Robert Doyle : “Selfish rabble got what it deserved.” ORLLY? #occupymelb

Oh yeah. Tricksy police in Sydney smashed #occupysydney at approximately 5am this morning. Maybe 40 or so arrests, camp destroyed. Video seized along with arrested. Pride. Integrity. Guts.

I’m beginning to believe that Robert Doyle may not be the sharpest tool in the shed.

Either that, or he assumes his audience are fools.

In an opinion piece in the Sunday Herald Sun (‘Selfish rabble got what it deserved’, October 23, 2011), the Lord Mayor makes numerous assertions regarding the nature of the occupation, its aims and composition.

These claims are supplemented by straight-forward abuse.

According to the Lord Mayor, those who occupied the City Square were a “self-righteous, narcissistic, self-indulgent rabble”; lying, violent, thugs, both comically-amateurish malcontents and–simultaneously–professionally-trained vandals, acting under the influence of sinister forces of strange and exotic origin.

A brief survey of the contribution to public discourse by the numerous trolls populating Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms reveals that the sentiments expressed by the Lord Mayor find their echo in the quasi-demented outpourings of this unpaid army. To cite just one of many possible examples: local yuppie Cameron Voss (“Website Producer at Australian Football League”) tweeted that he wished more than 20 occupiers had been injured by police on Friday. (Then again, he is a Hawthorn supporter.) As Andrew O’Hagan wrote in the October 6 edition of the London Review of Books: “Twitter is marvellous in the way a school playground is marvellous: full of life, full of information, and heaving with bullies.”

So much for the bullies.

Well, not quite.

Robert asks:

And what of the promises of Occupy Melbourne spokespeople during the week in the media – that they would vacate City Square peacefully once requested to do so?

What of their specific requests to police that they be given some notice so they could leave peacefully?

Good questions. What promises? Made by whom? And with what authority?

On Thursday, October 20, Occupy Melbourne released a media statement regarding the fact that Inspector Bernie Jackson of the Melbourne East police station met with protesters to discuss a potential eviction scenario. It declared that his statement would be discussed at the General Assembly that evening. A further media release on the morning of the eviction (Friday, October 21) stated that Occupy Melbourne intended to remain at the Square.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Again, look at the video footage. Peaceful? Hardly. And how do these protesters explain the knives, hammers, bricks, bottles and flammable liquids that we found in their illegal tent city? What were they for?

Obviously believing himself to have scored a coup, Robert repeats himself:

THE protest was infiltrated by professionals: what were those knives, hammers, bottles, bricks and fuel for?

Why, what possible use could anybody have for knives, hammers, bottles, bricks or fuel? Possibly, to cut things, hammer things, store liquids, anchor ropes and to keep things warm. If the Lord Mayor believes such mundane items pose a threat to public safety, he could ban carpenters, cooks, builders and other ‘professionals’ from entering the CBD.

You know it makes sense.

And the final irony?

“We are the 99 per cent,” they chanted.

But they are not the 99 per cent.

Literally-speaking, Robert is of course correct: 3,960,000-plus people simply won’t fit into the City Square. As a former English teacher, however, he should be familiar with the use of metaphor. Further, as a literate politician, Robert should also be familiar–even if only roughly–with the field of economics, and the use of such rhetoric is derived from the Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz.

In the May issue of Vanity Fair, Stiglitz wrote an article titled ‘Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%’, in which he claimed that the top 1 percent of the US population control 40 percent of the national wealth, and proceeded to elaborate why this fact, and others like it, spells trouble.

He concludes his brief analysis as follows:

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

Aside from having a poor command of rhetoric and economics, Robert would also appear to have a slippery grasp of fundamental legal principles. Thus:

NO ONE gets arrested for protesting: you have to escalate it, break the law, get violent. And there were more than 50 arrests.

In reality, people get arrested because the police decide to arrest them. They are then sometimes charged. Sometimes they’re not.

On Saturday, many more than 50 people were detained by police. Not all of them, however, were charged with a criminal offence. Some were released. Those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a properly-constituted court of law.

In short: Robert Doyle is a fucking cunt (Geoff Lemon, Heathen Scripture, October 22, 2011).

from the blog slackbastard

Ben Courtice:This is not what democracy looks like!

Yesterday's police riot has drawn out the politics of the state government quite clearly. The Herald Sun, a reliable conservative mouthpiece for much of the time, summed it up with their first paragraphs in today's edition. 

"The Battle of City Square wasn't quite over but the result was never in doubt when a quiet policeman dropped a comment that said it all.

"Now they know we mean it," he mused, munching on a sandwich after hours of riding herd on the rag-tag coalition of protesters camped in the square. "No more Christine Nixon stuff."

It's a bit too convenient to have an officer actually say what the Herald Sun (and their attack dog Andrew Bolt) have been imputing for some time: that the police were feminised and made soft while they had a woman commissioner. Now with her and her successor smeared and removed, and the Herald Sun's favourite conservative party in power, the police have given us a showing of what the conservatives like: jackboots stomping on the face of dissent - almost literally, yesterday.

Of course it's not a good look for the police force to have such political statements out there. I hope they are contacting the Herald Sun with complaints about the presentation of this comment that allegedly came from one of their officers. But it is no doubt an accurate description of what yesterday was about. We have conservatives in government. They want to crush unions, give free rein to the coal and gas industries, discriminate against gays, ban wind turbines, log ancient forests, and the list goes on. And they don't want anyone getting in their way.

Anyone who might have occasion to protest ought to be worried about this, even the 500 or so who rallied just before we did this morning for their right to own vililfied (allegedly dangerous) breeds of dog. This is a government that won't tolerate dissent and they will bring out the goons of the riot squad if they feel like it. Unions, you need to go beyond motions of endorsement: we need to ensure yesterday's precedent for police behaviour is overturned. Climate campaigners, anti-war protesters, equal marriage rights people - you need to be there too. You could be next.

 Professional bully-boys

Those riot squaddies were thrilled yesterday, like professional bully-boys. They were lapping it up. The regular constables in the front lines were more sullen, like they might prefer to be off eating doughnuts or issuing fines or whatever it is police enjoy doing, not committing acts of violence. Not so the psychos of the riot squad: you could see it in their eyes.

Having once been sent to a conservative, private boys' school for a few years, I have a bit of a prejudice against traditionalist schoolmasters. Robert Doyle's demeanour always reminded me of such like. The upright clean-looking public face, but concealing a man who rules by being the biggest bully in the playground. It's just an impression, but I give full support to the demand roundly applauded in today's general assembly of the protesters: Doyle must resign.

Protest democracy

The protesters held calm with amazing determination. There were a few people screaming at the cops, a few people understandably very shaken and upset. But there was no attempt to fight back that I saw. We moved slowly away as we were pushed, even as they tried to drag away anyone who appeared to be leading or holding the protesters together.

It was difficult to make decisions. The "human microphone" is a great system for relaying information, or ideas, when nothing else is available. In this system, the crowd repeats the words of the speaker to shout the message to the broader rally. But it's not a way to have an open discussion.

As we were occupying an intersection at the end of the mall, a group with a megaphone inserted themselves into the middle of the protest and used this to communicate, amplified (and reinforced) by a "human mic" conveying their orders. They did not allow people with new proposals to put them to the gathering, even though there was no pressure from the police at that point. The "human mic" in this situation only reinforced this little clique of self-appointed leaders.

The amorphous, leaderless nature of the protests is due to the extremely broad nature of the Occupy movement. This need not be a negative, although it will probably need to be transcended in coming weeks as a degree of focus (like demands for example) will probably be necessary for the movement to keep drawing in more of the 99%.

Having an agreed facilitation group - elected, recallable, accountable - and an agreed decision making method (as we did at today's peaceful march and general assembly) is essential, or else we are vulnerable to manipulation by cliques who may not have the same perspectives as the rest of the crowd. Keeping to decisions agreed by general assembly is a good way to keep such groups in line with the overall will of the group. 

As the extreme provocation by the police shows, we need to keep our own group controlled and cohesive. We don't all have to agree on everything, but we have to know when to maintain unity around the decided course of action. Votes today were taken with 90% majority needed to pass. That has a lot of authority!

When the rally drags on, when people are tired (and bruised and distressed from the police violence) is when we need to be most sensitive to unity, cohesion, and keeping the peace. As people are worn out (by physical strain, or by the stress of confrontation) the protest can easily become dominated by a small militant minority. Just because you personally are fine with arrest, rain and marching all day, is not an argument for the rally to do it. To stay united, we have to travel at the speed of the slowest. We may not be lightning fast, but we will be bigger and stronger.

Bigger and stronger, and more focused, is how this movement can grow. Remember, we don't need City Square. As long as we are still organising, they haven't defeated us. As long as we are growing, we are winning. Thanks to everyone who has joined in, and keep on joining in because we can show the conservative government that they can't get away with a police state to force their 19th century agenda down our throats.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Ben Courtice's blog Blind Carbon Carbon is about climate change, socialist ideas, activism and sustainability. He lives in Melbourne (Australia) and his writing is based on his involvement in movements for social change. Click on this link to his blog.