Editorial Issue Three – 9th November 2011. Email Share 0 Email Share One year on from the demonstration that culminated in the trashing of Millbank, students are again on the march. It would be easy to dismiss the protests then as a failure. TheOccupiedTimes. Email Share 27 Email Share “OLSX is anti-capitalist” The fact is that there are a variety of views within the camp on capitalism. Many dislike the system and wish to see an alternative; many more wish to see the current model reformed. The initial statement released by the camp, which was agreed upon by consensus, makes no mention of overthrowing capitalism, yet many media outlets have taken to describing the camp as anti-capitalist. On Identity and Strategy. Email Share 0 Email Share The idiosyncrasy of voices within the camp, has been, thus far, one of the characterising features of the occupy movement. Our difference, have made us strong, avoiding to be pigeon holed whilst leaving passers-by and media pundits baffled at the high levels of organisation and social cohesion within the camp.
However our heterogeneous identity has also hindered a wider debate within the movement, that of achieving a long-term perspective. Under the powerful banner “We are the 99 per cent” a varied amalgam of views and people has been able to coalesce, creating truly inclusive, dissident spaces and reconstituting the realm of the possible. Our permanent nature has become an unavoidable reminder that an alternative is possible. Most occupiers at St Paul’s have a more or less definite idea regarding the future of the camp. Others see shortcomings in living and working on a day to day basis. One Year On: Students March Again. Email Share 0 Email Share From occupation to an army on the march — Occupy London’s student activists are to take to the streets again today over the Con-Dems’ education cuts.
Up to 15,000 students, schoolchildren, parents and educators are expected to storm the Square Mile today, rallying outside the University of London in Malet St before marching through Trafalgar Square and up the Strand to Occupy London Stock Exchange in St Paul’s Square -eventually arriving at London Metropolitan University in Moorgate Junction — the heart of London’s financial district. Organisers National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts said in a statement the march was an attempt to “derail” the government’s higher education agenda — “a chaotic and regressive attempt to introduce markets and private providers into education, effectively ending it as a public service.” “They’re losing the only place in the country that does Afro-Caribbean Studies — you can see how it impacts minority groups,” she said. The Psychology of Debt. Email Share 0 Email Share The tuition-fee generation will limp into the world owing tens of thousands of pounds. And they are not alone.
More and more of us – through a combination of college loans, credit cards, mortgages and bank loans – are being stealthily habituated to debt. We end up feeling that it’s an inevitable and mundane part of life – like blisters and bus stops. “The underlying message for graduates, when they take on student loans, is that they are never able to become truly independent – they are just switching from the parental purse strings to those of the banks,” says London based psychodynamic counsellor Virginia Mallin. It’s no accident that people talk joylessly about the ‘burden’ of debt. It’s easy to get habituated to debt. As we get deeper into debt we enter a trance-like state of denial. It’s easier said than done, but if we can peek out of debt denial for a moment, we might just have a chance of getting out in the future. The Great Debate: Free Education.
Email Share 3 Email Share This week the topic up for discussion is free education.
As students march again over increased tuition fees, we’re asking if education should be totally free, or if there should be some contribution. Private Companies in Higher Education. Email Share 0 Email Share As thousands of students march through London today and impose themselves, as we have, on unscrupulous corporations, the real reason we are here is brought back to us.
The issue concerning Higher Education is not one of privatisation (most universities are in fact already private, though run as charities) but that the government hopes to deregulate the market in such a way that companies currently operating mere minutes from our occupation would be able to enter the Higher Education sector with a view to competing with the existing University institutions. Even worse, it is expected that quality education will be provided by virtue of ‘market forces’ and a profit motive. TheOccupiedTimes. Email Share 0 Email Share We exist in a precarious space, tucked into the collarbone of the London Stock Exchange. What we choose to fill this space with, in the little time we’ve made for ourselves, is what will decide our success or failure as a movement once we’re history. Why the Egyptian Revolution Matters To Us All. Email Share 0 Email Share If the occupations that have sprung up across our globe are indeed inspired by Cairo’s Tahrir Square (as we say they are), then it is worth mentioning that a number of people who were crucial for the organization of the Tahrir Square demonstrations are now behind bars.
In fact, over 12,000 of them have been imprisoned. The Egyptian military has practiced systematic violence against protestors since the beginning of the revolution. Righteous Resistance. Email Share 0 Email Share The bells, the bells, the bells which ruined my blessed sleep on the first Saturday of the occupation barely register anymore, having merged into the general background, but who ever imagined that all this Jesus-talk would become so normal? On the cathedral steps, everyone has become a theologian, taking up whips against the money-changers and rendering unto Caesar what is his. The Patriarchal Beast Must Be Banished From Our Camps. Email Share 1 Email Share What are we doing here?
Are we building a new society, or are we merely the latest incarnation of a wave of indignant protest? I hope we are the former: the beginning of something special. TheOccupiedTimes. Email Share 3 Email Share At Occupy LSX we have been involved in a continuous process of negotiation with the Metropolitan Police. We maintain a constructive relationship in order to ensure the safety and security of our protest and do not seek confrontation. However, as activists, we need to ask ourselves about the role of the police. Why have kettling tactics and riot gear been replaced by cops who are more friendly and approachable?
Are these officers, who have become a constant presence around the camp, really our friends and potential allies? Seven Arrested at Trafalgar Square. Occupied Elsewhere: Minnesota. Email Share 0 Email Share MINNEAPOLIS (OPC) — With its infamously brutal winter approaching, Minnesota’s ongoing foreclosure crisis is one of the most dangerous in the country. That makes OccupyMN’s latest victory against foreclosures that much sweeter. On Tuesday occupiers in Minneapolis marched on the U.S. Bank tower. Their demand: delay the eviction of Ruth Murman, a small business owner whose home was foreclosed on earlier this year. “It’s amazing how desperate they were to get in touch with me all of a sudden, after they have ignored my calls and refused to help my father and me for months,” Murman said in an interview with #OccupyMN.
Murman, owner of a pet care facility in nearby Minnetonka, contacted OccupyMN for help with her foreclosure earlier this week. By Bennett Hartz. How Is The City Built? Email Share 0 Email Share As the City of London prepares to usher in its new Lord Mayor this week, the Occupied Times asks: just how does the City elect its leaders anyway?
The City’s residents get a single vote each; businesses get anywhere up to 79 votes depending on how many employees on payroll. ‘Qualified’ voters – such as ex-company directors and those who’ve worked in the City for five years or more – get to vote twice, once in City elections and again in their home electorate. For comparison, the business vote in 2009 was about 24,000 — compared with just 9000 votes from people who actually live there. Those votes don’t have anything to do with deciding the mayoralty, though. So where do those votes go? Aldermen get a six-year tenure and do not need to live in their ward or even live or work in the Square Mile. City of London Corporation Gives OccupyLSX ultimatum. Email Share 0 Email Share Last week both St Paul’s and the City of London Corporation suspended their plans to evict the OccupyLSX camp, and the City called for a meeting with representatives from the occupation.
At the time of print, nominated members of OccupyLSX had attended one meeting with the City, which laid out three options; leave now, scale back the tents and leave within two months, or don’t do anything but expect an eviction. The City said it did not have a problem with protest, but the tents were blocking access of their “public highway’’ and it considered the tents “permanent erected structures”. Occupier James Albury, who attended the meeting, said the intention was just to listen to what the City wanted, and only respond if there was consensus at a later General Assembly.