[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Straw Man Times !

[Mark Barrett]

PS to be inclusive it is worth saying ( sorry should have with 1st post that
"Straw Man argument" means crap argument, easy to knock down, looks strong
but ain't) ;-)

Also to note the headline above Purves article, "Enough of this Glastonbury
Grievance" which i forgot to paste shows they are grubbing around looking
for slurs, all the prejudices coming out such as ant-capitalists on
benefits, hippies etc etc.

We are winning so let's get our content clearer and win more!

Mark

On 24 October 2011 11:20, Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi again
>
> Here below is another critical article from the Times, although this time:
> (a) they mention the statement and (b) there is a very good video on the
> web-page.
>
> The 2-3 minute video is solely of activists in the camp talking (including
> Robin Smith of these lists) mainly about capitalism or the system with no
> editorial comment at all. The activists come across very well indeed. If we
> up our game politically we can win the journalists over IMO.
>
> Unfortunately the video is behind the paywall, so I can't share it.
> Although it's a pound for one month subscription at the moment in case
> anyone can bear the idea of giving murdoch money.
>
> I have also pasted below today's news feature on the camp. Incidentally the
> comments in the paper are ( and have been since the occupation began) more
> broadly favourable towards the occupation which is perhaps why the video is
> featured and the editorial today actually touches upon the camp's actual
> political content, and process ( for the 1st time).
>
> Ciao for now
>
> Mark
>
> *The St Paul’s protesters have no specific aims; no realistic demands.
> Occupy London should clear up and clear off
> Libby Purves
> *
>
> The trouble with being raised by the better sort of nuns is that you come
> to expect not only high standards but almost crazily otherworldly ones from
> anybody with a religious label round his or her neck. Examination of
> conscience, confession of faults, loving your enemy, turning the other
> cheek, offering up undeserved discomforts and humiliations for the Holy
> Souls in Purgatory. All that.
>
> Even when you discard your own religious label you remain hard-wired to
> expect them in those who haven’t. So, just as in a briefly South African
> childhood I was scandalised by one school full of racist Ursuline nuns,
> going on about “kaffirs” while wearing pectoral crosses, so I now spend a
> lot of time cringing at murderous militant Islamists, mean-spirited hellfire
> Evangelicals, Catholic paedophile cover-ups and the rest.
>
> When I was younger and even more naive, I remember my shock at finding out
> the hard way what hawkish landlords the Church Commissioners were, that
> religious publishers are not necessarily pleasant to deal with, and that the
> BBC religion department can be as churlish as any other bit of the Corp. As
> to those in Northern Ireland who glued “Catholic” and “Protestant” labels
> over their un-Christian tribalism, the shame of it burns still.
>
> Go on, jeer, I deserve it for crimes against cynicism. Just blame those
> kind, clever, humble self-sacrificing Sacred Heart nuns of my schooldays.
> But it explains why I was rather pleased when the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, Canon
> Chancellor of St Paul’s, was initially so welcoming to the “Occupy London”
> campers in Paternoster Square. He seemed to me to display the correct amount
> of saintly recklessness and neo-Franciscan welcome.
>
> Now Cathedral spokesmen are saying his “initial reaction” was not made in
> consultation with the Dean and Chapter, and Dr Giddings of the General
> Synod’s House of Laity speaks sorrowfully of “hindsight”. But a good few
> Anglican voices are backing the original welcome, even though it is now
> causing huge financial losses as the Cathedral closes, and may torpedo its
> Advent and Christmas programme. All very well the campers scoffing “render
> unto Caesar”, but in straitened times if the shop and café takings and
> donations stop flowing, Caesar isn’t going to keep the heating on.
>
> So my main irritation is with the Occupy protesters themselves, and their
> bombastic announcement that they may well stay beyond Christmas. That’s not
> Christian, kind or reasonable. Unless, of course, the camp really has the
> power to be a more effective agent for change than all the serious political
> campaigners, community groups, and churches.
>
> So does it have that power? I have watched the encampment grow; listened to
> all sides; noted the *Telegraph* poll saying more than 80 per cent think
> the demonstrators should leave, and the *Guardian* one where 82 per cent
> back them. I have trawled online for the views of occupiers in Wall Street,
> Germany, Italy and Greece.
>
> Some are interesting and focused, particularly on the overweening power of
> corporations and the kowtowing of governments to big money. Most are less
> impressive. I especially like the German lad who arrived without a tent or
> sleeping bag because “there are always spares”, and is relaxed about time
> because though he lost his job a while ago, he’s on full pay until the end
> of November. Who, and what system, does he think is paying him to sit in
> someone else’s tent being righteous?
>
> I have read the UK group’s “manifesto”. It has nine points. It wants
> “alternatives” to the current system, refuses to “pay for the banking
> crisis”, does not accept any spending cuts, and wants an end to “global
> injustice”, which it appears to say three times in slightly different ways.
> It supports all other looming strikes and protests, and (in a brief happy
> diversion into practicality) wants regulators to be “genuinely independent
> of the industries they regulate”. Hear, hear.
>
> It concludes with point nine, “This is what democracy looks like.”
>
> But its “General Assembly” is not really what democracy looks like: or only
> in tiny simple communities. In crowded, complicated nations democracy is
> about graft and grunt, checks and balances, committee-work and the rule of
> law, justice laboriously meted out, respect for individuals going about
> their lawful business with no time to sit around in tents.
>
> The slogan “Capitalism is Crisis” has a nice ring to it, but it is neither
> true nor clear. Capitalism is one of many imperfect systems. It has its
> faults, which elections and clear manifestos exist to check. Socialism also
> has its faults, and so does the kind of anarchism that sets up camps on
> public property and demands more special treatment than its normal users.
>
> Capitalism, in the form of greedy and reckless banking, has certainly
> contributed to the present need for public retrenchment and unwelcome cuts.
> But so have each of us, in our way: in amassing household debt and making
> massive consumer and lifestyle demands unearned by rising productivity. So
> did the last Government with its reckless spending, waste, selling off gold
> reserves, deregulation, careless immigration policy and unwise wars. So did
> the Conservative Government before them, with its disregard for the national
> industrial base, cavalier attitude to mass unemployment and worship of the
> City.
>
> Plenty of things need fixing, but protests have lost their focus. The
> Jarrow marchers, Aldermaston CND, Vietnam protesters and Greenham women all
> had clear demands, and it was obvious to everyone what would have appeased
> them. Even the student protesters against fees were reasonably well-focused:
> it was a limited policy they were hoping to reverse. The trouble with UK
> Uncut and the idealistic, self-righteous campers of Occupy London is that it
> is impossible to think of any clear, feasible action by an elected
> government that would satisfy and shift them.
>
> For it is, basically, a tented tantrum. A nylon-roofed, media-savvy,
> Twitterati, festival-inspired, Glasto-generation sulk. I’m very glad that St
> Paul’s was gracious towards it at first. But soon the campers should return
> the favour by folding their tents and silently stealing away. And if they
> really want public acclaim and sympathy, they won’t leave one single bit of
> litter.
>
>
> http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/libbypurves/article3203723.ece
>
> *Protesters threaten to keep St Paul’s closed for Christmas*
>
>    - [image: St Pauls cathedral on Sunday morning as its doors remain
>    closed to worshippers and tourists due to the Anti-Capitalism protest site
>    outside their front doors.]
>    1 of 6
>    Protesters outside St Paul’s. The cathedral is losing £16,000 a day Times
>    photographer, Matt Lloyd
>    - [image: Activists start an overflow camp in Finsbury Square]
>    2 of 6
>    Activists have started an overflow camp in Finsbury Square Times
>    photographer, Matt Lloyd
>    - [image: Protesters hold a meeting on the steps of St Pauls’
>    Cathedral]
>    3 of 6
>    Manadatory Credit: Photo by Ray Tang / Rex Features (1476798a)
>    Protesters hold a meeting on the steps of St Pauls’ Cathedral Occupy The
>    London Stock Exchange demonstration, London, Britain – 23 Oct 2011 St Paul’s
>    Cathedral forced to close for the first time since the Second World War due
>    to the presence of the Occupy The London Stock Exchange Camp Ray
>    Tang/Rex Features
>    -  4 of 6
>    The City of London has appealed to them to move on peacefully Andy
>    Rain/EPA
>    - [image: Tents belonging to protestors taking part in the ‘Occupy
>    London Stock Exchange’ demonstration remain in place in front of St Paul’s
>    Cathedral]
>    5 of 6
>    Their tents fill up the plaza in front of St Paul's Oli Scarff/Getty
>    Images
>    - [image: Finsbury Square]
>    6 of 6
>    Anti-capitalist protesters have set up a second camp at Finsbury Square Carl
>    Court/AFP/Getty Images
>
>  <http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3203440.ece#>
> <http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3203440.ece#>
>   * Ruth Gledhill<http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Ruth-Gledhill>
> * Religion Correspondent
>  Last updated October 24 2011 12:10AM
>
> St Paul’s Cathedral could be closed for three months as the anti-capitalist
> Occupy London protest camp continued to grow in size, expanding into nearby
> Finsbury Square.
>
> The protest puts at risk Remembrance Sunday and the Lord Mayor’s Show next
> month and services in the run-up to Christmas.
>
> The protesters showed no signs of abandoning their “mission”, remaining
> unmoved by the pleas of Dr Marjory Foyle, 89, who spent more than 30 years
> as a missionary doctor in Nepal. She wept as she told the protesters that
> they were wrong. Speaking in front of the camp of 200 people, she described
> going to see St Paul’s during the Blitz, the last time the building was shut
> down, and then for only four days. “Every building bar St Paul’s was erased
> and I said to myself the hand of God is on St Paul’s.”
>
> Matthew Richardson, councillor for the ward neighbouring St Paul’s, said
> that lawyers had advised the City of London Corporation that it could take
> at least three months to move the protesters on. He understood that the
> cathedral would remain closed as long as there were health and safety
> issues.
>
> The City of London authorities warned that the protesters, now into the
> second week of their encampment, risk damaging the “integrity” of their
> movement if they stayed longer.
>
> The legal situation is similar to that at Parliament Square. If the
> protesters do not decide to move voluntarily, City Corporation lawyers may
> face months of legal battles to get them out. Stuart Fraser, chairman of the
> City of London Corporation policy and resources committee, said: “The City
> will accommodate lawful protest but this should not accommodate a long-term
> campsite that blocks the highway.”
>
> However, Islington Council, owners of Finsbury Square where the second camp
> is located, seemed more sympathetic. Councillor Catherine West, leader of
> the council, said: “We support the right to peaceful protest, balanced with
> the needs of our community.”
>
> There were no public services at St Paul’s yesterday, nor will there be any
> for the foreseeable future but the Dean and Chapter are continuing to say
> morning and evening prayer in the cathedral. People who turned up for
> services yesterday were directed to nearby St Vedast Foster Lane. Some
> worshippers held an impromptu evensong on the cathedral’s steps.
>
> St Paul’s is losing about £16,000 a day because of the decision to close
> its doors, 80 per cent of its running costs.
>
> Organisers of the occupation announced the first edition of a newspaper to
> be printed on Wednesday, *The Occupied Times of London*. The Museum of
> London has asked for the first of the 1,000 copies to be printed
>
> http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3203440.ece
>



-- 
Apathy is Dead !
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