Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 October 2011 14:12:39
Paul, a guy I met down at Occupy lsx has sent me this through saying "feel free to distribute". You, dear friends, are my network and so I am distributing:
Occupation Lane - an insiders view
(in memory of Danny Jowenko 1955-2011)
As October ages golden in the weak sunshine the temperatures drop slowly and the number of flapping tents decrease. In the cold shadow of the mighty cathedral solidarity struggles to remain solid. The voice of protest with all its reason and all its rightness has failed to catch in numbers here. Why ?
In true democratic general assembly style every voice is given space but the voices are young - how else would the old and wise survive on the hard Street ? So the middle ones, few in number, listen and respond and say; "organise, know your enemy. Can you tell me what a credit default swap is ? Can you tell me what a derivative is ? Can you tell me what likely happened on 9/11 ? Can you tell me how Fallujah's children became deformed ? Do you know whats coming to our children if we dont win this battle ? Why are your politicians, your media and your church (so called champions of decency) not standing with you ? Can you answer these questions ?" "No we can't." "Then come with us to another view........"
High above London stands Occupation Lane in the South and from there you can see the City like a bird. In the howling wind you first laugh and then feel sorry for St Paul's now so tiny in the distance down there surrounded by the Giants of the City banks and Govt structures of power. The name of that great man was encased in huge blocks of stone that he would have railed against in an epistle - "No, feed the poor, fight evil, church is a people not a building. You are meant to be salt and light in your world, not a museum ". Then the other spirit dulled the church through the years of empire, slavery and oil and seeped to other endeavours in the City until we end up with this huge rigged casino with its thin menacing suits of respectability.
Standing in Occupation Lane looking out is lonely knowing that only a handful of us know what we know and who are prepared to carry the fight to the gaming tables; the media desks, the MP surgeries and the pulpits. What hurts most is not the cold or even the failure but the fact that they, the insiders, all know the truth or could easily acquire it but choose to walk away from it just for a few bangles, a few hollow years and what they think is safety.
Paul Warburton
Inspired by Johnny Cash' "The Man Comes Around"