousands of homes have been repossessed, while small businesses are struggling to survive. Yet bankers continue to make billions in profit and pay themselves enormous bonuses, even after we bailed them out with £850 billion’’.
ReplyDeleteUK Uncut supporter Peter Hodgson said ‘‘The Government is ignoring its electorate as they impose these austerity measures’’
ReplyDeleteOccupyLSX statement says
‘‘After huge bailouts and in the face of unemployment, privatisation and austerity, we still see profits for the rich on the increase, but we are the 99%, and on October 15 our voice unites across gender and race, across borders and continents, as we call for equality and justice for all.’’
And calls for
‘‘A future free from austerity, growing inequality, unemployment, tax injustice and a political elite who ignores its citizens’’
OccupyLSX say
ReplyDelete‘‘We are doing this to challenge the bankers and the financial institutions which recklessly gambled our economy’’
Activists carried banners saying ‘‘Bankers got a bailout, we got sold out’’
About 400 protesters pitched tents making camp overnight outside St Paul's Cathedral continuing the demonstration after attempts to occupy the Stock Exchange in nearby Paternoster Square after being thwarted by police barricades and so far the police have made no attempt to move the protesters.
ReplyDeleteA clergyman came out onto the cathedral steps to express his support for the protesters and said ‘‘there was no issue and that people were treating the site respectfully and he was happy for it to carry on’’, also some of the worshippers at the cathedral expressed their support. A worshipper named Diane Richards said ‘‘The protesters have kept it well organised, they are trying to keep a very peaceful demonstration’’.
The system is broken, what’s to be done?
ReplyDeleteDon't give more money to the bankers and the wealthy
Use quantitative easing to fund the rail infrastructure, to build a green economy and end fuel poverty, reskilling the unemployed and tackle the ecological crisis.
Don't make people slaves to the market
Britain's problem is not the public deficit, but private debt such as high rents and a fantasy housing market.
Left to the market the wealth flows upwards not trickles downwards
The financial industry needs to be mutually ownership to reassert social interests as a governing principle for the system, putting people before profits under democratic control rather than a dictatorship of finance capital.
The protest to challenge the bankers and the financial institutions which gambled with the economy has struck a chord with new detonators with one man from Sheffield saying ‘‘I'm 40 never been on a protest before but I found myself here’’ he asked not to be named adding ‘‘I'm pretty middle of the road politically, so I wasn't sure about all the Socialist Workers placards at first, but this issue has attracted people from all walks of life. I'm a diehard atheist – there's a woman over there with a 'Jesus is Calling' placard. It's all of us.’’ Rev Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul's says whilst he wasn’t given specific backing to the occupation of the churchyard, he supported their democratic right to protest peacefully.
ReplyDeleteThe occupation incorporates a broad base of socialists, anarchists, social democrats, libertarians and others and Jennifer Bassindale an unemployed mother from Lincolnshire told the Morning Star the train fare from Lincolnshire had meant eating into her rent money ‘‘But I'm here, because I've got a son and I want him to have a good future’’.
ReplyDeleteJohn McDonnell Hayes and Harlington MP Left-Labour plans to table an early day motion supporting the anti-cuts occupation outside London's stock exchange. He has said the Occupy London movement was ‘‘inchoate and incoherent’’ but that they deserved the support and engagement from the left.
Occupations across Britain continue to gain ground, with rallies in Worcester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Dundee, Leeds, Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester. Over a hundred demonstrators gathered in Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square as well as Glasgow and Dundee. Edinburgh’s organisers said they were a people-powered movement protesting against rising social and economic injustice.
Across the world financial centres in 868 cities have been besieged by demonstrators from New York, Taipei and Sydney taking part. In Hong Kong protesters slept overnight inside HSBC’s regional headquarters, while in South Korea’s Seoul Plaza organisers vowed to lead further demonstrations in the coming weeks. In Rome police blasted tear gas and water cannon at protesters amid smashed bank windows and burning police carriers, while protesters in the Irish capital Dublin entered their second week of occupation outside the country’s central bank.
#OccupyLSX initial statement
ReplyDeleteAt today’s assembly of over 500 people on the steps of St Paul’s, #occupylsx collectively agreed the initial statement below. Please note, like all forms of direct democracy, the statement will always be a work in progress.
1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.
6 We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!
http://occupylsx.org/
http://occupylsx.org/?p=221
The global economy is on the edge of the vortex which is very likely to lead to a Great depression deeper than that experienced in the 1930’s. This will lead to a conflict between the capitalist elite and the working classes in the developed and developing world. The United Nations International Labour Organisation warns it could take until 2016 before employment levels globally get back to those of 2008.
ReplyDeleteThe global economy is on the edge of the vortex which is very likely to lead to a Great depression deeper than that experienced in the 1930’s. This will lead to a conflict between the capitalist elite and the working classes in the developed and developing world. The United Nations International Labour Organisation warns it could take until 2016 before employment levels globally get back to those of 2008. Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is having to revise his predictions for the British economy as the Office for National Statistics show economic growth in Britain remains nearly flat for the third quarter of 2011.
ReplyDeleteThe ILO predicts a growing risk of social unrest in 40 per cent of the countries it has studied slashing its growth forecasts for most of the world’s economy warning the G20 leaders ‘‘Without decisive action the outlook is gloomy’’ with Europe nations fall back into recession in 2012 and if the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis gets worse output in some advanced economies of the EU could fall 5% by 2013. Britain’s revised growth figures mean that the national deficit reduction planed by the Tory/Liberal coalition government will not be achieved.