Occupy London

Current state of play: St. Paul's, previously saintly, is now attempting to ward off the protest camp via the medium of passive-aggressive notes. Where next for democracy?

There was a headline about how St. Paul's revenue has scandalously halved since the "campers" came in. Is nothing sacred to these thug-terrorists?

OccupyLSX OccupyLSX
Rumours that originated from The Times that St Pauls want us removed are untrue. We are currently in ongoing dialogue with St Pauls.

i was there for a bit on sunday and there was lots of talk about keeping the area clean and tidy, being respectful etc, since everyone realises they'll be kicked out as soon as the cathedral withdraws its (cautious) support. the times report could just be shit-stirring (i haven't read it because paywall).

St Paul's statement here: http://www.stpauls.co.uk/News-Press/Latest-News/Statement-from-the-Dean-and-Chapter-19-October

Could be pass-agg but I'm choosing to read it as an ecclesiastical stylistic tic. I.e. We don't want to be a bother but...

Suspect they'll come to an agreement tbh.

Occupy London Direct Democracy: http://www.google.com/moderator/#15/e=f76a0&t=f76a0.40

ok, so st paul's have now decided to close the cathedral and have asked the protesters to leave so that it can be reopened.

the general assembly is discussing its response to this request, livestreaming here http://www.livestream.com/occupylsx

Thanks for occupying Finsbury Square, hopefully they can get my office closed down by Monday morning.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6033/6273383381_fda30862ae_z.jpg

:) #hashtag

What exactly are these health and safety "concerns" that have "forced" the cathedral to close? What's so dangerous about some tents?

What I read was that the cathedral were concerned about fire risk from camping stoves etc, plus health risks from waste disposal/toilets etc.

statement from protestors (in short: cathedral's position is bullshit):

http://occupylsx.org/?p=302

not sure what i think about OLSX/St Paul's. i think there's a strong chance that the cathedral's "health" and "safety" concerns are BS, but also you can understand why they're suddenly shying away from the possibility of a semi-permanent encampment on their doorstep - it's pretty clear that the occupy site, wherever it is, isn't going to pack up and go home any time soon (and nor should it).

whichever, i was disappointed to see people suddenly attack the cathedral - they'd do well to remember that without giles fraser's unexpected support a week ago, it's entirely probable that the occupy movement would have dissipated/been dispersed on the first day. rounding on the institution that's basically extended hospitality and protection to you during a crucial first week seems ungrateful - bad manners, on the most basic level, but also potentially alienating an important ally. the refusal to leave creates an unneeded background tension, too.

on the other hand i visited st paul's both last week and yesterday, and it was remarkable how much it had grown in just five days - shifting the encampment now would be far more of a logistical challenge. and on sunday there was a really fucking good atmosphere there! despite the presence of this fucking cunt. bomb him. engaging with the public, a hive of activity and good spirits. there was even a likkle stand-up piano!

finsbury square was much smaller but it's sensible to start occupying that as a backlash - talked to a woman there, apparently there's an islington council meeting today to decide whether they can stay there. (not sure if it's happened yet but islingtonites, contacting your representative to express support can only help here.)

oh and fucking julian assange, christ, i CANNOT fully support any movement that involves him

otm. back away smiling and leak a document telling him to piss off.

i found myself at the back of the march (originally touted as a tour of sinful institutions) that ended in the finsbury square occupation. it passed peacefully along cheapside while store managers peered nervously at us through the windows of banana republic, topshop etc. pretty clear what the plan was when we turned onto city road but kinda cool to be there at the beginning. considered staying over on saturday but went to the pub instead.

looked like a nice little setup when I walked past this morning - much more comfortable than st paul's for sure, although obviously not as public. i really hope they get permission to stay.

I suspect the cathedral is being leaned on by someone - I've walked past every day for the last week and there's no serious obstruction being posed by the protest. And yeah, they did let the protest stay in the first place so credit where credit's due.

Kinda nice to see campers and city workers all sharing the same space at Finsbury Square during lunch time today.

The same people who sit on the sides of the square every lunch time with their M&S sandwiches were still there.

I suspect the cathedral is being leaned on by someone

There's a list of St Paul's trustees floating around somewhere and 90% of them are high-ups in the city.

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/10/21/lets-name-those-who-decided-to-move-occupylondon-on-from-st-pauls/

it seems that Giles Fraser just announced on twitter that he's handed in his notice?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15472362

I'm genuinely impressed by his strength of conscience.

i was impressed by him on the first day - that was an unexpected intervention that probably single-handedly ensured OLSX's survival

though i find this news disheartening, cuz it all but confirms that initial intervention was fraser's unilateral decision, and now he's gone who is there to support OLSX in st paul's?

(i think there's a march planned today - OLSX tweeted something like "ending up...who knows where?" i was told by a woman in finsbury sq on sunday that she wanted to see it spread out and occupy more and more places, so i assume that'll be the aim)

kinda feel sorry for anyone who retained the illusion st paul's was anything other than god's trocadero

funny old world

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2010-12/2320

John Mann chairs an All Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/antisemitism.htm

good for him

i was wondering whether this was a general theme worthy of parliament's concern or a fox news meme that has got out of hand

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/86d8634a-ff34-11e0-9769-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1bxhoZZ9X

^ lol at this inanity

sounds like a senile economist talking to himself in the corner of the bar

i'll be in london starting wednesday

let's do this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15524483

Threw some thoughts and photos together after reading Simon Jenkins' idiotic piece in the Standard on Tuesday and visiting the site yesterday.

http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/simon-jenkins-doesnt-get-it-protest-and-nuisance-at-occupy-london/

good stuff dorian, that crystallised lots of things i felt when i went down.

But establishment figures like Jenkins regard protest as at best a novelty, at worst a threat and usually just an annoyance.

i still find it remarkable how little the media seems to want to engage with OLSX. it's very easy to dismiss it based on a few things you catch sight of - kmt bongo-playing hippies! kmt! - but as soon as you take the time to look at it both on a more micro level, looking at what else is going on in the camps, how the occupiers engage with the public, and on a macro level - this has sprung up AROUND THE WHOLE WORLD - it should be impossible to dismiss in such blanket terms.

also, i don't know whether this is because everyone expects everything to happen instantaneously in our panoptic age of rolling news, but it's insane to expect this movement to be anywhere near crystallised yet. it's been going on less than TWO MONTHS. it's a miracle it's as coherent as it is. the important thing is that you sense so much potential - maybe not fully realised yet, maybe it'll require certain other things to happen or certain people to join - but as the woman at Occupy LA told me, what's crucial now is entrenchment - keeping this alive and visible so that it's there to play its part in whatever twists and turns of events are to come.

Thousands of students are expected to march through central London on Wednesday (9 November 2011) to protest against the increase in tuition fees, prompting a warning from the City of London Corporation to car drivers to avoid the streets targeted by the protest.

The agreed route for the march, which starts at 12.30pm and ends at 6pm, is as follows: Malet Street - Gower Street - Bloomsbury Street - Shaftesbury Avenue - Charing Cross Road - Duncannon Street – Strand - Fleet Street - Fetter Lane - New Fetter Lane - Holborn Viaduct - Newgate Street - King Edward Street - London Wall.

A City of London spokesperson said:

“The City of London Police is working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service, which is leading the response to the students’ protest march on Wednesday, and members of the local community are being kept informed about how it may affect them. The Met’s website has set out the times and details of the agreed route and will provide updates, as required.”

Several fixed and temporary road closures will be in force along the whole route. The closures will begin at 9am and increase throughout the day. If it becomes necessary, London, Southwark, Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridges (Northbound) will be closed.

http://images.scribblelive.com/2011/11/9/99bf4456-9b38-4736-972b-59721f05b8cc_500.jpg

#OccupyTrafalgarSquare

i still find it remarkable how little the media seems to want to engage with OLSX. it's very easy to dismiss it based on a few things you catch sight of - kmt bongo-playing hippies! kmt! - but as soon as you take the time to look at it both on a more micro level, looking at what else is going on in the camps, how the occupiers engage with the public, and on a macro level - this has sprung up AROUND THE WHOLE WORLD - it should be impossible to dismiss in such blanket terms.

Because most of the media is owned by people who have done really quite nicely out of the status quo, probably. It's remarkable maybe, but not unexpected.

i'm seeing tweets about tents on traf sq.

i really wish this movement was less tent-focused. A TENT IS NOT A VICTORY, QUITE THE OPPOSITE.

how do you make that out in your bizarro world of logic lex?

BECAUSE A TENT IS NOT A HOUSE, AND A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME WITHOUT SOME BODY THERE!

lex hates camping, right? To be honest, so do I, but, you know, occupations would be much harder to achieve if you had to build an entire apartment complex wherever you wanted to occupy.

We're all in this together:

Some kings students chanting against the protesters - "you stand for nothing, unions cost the country more"

http://www.bankofideas.org.uk/

Because most of the media is owned by people who have done really quite nicely out of the status quo, probably. It's remarkable maybe, but not unexpected.

Occupy is also a bit problematic for news coverage because the movement's goals are very non-specific. In fact, it looks a bit like Occupy's only real goal is to perpetuate itself.

GASP

also, i don't know whether this is because everyone expects everything to happen instantaneously in our panoptic age of rolling news, but it's insane to expect this movement to be anywhere near crystallised yet. it's been going on less than TWO MONTHS

in history, don't movements usually begin with at least some clear point/direction? eg...the suffragettes, or civil rights movements? if anything they start clear and become more splintered, rather than the reverse.

this is just another attempt to get everybody on board to "something" and thus pretend numbers in favour of "something" are strong and people are united behind "something", when the reality is they aren't.

it's dehumanising and insulting to opinion and individuality to just expect people to support "something" with no clear direction.

it's basically just a big cheat. if many political movements are small or ineffectual it's prob cos they have clear manifestos which alienate people.

to not do so, precisely because "numbers" has some vague effect on the news cycle (this is why the effect is vague btw as DV points out above) is a big cheat imo.

can't support something that isn't defined, it's just not good enough.

I would be very wary of dismissing protests as goalless or undefined or a big cheat because they're made up of many interlinked grievances. Sometimes the point and the goal of protest is to voice anger and open a debate and it's certainly succeeded on the latter front.

The problem with protesting about things like the extreme unequal distribution of wealth, rising inequality, slashing social spending due to having to clean up the mistakes of an under-regulated financial system that politicians off all stripes seem to be studiously avoiding having to deal with, and everything else that goes with all that is that it's very difficult to crystallise it into any one target or any one goal. The City is a big part of the problem but it's not the whole problem or the only problem. But actually a lot of these grievances are fairly mainstream opinions, held by a lot of people who wouldn't consider themselves leftists or part of any part of fringe and who would never think to identify themselves with the protesters. The media know this and that's why they're looking to delegitimise a lot of the anger felt by trying to undermine the protests through condescension (and heaven knows some of the protesters don't help themselves in this regard).

Occupy LSX's initial statement seems pretty clear to me -

http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=575

Like it does amuse me the sort of rhetorical contortions that newspapers and commentators go through to avoid saying "we don't agree with this and we think it's wrong" or "we're kind of uncomfortable with the whole idea" and it's instead wrapped up with all this guff about vague goals or everyone involved being middle class or hitherto despised health and safety regulations around St Paul's. The Evening Standard has been the absolute worst offender in this regard.

To my knowledge only the Economist and maybe the FT have put up their hands and said "we don't really agree with this but we understand why people are so angry".

Paul Mason has been the only one TV journalist who seems ok, from the coverage I've seen.

in history, don't movements usually begin with at least some clear point/direction?

Revolutions have begun w/the lack of money, jobs, a roof, etc.

i'd say the basic grievances of the occupy movement worldwide are fairly clear: extreme inequality borne out of a failure of the financial and political systems in their current form. and the reluctance to define itself rigidly shows a sharp understanding of how change may be effected - it's a movement whose defining characteristic to date has been spontaneity and reaction to events as and when they occur, and that loose strategy is helpful in gaining allies in unexpected quarters. occupy isn't just a campsite - i'm v heartened by the bank of ideas development, taking over empty ubs buildings http://www.bankofideas.org.uk/ - and i think there's a very high awareness of its potential as a catalyst, not just as a thing in itself.

"numbers" have on occasion in the past had something more than a vague effect on the news cycle.

i really hate that the media takes as its default starting point the idea that most "ordinary people" would simply prefer not to have to think about any of this at all lest it rupture their cosy little bubbles of comfortable life

well that's certainly been otm in the past. people's lives are slowly getting less comfortable is all. most of the battle the occupy thing's got on its hands involves convincing people it's ok to be upset about this stuff: that it isn't naive or whiny or selfish or even "idealistic", that it's actually totally justified and natural. meanwhile the cloud around the earth just wants you to be happy with what you can get until you can't get it anymore, and to feel alienated from and disdainful of anyone who isn't.

anyway, proud of you guys over there

I think that's probably true for a lot of people, politicians still cling to a failed centre ground because a lot of the public don't yet appreciate the extent to which it has failed, the bailout of the banks insulated millions of people from the worst effects, or delayed them by a few years.

yeah i do think it is still true - it's amazing the extent to which "protest", "feminism" etc are still seen as dirty words outside of Our Own Liberal Bubble.

unrelated but cf this bit of weirdness that happened this week - http://www.ashleyfryer.co.uk/2011/11/16/awot/

my impression is that insisting Occupy supply a list of demands has the movement exactly backwards. what Occupy has are detailed grievances. demands must be arrived at through dialogue and consensus, and the sit-ins and camps are spaces for that to happen.

you could say, well Occupy should be a different sort of movement, one that specified solutions up front and top-down, but i don't think that would work, because:

- any specific demand within shouting distance of actually being enacted by this congress would instantly be latched upon by the usual suspects and then angrily criticized by the other usual suspects, and we're back to our old games, a 50-50 world of tribal politics where nothing gets done and everyone feels divided

- any specific demand that stood a chance of being enacted by this congress is almost certainly insufficient to address the problems of inequality

which congress is that

it's a fascinating detail i think that when denver's mayor claimed they could have no dialogue with the camp there (and, i mean, note the fact that there's an 'Occupy Denver', also even an 'Occupy Saskatoon') they responded by electing as leader a border collie named Shelby

although i suppose that's exactly the kind of thing a lot of people hate, whatever, it's still funny

how visible are the SWP at the uk occupation(s)?

ha yes sorry i got confuzzled about which country i was talking about

Like it does amuse me the sort of rhetorical contortions that newspapers and commentators go through to avoid saying "we don't agree with this and we think it's wrong" or "we're kind of uncomfortable with the whole idea" and it's instead wrapped up with all this guff about vague goals

not really sure how criticising how vague this is means you automatically think "we don't agree with this and we think it's wrong"...in fact that's just totally spurious.

let's be honest the reason there are no clearcut goals is because then people could disagree or a debate would start, and it'd lose the momentum of being about "here's what we don't like.."

a pov that is basically like a small fly buzzing around a system that even when falling apart at the seems can swat that away with ease.

oops seams...

does this mean you think everything is fine? it seems like a collective questioning of authority wrt the relationship between the state and global economics (especially with the particularly active role that states have taken in the years since the beginning of the crisis in expediting the reallocation of wealth to shareholders) is a good thing. like even in a vague and general way. i don't see why an alternative to these policies needs to be already articulable in order to voice dissent. dissent is necessary for a form of critique that generates alternatives. it is through these vague oppositions that alternatives are debated and decided on, without opposition there is no possibility for debate. also i feel like demanding one goal is to forget that many political movements have been forged through alliances (unions, civil rights, economic interests) it feels like the irreducible nature of the current opposition is part of its power, part of why it cannot be so easily dismissed as opposed to the other way around. like there has to be a reason why these protest have sustained interest, and spread so much.

let's be honest the reason there are no clearcut goals is because then people could disagree or a debate would start, and it'd lose the momentum of being about "here's what we don't like.."

yes, i am sure the camps include no spaces for disagreement or debate

hey guys.

have gone down to st pauls twice and... not really known what to do. talked to a dude about socialist literature and bought some books for their shelves. woop. next time i am about i think i might go to tesco or pound stretcher or wherever and just buy as many blankets or whatever that i can afford - worried about my fellow hippies now its getting cold. and then stand around, looking kinda bored and wondering why i forgot to make a sign.

(otoh the first day i went, sat on the st pauls steps after it was winding down and i was waiting for my friend to meet me so we could get some food, i saw a woman w/ a tin foil cross start shouting off the steps about jesus and aliens raping us or something and then a one eyed grandad pirate hippie start shouting back at her and it was aaaaamazing. best church going experience i have ever had.)

so Occupy London has a lot of hippies as well? I figured it would be a lot of Marxists... what's the crowd like there?

no hippies or marxists, just naked ladies.

"not really sure how criticising how vague this is means you automatically think "we don't agree with this and we think it's wrong"...in fact that's just totally spurious."

It's not remotely spurious, it's a point of view supported by having read these papers regularly for something like 15 years and understanding their political biases and agendas.

"let's be honest the reason there are no clearcut goals is because then people could disagree or a debate would start, and it'd lose the momentum of being about "here's what we don't like..""

Except starting a debate is the whole point, the point is to create a debate that mainstream politicians can't continue to ignore.

"a pov that is basically like a small fly buzzing around a system that even when falling apart at the seems can swat that away with ease."

Except the longer the system continues to fall apart the less that POV will look like a tiny nuisance.

Of course the flipside to this as well is that the debate will get more polarised the longer things continue to fall apart as a lot of voters get more conservative the worse the economy gets - 'protect what you have, forget about advancement just don't let things get any worse' is an understandable reaction even if I think it's the wrong one.

I'm kind of interested in how the police/security services are managing the going undercover aspect of this - following the Mark Stone debacle and given the amorphous nature of the protest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfE2e19xtAw

Eviction in progress at St Paul's

ya i was at an event at the school of ideas (nice idea, interesting place) at the weekend and they all seemed to think that eviction in the next couple of days was inevitable. though they also seemed satisfied that there was now enough of a network of activities ongoing that it wouldn't make that much of a difference.

Having any protest eviction past midnight is the fucking worst idea.

Hope it doesn't get violent. (And yet hope something happens that somehow gets Boris fired.)

About a dozen bailiffs backed up by about twice as many police in order to evict maybe 20 protestors, an ill-informed Dave from Scotland talking numbly to a taunting News 24 anchor

Haha now they say 40 to 50 bailiffs? I know tents can be tricky but goodness

ok they are showing a dude juggling on BBC. not exactly Oakland (thank fuck).

"Police can move the tents but not the protesters". Wasn't that what happened to Zuccoti?

Most of this is going to happily move to Finsbury Square, right?

yeah, and there'll still be meetings at st paul's since it's only the tents that are the problem.

is it bad that my first thought during the interview with the posh girl currently on bbc was WS

i think the time is right for a "tactical retreat" in any case

Yeah, I don't know how the evicted protesters feel but my sense is that the encampment had achieved what it could in terms of birthing a new movement and publicising its cause. It's sown seeds for other occupations and activist networks. I'm not sure what else it could have done had it continued indefinitely. It certainly doesn't feel like the end of anything significant, just a transition to a new phase.