Why is the Occupy Movement happening?
For a means of ending the Western inequality, greed and corruption
In the West a major crisis took hold of the economy with the 'banking collapse'. This collapse has meant a major downgrade in lifestyles for the poor and the disabled, unemployment for the youth, the retirement age for our elderly going up whilst income comes down. It is the hard working people on low incomes who are paying for the banking collapse, such as the young working families. Meanwhile the millionaires who rule the country, who claim we are in this together, and the bankers who caused the issues will feel no pain for their actions. The plan remains to fix the Market Economy, support big business, protect the wealthy by controlling the resources and squeezing more out of the people who have little.
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RBS Protest Song
2011 Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference. Main sponsors are RBS
Tar sands is an environmental disaster in Canada, heavily supported by RBS. |
The Tar Sands landscape has been compared to Tolkien's Mordor.
For the planet and its depleting resources
Water
The epic struggle for wealth, power and civilisation
Nestle, Danone, Unilever, Coca-Cola and Anheuser-Busch together currently consume enough water to meet the daily domestic needs of every person on the planet (i.e. drinking / cleaning / cooking). A further minor point: one fifth of said persons lack sufficient clean water for said needs (and if we include sanitation add a further fifth). I know it's an oversimplification, but please ask yourself who you'd prefer to receive that water, bearing in mind you may get to join them before long. (if you want to know more about England, USA, China, India, Middle East etc. recommend reading book is detailed below).
For the media censorship
Regarding the increasingly worrying bias and corruption the corporate media tycoons are permeating to the public. This extract below includes a critique of the Guardian that has seriously compromised their reports and damaged the information we receive. Even the most radical Left wing voices named below have been silenced at a time when information has become so important to our survival.
In an age of impending climate disaster – when corporate media are doing such a good job of presenting the suicidal status quo as ‘normal’, and all but ignoring the astonishing and massive corporate efforts to prevent vital action on climate change – this discussion might actually be considered crucial to human survival.
If we are right, then Milne and Monbiot are making a terrible mistake in encouraging readers to perceive this pathological - even anti-life - media system as a source of hope. To lead hope down a blind corporate alley, at this late stage, may prove to be the final nail in the coffin.
Full article to be found @ Media lens
A visual representation of the extent of the censorship in America
For our emotional Well-being
The emotional well-being in Western democratic states is poor when compared with other less developed or impoverished parts of the world.
A study in the Economist shows why this is so...
http://www.economist.com/node/21548213?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fwl%2Far%2Fchilledout
For our children and their health
Creative outdoor play is in major decline. You perhaps don't need a documentary to remind you of this. Creative play is a great need for developing your children's happiness and well-being. What is causing concern about this documentary (Consuming Kids) is how marketing teams actually work against your ability to have meaningful relationship with your children. Children are taught to nag through cartoons, they are taught many tricks from TV shows such as The Simpsons. A further worry is that there appears to be an association between modern lifestyle and illness such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism , Aspergers, obesity, and diabetes on the one hand and the marketing adverts, junk food, and the continued medication provided to combat these issues on the other. If this claim is correct then it is a worry that our very structure in society creates conditions of ill-health for our children, thus pushing little children into the legal 'drug market' benefiting the pharmaceutical companies.
The answers we believe in are in making community spaces more rural once again, farming for our own organic food and providing more community space for children.
For the Eastern Wars and Revolutions
There are many reasons as to why Occupy has sprouted up across the globe. A major influence came from a young Tunisian man who set himself on fire because the pain of his life was so unbearable and the only way he could demonstrate this to others or be heard by anybody was to take this action. It was this act of pure hopelessness that set off what is now called in the West 'The Arab Spring' - a domino impact of revolts against dictatorship in many countries thereafter. The Internet and social media spread this mood of 'moral panic' like no other, it engulfed the East like a fire on dry grass. The war and conflict in North Africa and the Middle East still continues today with much violence and death.
Reaching a Critical Point
Here is an excellent article raising the very real issues about scientists being too scared to speak up or speak out. The very determined lobbying that goes on, working hard on having scientific data undermined, in the pursuit of maintaining the status quo:
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/science/2012/feb/19/science-scepticism-usdomesticpolicy?fb_source=aggregation&fb_action_types=news.reads
A more detailed look.
Article by Chris Sharp and Jamie Mann
Why we must protest: The House of Cards is Falling Down
From the housing market crash to the embattled Eurozone, the financial crisis has dominated the headlines and caused people around the world to angrily take to the streets in peaceful protest. But what is there really to protest against?
Why must we protest?
As most people following the alternative media will already know, the global financial market is running a multi-trillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. We have heard it from Gerald Celente, the trader’s blog Zero Hedge and from many respected authors on the financial collapse. But what is a Ponzi scheme? Well, according to the BBC’s ‘Crisis Jargon Buster‘ a Ponzi scheme is: “an enterprise where funds from new investors – instead of genuine profits – are used to pay high returns to current investors.” This was the kind of scheme operated by Bernie Madoff before his conviction for fraud in 2009.
The 2008 crash was a Ponzi scheme unravelling. The boom of the 2000′s was simply a scheme whereby banks created money by creating credit, and then used that money to create more debt, leading to an ever expanding credit bubble. But
this credit did have a limit. Once collateral began to dry up so did lending – leading to the credit crunch. The contraction of the credit market has led to a lack of government funds and the insolvency of several big banks. But who pays in the end? Certainly not the financial managers, CEOs and politicians now retired on 6-figure incomes.
This is certainly the case for the once great Royal Bank of Scotland who, under the leadership of Sir Fred Goodwin, pounced on the opportunity to create money through credit by trading in sub-prime mortgages. After reported losses of around £1.1bn the bank paid out almost £1bn in bonuses in 2010 and allowed Sir Fred to retire on a mere £342,500 a year plus a £2.6m bonus. Goodwin ended up walking away after receiving a total of around £20m and leaving the taxpayer “with an unlimited liability for the cost of cleaning up the mess” (source: Nick Cohen The Guardian (UK). Sunday 18 January 2009. “It’s not the poor the middle class really fear“. )
Despite now being 83% taxpayer owned RBS is still owns €79.6bn in suspect American subprime mortgages and commercial real-estate loans dating back to before 2008 (source: http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/europe/the-subprime-crisis-coming-to-europe-56306). They are also responsible for investing in manufacturers of cluster munitions
and depleted uranium as well as investing in the horrifically environmentally detrimental Canadian oil sands (source: Ed Crooks Financial Times November 16, 2009 “Canadian protest over RBS oil sands role”), using both taxpayer and customer money to do so. This reckless behaviour has lost many loyal RBS customers their savings and investments and has knocked-on to many other Scottish institutions and pensions.
But these reckless banks won’t face bankruptcy, as any other business would, because they are apparently ‘too big to fail’. They have their paws on our investment money (they can use client assets as their own collateral by re-hypothecation),
our bank balances, the stock market, our debt, our country’s debt and our currency. With one move the financial sector could collapse a whole country or region such as, say, the Eurozone and our leaders are faced with the choice
‘pander or die’
And pander they have. The UK government used £1.162tn (source) – more than all the tax paid by the financial sector in the last 20 years – to supply various bail outs to the banks, charging the funds they used straight to the sovereign debt credit card paid for by the general public, their children, and their grandchildren.
More recently David Cameron withdrew from EU talks so as to protect the City of London from regulations aimed at limiting this financial mayhem. And we only need look at who has the money and power to see why. With over half the Tory
financing coming from the City, billions of pounds in bonuses being paid out each year and lucrative financial jobs awaiting the likes of Tony Blair, it is clear that the public are being forced to pay for this excess by cutting back on services, jobs and finance while paying even more in tax on goods.
When the ones holding the money and the power benefit from the problems worsening then what else can we do but take to the streets in protest? Perhaps riot as they have in Greece? Well, we all know how that looks on the streets of London. Or what about nothing? What happens if we do nothing?
At best we will see the continuation of the Ponzi Scheme for a few more years simply by printing more money (Quantitative Easing) and making more debt. At worst? Well, widely respected trends forecaster and modern-day Nostradamus
Gerald Celente is predicting “economic marshall law” and a move toward WWIII.
After nearly two years the coalition in Westminster has only made our position worse, yet the Occupy protests have been expected to inflict change in just 3 months. At the end of the day I would much rather support a peaceful community camping in protest than see hyperinflation, rioting or another war – which seems to be the only direction politicians are prepared to lead us.
Occupy wants solutions for the people
Occupy are creating alternative ways for the people
Compassion Music supports an alternative way of being
The very centre of your heart is where
life begins ~ the most beautiful place on earth.
Rumi ♥ image: Isac Goulart