Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul

[Valmy]

I see great things ahead for the Occupy movement.

I am just amazed the thing is still going on. 

[garbon]

Occupy D.C. attacks White House with smoke bomb.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/smoke-bomb-tossed-over-fence-at-white-house/

Yes, Ide. I do think this kind of protesting is fundamentally bad.

[Valmy]

Yes, Ide. I do think this kind of protesting is fundamentally bad.

So what sort of protesting are you in favor of?

[garbon]

Yes, Ide. I do think this kind of protesting is fundamentally bad.

So what sort of protesting are you in favor of?

I like protest marches.  Even if repeated, you don't tend to end with the general squalor that has come about due to the occupy movement.

[dps]

Marches are good.  Every time there is one, it'll make the news.  Just setting up a camp will fade out of the news, unless someone does something to escalate the situation, which can get away from being a peaceful protest fairly quickly.

[Richard Hakluyt]

In addition anyone can go on a march, whereas a camp is confined to that small percentage of people who have no work or family responsibilities.

[mongers]

In addition anyone can go on a march, whereas a camp is confined to that small percentage of people who have no work or family responsibilities.

This isn't the case, of the one I've talked with, the majority have jobs and so put-in an effort in the evenings, weekends and sometimes overnight.

What has happened, as in any large city, is the camps have attracted a fair share of the homeless, some groups have been feeding them, and mixed in with this is a proportion drunk, rowdy and violent individuals who aren't necessarily all homeless either. And this seems to have caused problems in several locations. Anyway that's my experience.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Ok.

[garbon]

In addition anyone can go on a march, whereas a camp is confined to that small percentage of people who have no work or family responsibilities.

This isn't the case, of the one I've talked with, the majority have jobs and so put-in an effort in the evenings, weekends and sometimes overnight.

What has happened, as in any large city, is the camps have attracted a fair share of the homeless, some groups have been feeding them, and mixed in with this is a proportion drunk, rowdy and violent individuals who aren't necessarily all homeless either. And this seems to have caused problems in several locations. Anyway that's my experience.

I think that's fair although even if the latter part doesn't happen - you largely end up with what is a shanty town. Other than it being somewhat novel, I'm not really sure what the benefit of an encampment based protest is.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I see great things ahead for the Occupy movement.

I am just amazed the thing is still going on. 

Is it? This seems more a meaningless exercise of idle boredom than a movement. 

[mongers]

I wonder what will happen when the last major occupy group is expelled from a major city centre ?

London looks like it has another week or so to go.

[mongers]

Looks like Occupy London is being infected with conspiracy nuts and 'Freeman of the Land' advocates.

Here's the meetings of the Real Democracy working group:

http://www.occupyforum.org.uk/showthread.php?485-Amended-minutes-of-RDWG-February-13&p=2712#post2712

Amended minutes of RDWG, February 13
Amended Minutes from Real Democracy Working Group Meeting February 13th 2012

Julie. Corinna.George. Steve. Claudine. Rada and Natasha were there.

Julie facilitated.

Apologies from Ivette and Paul. V for Vendetta personage also present.


Agenda: Feedback from Crown sub group
Blog Idea
Discussion of Real Democracy Working Group Statement.
Day School Themes.
Achieving Democratic Change.


Steve gave feedback from Crown Group. Said it was an eclectic meeting with 15 people and all sorts of ideas including Rainbow People and disccusion of Freemasons.

George arrived-suggested we introduce ourselves and say why we are at group.

Julie said we would-but after we had finished Crown item on agenda.

Steve said there is a link between hierarchy of Freemasons and The Crown.

Julie said that there is a link between Freemasons and Freeman debate. Freeman debate pragmatic-Occupy is challenged to stay pragmatic.

Steve distributed the first chapter of The Nature of the Crown. Steve talked about the meaning of the Crown and how different people have different definitions. He believes is Crown is a group of core executives including heads of MI5 who make key decisions not the Cabinet. That the Crown is not the Queen. That the Crown is all pervasive. That the Crown is more like the State- a sum total of governmental powers.

Chris disagreed.

Steve said that Polly Toynbee wrote an interesting article saying that the implementation of NHS Bill was already taking place before the bill was passed.
At some point, Steve seemed to suggest that the future and direction of administration of the NHS over the past 30 years had been in the 'gift'/agenda of the State, with the implication that Govt. policy, whether Labour or Conservative had reflected little, if anything, more than adherence to the predetermined agenda of 'The State'. To this Chris (who for some reason had no more than a ghostly presence at this meeting) responded with the question as to what the position and agenda of 'The State' had been in 1948 (inception of NHS and Welfare State) – reply ?something along the lines of rebuilding Nation after war.

The phantom Chris also at some point in such discussions inferred a theme of conspiracy theory in relation to the concept of the 'The State' as the purveyor of absolute disempowerment of Parliament.

Steve carried on to say the biggest multinational in Britain was the Crown. It's got an army too.
And that the word civil servant comes from The East India Company.
That the Queen is a smoke screen –a family that does the marketing for the real Crown.

George said Top down system isn't unique to Britain.

Julie said there is something unique and invidious to our system as we didn't get rid of the Monarchy.

Corinna said It is dangerous to say Crown is a corporation –to meld economics with democracy as they are not identical. She said Steve's interpretation of Crown could be seen as a conspiracy theory. And that The Crown is not the sum total of the State.

Claudine said Corporations have used democracy for vested interests. That the elite will always keep their power mysterious.

Chris didn't agree with Steve's interpretation and asked "If Tony Blair had said we are not going to war would the state have steamrollered him into it?

Steve responded that Tony Blair was part of a group of people who wanted to go to war. Complicite.

We moved on to discussion of how to proceed with our working group statement.

Claudine wanted to put it up on the website and move on with our work.

I wanted to take it to the GA

Julie felt we hadn't done the hard work of incorporating all of the previous GA's comments so we shouldn't take it back to GA until we have,

Claudine said that the statement was not for inclusion in the initial Occupy statement so we didn't need to incorporate comments from GA. That we should get the statement out and get on with work like on The Bill of Rights.

Julie suggested we put statement on website and let people edit it.

I said put a deadline on the editing.

Julie said after deadline we should take it back to GA.

Steve wanted to leave statement as it is.

Chris felt it needed further work.

Claudine felt leaving the statement open for editing would be counter productive.

We agreed that Julie will contact Mark who will put the statement on website to be moved to an open forum where anyone who wishes to can post comments on it. There will be a deadline of 2 weeks for those comments.

Chris suggested we email it across working group spaces.

We agreed. And moved onto discussion of Day School and themes.

Day school to be held on 25th Feb 11am -4pm.
We agreed that Claudine will give a talk on the way our Parliamentary Democracy is supposed to work.
Steve will talk about The Crown.
We will ask Melanie if she will talk about the Community Bill of Rights.
That we will discuss what we understand democracy to be.
That Julie will talk about Participatory Techniques.

.....

[mongers]

Interesting someone proposed doing something symbolic like Ghandi's salt march.

http://www.occupyforum.org.uk/showthread.php?475-Alternatives-to-Ghandi-s-Salt-March&p=2631#post2631

Apparently the answer is not paying for your tv licence:

Want a simple protest? Stop paying the TV licence. It affects almost everyone, it's easy to do from an armchair and there are no personal consequences, it doesn't affect any funding in important areas and they'll be crapping themselves if it takes hold.

Apparently, based on FOTL mojo:

No, people have been jailed for non payment of a fine, not for non payment of a TV licence.

In reality you do not have to engage with the "Inspector" nor do you have to let them into your home, you do not have to talk to them or do anything other than shut the door on them. Their threats of search warrants are idle, they won't get them.

TV detector vans are a myth as are hand held devices. TV licence inspectors have no powers at all, they're salesmen, they get £20 commission for every licence they sell.

The only reason anyone will find themselves in court is if they make a doorstep confession, if you treat them as you would any other unwelcome visitor you won't have any trouble.

If tens of thousands stopped paying it would be the perfect protest.

How does that compare to Ghandi's salt march ? 

[Razgovory]

The perfect protest of what? 

[Darth Wagtaros]

More Anti-Masonic propaganda from the secular humanists.