… because “This is private property” or any other version of “You have no right to be here” are open to some fairly obvious ripostes.
“We were here first” – “Er, not quite first. The actual owners of the space were there before you.”
“We are the 99%” – “We’re poorer than you, you middle class ****-ers”
“We represent the 99%” – “Who voted for you, then?”
“We are the official accredited Occupiers” – “We refuse to be defined by your oppressive structures, and hereby declare ourselves to be Occupying this Occupation!”
I have been reading the minutes of the General Assembly of the Occupy protesters who have taken over the empty UBS bank building in Sun Street, Hackney. One area of concern does seem to be people “abusing the space”.
If people want to stay over night (sleep-overs) they need (1) to be part of a working group (2) They need to have an on-going task that warrants their stay. There will be ‘monitors’ to make sure sleep-overs are not abusing the space. Individuals that stay over and are found to not be working will be given one warning before being asked to leave.
And if they say no, what then? When a warning is given, it must be a warning of something. Presumably it is a warning that the bigger group of Occupiers will eject the smaller group of Occupiers – because they can.
Unless, of course, they can’t. If a fight develops, what then? Call the cops? Problem with that.
Thank-you for the link Natalie. Reading through the minutes there’s a mix of corporate style waffle and a more revealing hint at the power structures at play:
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If you continue to struggle to resolve the questions you posed in your post may I suggest you attend the What is Anarchism session that the team (white board overlords) have arranged for this Friday. Sure all will be clear.
Actually, in certain circumstances calling the police may work. For example, if an anti-Occupy group turned up to occupy-Occupy the police may decide to move them on to avoid potential public order offences (as has been done with various EDL protests). However, to be seen to be fair (ha!) they would also have to move on the Occupy mob.
Think this would happen?
I’m surprised that the Occupiers haven’t insisted on only vegan food on site.
That’s what usually happens when the usual rentamob of middle class youngsters get together for a bit of activism.
They’ll be setting up a cycle repair co-operative next, and having a wimmins only section of the UBS building.
Simple; they can’t.
I am having trouble keeping up my opinion that these “Occupation Forces” are evil demons on a mission directly from Hell.
Because the more I look at them – the more just plain SILLY they appear.
Nonetheless, keep in mind that the basic organizing principle of OWS is that might makes right. Whoever is best at using narcissistic cajoling, fear, pleading, and intimidation rules the day in OWS-world.
The occupy protestors have struck me as a mix of the usual professional protestor set and people who have a reason to be angry but because the system that educated them is rubbish don’t know who to be angry at.
the more I look at them – the more just plain SILLY they appear.
Yes, that more than anything else, that’s for sure. I have gone down and talked to our lot on College Green, and a more incoherent bunch you could ever wish to meet. Lovely people some of them, it’s just they haven’t a clue about almost anything, least of all Economics.
Still Christmas is coming isn’t it? So the Bristol bunch have already hung out their stockings for Santa, whilst digging in and making the place look like a shanty town slum (this actually is the idea apparently).Then what?… Easter?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065144/Dear-Santa-forget-saving-world-s-Christmas-wish-list-Occupy-protesters-beg-public-1-400-goods-Amazon.html
If a fight develops, what then?
IIRC, you gather in a ring around the fighters and cheer the ones you support, while sneaking in a few quick kicks on the other guys when their backs are turned.
I’m reminded of a documentary about hippy travellers I watched some years back, the owner of a converted and brightly coloured school bus pontificating about how everyone should be free to wander wherever they like, up to the point the police tried to commandeer his vehicle and then it was “get out of my private property”.
The utopian fairy world of free love and no possessions takes a quick dive to crash and burn when reality kicks in.
Hilarious, the Occupiers trying to figure out how to enforce property rights they don’t possess.
The anthem for this “give us everything for free” crowd is “Imagine” (“Imagine no possessions…”). Just remember: John Lennon copyrighted that song.
Simple problem! Just issue picture ID cards with security stripes to all those who are authorized Occupiers and have the bouncers stop everyone else from coming in.
He who will not work shall not eat. hm. sound familiar?
They utterly reject our present forms of democratic government and the common law, and they’re now busy trying to come up with a way to govern and maintain order.
And they need to do it rather quickly – they’re trying to start a new society, you know.
To which I say: good luck on that project. I have a design for a new helpful invention I call a wheel if you’re interested and you see a need.
All property rights are based on conquest. Period. Sovereign to barons to lesser lords to hold in servitude. Later evolved to hereditable fee ownership.
What these Occupy-ers are doing is a charade of conquest – posing as conquerers by dint of craven municipal administrations failing to assert ordinary health-and-public-safety laws, and failing to assert the rights of the vast majority of the public to the same turf ‘claimed’ by the Occupy-ers.
Out the poseurs.
Perhaps a MMA club would like to occupy some of their general assembly or other committee meetings. “You asking us to leave? Well, we decline. Now what?”
History shows that if these #Occupiers succeed, the dissidents in their own ranks will be sent either to the gulag or a mass grave.
” . . . the dissidents in their own ranks will be sent either to the gulag or a mass grave.”
This works as metaphor, but here in America, with a different set of social traditions and narratives, it falls down in the specifics.
The more culturally appropriate translation for our purposes holds that ” . . . the dissidents in their own ranks will be sent either to work the Iowa GOTV effort, or the Kucinich/Nader campaign.”
I spent most of my 20s around the occupy types.
The best possible thing we can do is try to keep them doing this. Not to make a bad impression on the general public… it will show some of them how silly socialism / communitarian living is. Since most of the people who say they want it can not manage to live with others… too many people won’t carry their own weight and have other anti social tendencies.
Terrific article in the Weekly Standard about the roots and meaning of occupy.
The essence of the occupy philosophy is anarchism. We had a big argument about what anarchism meant here quite a while ago. Some useful information in the article about what anarchism truly means, as opposed to what people wish it meant.
I’m not entirely sure that they’re not some kind of monstrous Monty Python skit.
I keep waiting for the giant foot to crush them.
Natalie Solent, if I may say so, you have a very understated, and therefore doubly efficient, way of skewering stupidity. The reader’s experience, though less comedic, is similar to that gloeious first reading of Wodehouse’s put-down of the ‘perisher’ and wannabe dictator Spode: a complete debunking, in a few lines, to chew on and savour for hours.
Don’t let it go to your head 🙂
Paul ‘the more I look at them – the more just plain SILLY they appear’ Marks, indeed. On first walking past the soap-dodgers outside St Paul’s last Friday night I was struck by conflicting urges to laugh hysterically or to kick dirt in their tents.
I went to the pub instead.
Is this property rights or freedom of (dis)association?
The Occupy group can decide who is or who is not “U”, though the mechanism for deciding and who has the authority to decide is another question.
Somehow I think if non-property owners are in an enclosed space and another group enter, I wonder if the first could eject the second group of non-property owners because the latter (also) have no rights to be there but certainly no right to invade the group against its wishes.
Any thoughts?
Am I the only person who thinks that the Occupy group has become George Orwell’s Animal Farm brought to life? Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
Am I the only person who thinks that the Occupy group has become George Orwell’s Animal Farm brought to life? Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
No, actually the information is on what the author wishes it meant, as derived from things said by some people he doesn’t like (and, as it happens, you and I don’t like either). Otherwise a very informative article indeed.