1 year on, Occupy is in disarray; spirit lives on

[mongers]

The trouble with Occupy was that it was disorganized and had no focus other than camping out and making silly chants about 1 per cent milk or whatever it was. I'm with CDM on this, they needed some good old fashioned violence. Get the cops out with dogs and tear gas. Do what they did in Egypt. Camping out in city parks just doesn't cut it as far as revolutions go.

It did seem an OK idea at first, got them and their message, whatever it was, on the news. But after a week or so it needed to mobilize and try a different tactic to keep it going. Instead they got silly with all those hand gestures instead of shouting and hippy dippy stuff.

A year later, I'm still not sure what they were up to.

In large part I agree with this.

I shall be meeting a gathering of the UK ones at the weekend and to some extent that will be my viewpoint/presentation.

[mongers]

Oh and it appears I was in at the 'death' of the occupy movement in the UK.

I visited the last uk occupation, in Bournemouth, in the final week of August and there were exactly three occupiers left, all employed full time, but homeless * 

Their problem besides personality conflicts, which I won't go into, was that they'd run out of support from people willing to stay at their site, none of the couple of hundred online 'members' of that branch were willing to camp out anymore/if at all. So they were on the verge of giving up and closing the site down the coming weekend.

Even at that late date, though not a member, I was suggesting to the 'leader' that he try something different, as in effect he and his partner were the remaining custodians of 'Occupy UK' . 
As it turns out he decided to just close it down;

Occupy Bournemouth protest group disbands

A protest group which formed almost a year ago in Dorset has disbanded, according to a statement posted on the group's Facebook page.

Activists from Occupy Bournemouth said it was "with sadness" the group's most recent encampment, off Priory Road, in the town was "packing up".

The group sited a "lack of on-the-ground support" for its closure.

The council said evicting Occupy from various sites, including the town hall, had cost taxpayers almost £10,000.

This figure includes court fees, counsel's fees, warrants and bailiff costs.
.....

rest of article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-19462539

Pity really as I was hoping someone within Occupy UK would move onto something beyond protest for protest sake.




* the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation has a big problem with people on modest wages, not being able to afford increasing rents, to the extent that some when their wages no longer cover the basic bills, resort to sleeping rough in the area, whilst trying to maintain employment.

[CountDeMoney]

The struggle of conscience at the heart of the financial crisis
Creating wealth is a noble calling but many businessmen feel pressurised to adopt different moral values at work and home.

by Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster

While the front pages of our newspapers have been dominated the Olympics and Paralympics, the business pages continue to reflect the human and economic costs of a business ethos that culminated in the financial crisis and subsequent loss of trust in banking and business. Four years or more after the crisis broke, we are still talking of the lessons to be learnt – but not much nearer identifying what exactly they are, let alone applying them.

I was encouraged by several prominent business leaders to explore whether the Church was able to provide a forum for further reflection on this situation, so we could together move on. It is not such a strange thing for the Catholic Church to do. The Church as an institution stands outside the market; it is not in the business of business, though of course many of its members are; and it stands outside government too. And it is international, not tied to any one national culture. It exists in that crucial third space, sometimes called civil society.

We have no political agenda. We have instead a moral tradition that has accumulated wisdom down the centuries, drawing on the twin sources of revelation and reason. It has given us an outline of a paradigm of good business practice that is contained in Catholic Social Teaching. This talks of solidarity and subsidiarity and their relation to common good, of the unique human dignity of every person specially those who are poor, vulnerable or disadvantaged, and it also talks about the nature of work and human creativity. And it is intensely conscious of the content and influence of culture, the shared values of any society that can do so much good - and if they go wrong, much harm.

I am joining prominent leaders of business and industry at a conference in London today in discussion of what it would take to bring about a renewal of the business culture in Britain. We have sub-titled it "Uniting corporate purpose and personal values to serve society", because we have detected a tendency for business people to feel they need to adopt a different set of values in business than those which they apply in the rest of their lives. That intriguing insight clearly needs further investigation.

This initiative is not a one-off. Many others are engaged in similar efforts, because they see a similar need. I have received strong messages of support from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams who wrote to me to say: "I know these are live questions for very many in the world of contemporary business and there is currently a heartening willingness to look hard at such matters." The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, in a message to the conference, declared: "The way to build better business is to build a lasting economy that places ethics and morals at its heart and visibly demonstrates their importance. Ethics and business are not adversaries. In the long run they need each other."

[Phillip V]

The struggle of conscience at the heart of the financial crisis
Creating wealth is a noble calling but many businessmen feel pressurised to adopt different moral values at work and home.

by Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster

While the front pages of our newspapers have been dominated the Olympics and Paralympics, the business pages continue to reflect the human and economic costs of a business ethos that culminated in the financial crisis and subsequent loss of trust in banking and business. Four years or more after the crisis broke, we are still talking of the lessons to be learnt – but not much nearer identifying what exactly they are, let alone applying them.

I was encouraged by several prominent business leaders to explore whether the Church was able to provide a forum for further reflection on this situation, so we could together move on. It is not such a strange thing for the Catholic Church to do. The Church as an institution stands outside the market; it is not in the business of business, though of course many of its members are; and it stands outside government too. And it is international, not tied to any one national culture. It exists in that crucial third space, sometimes called civil society.

We have no political agenda. We have instead a moral tradition that has accumulated wisdom down the centuries, drawing on the twin sources of revelation and reason. It has given us an outline of a paradigm of good business practice that is contained in Catholic Social Teaching. This talks of solidarity and subsidiarity and their relation to common good, of the unique human dignity of every person specially those who are poor, vulnerable or disadvantaged, and it also talks about the nature of work and human creativity. And it is intensely conscious of the content and influence of culture, the shared values of any society that can do so much good - and if they go wrong, much harm.

I am joining prominent leaders of business and industry at a conference in London today in discussion of what it would take to bring about a renewal of the business culture in Britain. We have sub-titled it "Uniting corporate purpose and personal values to serve society", because we have detected a tendency for business people to feel they need to adopt a different set of values in business than those which they apply in the rest of their lives. That intriguing insight clearly needs further investigation.

This initiative is not a one-off. Many others are engaged in similar efforts, because they see a similar need. I have received strong messages of support from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams who wrote to me to say: "I know these are live questions for very many in the world of contemporary business and there is currently a heartening willingness to look hard at such matters." The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, in a message to the conference, declared: "The way to build better business is to build a lasting economy that places ethics and morals at its heart and visibly demonstrates their importance. Ethics and business are not adversaries. In the long run they need each other."

Cool, but where are ethics and morals currently being taught and evaluated for children and teenagers.

[CountDeMoney]

Cool, but where are ethics and morals currently being taught and evaluated for children and teenagers.

Catholic schools.

[Phillip V]

Cool, but where are ethics and morals currently being taught and evaluated for children and teenagers.

Catholic schools.

Catholic schools are dying.

(closures and decreased enrollment over the past decades)

[KRonn]

This movement started out with some good messages, but sadly fractured into too many wilder issues and lost its way, as the anarchists, more extreme types and those just protesting for a party, took over and the movement died down. 

[Eddie Teach]

I saw a decent brunette.

Oh, here she is:  all serious and whatnot.  Probably fucks you in a beret.

Not much point using the word brunette to describe a non-white as dark hair is pretty much a given.

[Admiral Yi]

She looks like an Eye-Talian American.

[Eddie Teach]

Looks Indian to me. Check out the nose.

[Admiral Yi]

My money is still on wop.

[Eddie Teach]

Course, as Dennis Hopper pointed out, Sicilians aren't white anyway.

[Razgovory]

My money is still on wop.

I was thinking Jewish, but you could be right.  She is a looker.

[Ideologue]

A. I'd fuck the Occupy chick pictured above.

B. Those who feel that Occupy had no message were willfully deaf to it.  Just like they're willfully deaf to the contempt much of the upper class of the United States and their spokesperson has for all of us.

[Tamas]

A. I'd fuck the Occupy chick pictured above.

B. Those who feel that Occupy had no message were willfully deaf to it.  Just like they're willfully deaf to the contempt much of the upper class of the United States and their spokesperson has for all of us.

you have a contempt for the upper class so I guess you guys are even.