LONDONERS launched an occu-pation in the heart of the city’s fi-nancial centre on SaturdayOctober 15, as part of a globalmovement for real democracywhile in Dublin a protest is al-ready underway, therefore, is itnot the turn of Belfast to add itsvoice to the worldwide protestagainst corporate greed.

Supported by UK Uncut, the London-based Assembly of the Spanish 15M move-ment, the People’s Assemblies NetworkGlobal Day of Action and others, the move-ment aims to highlight the social and eco-nomic injustice in the UK and beyond.

As protests on Wall Street capture theimagination of the world, with people takingto the streets to hold the global financial sys-tem to task, a diverse group of Londoners iscoming together to launch a peaceful occupa-tion near the London Stock Exchange (LSX)at Paternoster Square.

A similar protest in Dublin’s Dame Streetis now underway and gathering support.

In little over a week, the OccupyLSXFacebook page has already attracted morethan 9000 followers with over 3500 con-firmed attendees.

Laura Taylor, a supporter of OccupyLSX,asked: “Why are we paying for a crisis thebanks caused? More than a million peoplehave lost their jobs and tens of thousands ofhomes have been repossessed, while smallbusinesses are struggling to survive. Yetbankers continue to make billions in profitand pay themselves enormous bonuses, evenafter we bailed them out with £850bn.”

The occupation on October 15 will see as-semblies, workshops and discussions beingheld as people come to participate in a realform of democracy. They will seek to chal-lenge the power held by the financial sectorand the system that regulates it, which arefailing to operate in the interests of peopleacross the UK.

OccupyLSX supporter Kai Wargalla ex-plains: “This is a people-powered movementprotesting against the increasing social andeconomic injustice in the UK. We want to

stand with the 99% – the overwhelming ma-jority who value people over profit. We wantto make our voices heard against greed, cor-ruption and for a democratic, just society. Westand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street,protestors in the Spain, Greece and the MiddleEast who started this movement. They haveinspired people all over the world to step for-ward and make their voices heard – now.”

UK Uncut is supporting the occupation ofthe London Stock Exchange, calling on itsmembers to join the protest. UK Uncut sup-porter Peter Hodgson said: “The success ofthe square occupations across Spain in callingfor democracy and an end to austerity, along-side the rapid growth of the Wall Street occu-pation, has shown that this is what is neededin London and the UK. The government is ig-noring its electorate as they impose these aus-terity measures.”

OccupyLSX intends to lead by example,putting real democracy in practice from thebottom up. Following the model pioneered inSpain earlier this year, decision making andaction planing during the occupation will be

administered by a General Assembly, open tothe public. London’s first General Assemblywas held on Westminster Bridge during UKUncut’s “Block the Bridge, Block the Bill”demonstration on Sunday October 9.

The occupation in London comes at thesame time that hundreds of cities around theworld are protesting under the banner of“United For Global Change” calling for truedemocracy. This is a movement that tran-scends political affiliation. It aims to open adialogue on reforming finance and govern-ment so that each better serve and protect theinterests and wellbeing of the 99%.

Time for Belfast to join the real world andprotest for social and economic justice.

Free PostPeople’s

October 23, 2011An independent and radical Northern Ireland newspaper – news and comment gathered from around the world

OCCUPY BELFAST

Calling on workers, community activists,

students, pensioners, unemployed and

environmentalists to stage our own protest

against the greed of the corporate elite

No political parties please

How it all began – see page 2Sold out – see page 3Unions debate resistance to auster-ity – see page 3Northern Ireland – setting up our owndemonstration – see page 4

If you are interested – contact: occupybelfastcityhall@hushmail.com

We are a non-violent movementcommitted to putting an end to the

inequality that exists and persists in thisday and age through peaceful

demonstration. We exist in solidarity withthe Occupy Wall St movement.

IN JULY Adbusters, a Vancouver-based publication known for its in-cisive critiques of capitalism,included a poster in that month'smagazine that read simply:

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET

September 17th. Bring tent.

www.occupywallst.org

In response to the call, several loose-knit

groups of organizers got involved and hundreds

of people showed up on Wall Street on Sept. 17.

A few weeks later, Occupy Wall Street is now

spreading around the country and attracting in-

tense interest from the media.

I spoke to Adbusters co-founder and editor in

chief Kalle Lasn about the practical and ideolog-

ical origins of the movement and about the con-

tinuing debate over its demands. The following

transcript of our conversation has been edited

for length.

You issued the original call to occupy Wall

Street back in July. How did that come about

and what was the thinking behind it?

It was a poster that we put in the middle of the

July edition of Adbusters magazine and a list-

serv that we sent out to our 90,000-strong cul-

ture-jammers network around the world. It was

also a blog post on our website. For the last 20

years, our network has been interested in cul-

tural revolution and just the whole idea of radi-

cal transformations.

After Tunisia and Egypt, we were mightily in-

spired by the fact that a few smart people using

Facebook and Twitter can put out calls and sud-

denly get huge numbers of people to get out into

the streets and start giving vent to their anger.

And then we keep on looking at the sorry state

of the political left in the United States and how

the Tea Party is passionately strutting their stuff

while the left is sort of hiding somewhere. We

felt that there was a real potential for a Tahrir

moment in America because a) the political left

needs it and b) because people are losing their

jobs, people are losing their houses, and young

people cannot find a job. We felt that the people

who gave us this mess - the financial fraudsters

on Wall Street - haven't even been brought to

justice yet. We felt this was the right moment to

instigate something.

One Adbusters editor was quoted saying

the role of the magazine in this is "philosoph-

ical." Can you define the philosophy behind

this?

We are not just inspired by what happened in

the Arab Spring recently, we are students of the

Situationist movement. Those are the people

who gave birth to what many people think was

the first global revolution back in 1968 when

some uprisings in Paris suddenly inspired upris-

ings all over the world. All of a sudden universi-

ties and cities were exploding. This was done by

a small group of people, the Situationists, who

were like the philosophical backbone of the

movement. One of the key guys was Guy De-

bord, who wrote The Society of the Spectacle.

The idea is that if you have a very powerful

meme - a very powerful idea - and the moment

is ripe, then that is enough to ignite a revolution.

This is the background that we come out of.

1968 was more of a cultural kind of revolu-

tion. This time I think it's much more serious.

We're in an economic crisis, an ecological crisis,

living in a sort of apocalyptic world, and the

young people realize they don't really have a vi-

able future to look forward to. This movement

that's beginning now could well be the second

global revolution that we've been dreaming

about for the last half a century.

In the original call to action, Adbusters

asked that 20,000 flood into lower Manhattan

and set up tents. The piece also said:

Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one

simple demand in a plurality of voices. Tahrir

succeeded in large part because the people of

Egypt made a straightforward ultimatum - that

Mubarak must go - over and over again until

they won. Following this model, what is our

equally uncomplicated demand?

I sat in on discussions down in Zuccoti

Park where this very issue was being dis-

cussed. But obviously there is no single de-

mand yet. Do you think it has developed

differently than the vision outlined in Ad-

busters?

Originally we thought that the idea of one de-

mand was very important. There's been a debate

going on between the one-demand vision and

this other vision that is playing itself out right

now on Wall Street. I think it's a wonderful de-

bate and there are good pointers on both sides.

Currently this leaderless, demandless movement

- that is still growing in leaps and bounds - I

think it is fine the way it is. After these assem-

blies have been conducted and debates have

been had in cities all around America, demands

will emerge. These demands will be specific

things like reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall

Act or a 1 percent tax on financial transactions

or the banning of high-frequency trading. We

will get into specifics, just give us time.

I think this whole thing will stay fairly amor-

phous through the next big event on Oct. 6 in

Washington. Then it will gain global momentum

on Oct. 15 when the Europeans have their big

moment in the sun. I think the big global cat-

alytic moment may well happen on Nov. 3 or

Nov. 4 when the G-20 is meeting in France. In

the month following that these demands of ours

will emerge and we may well find millions of

people marching around the world.

Can you speculate about how these de-

mands will emerge? Do you see leaders or

spokespeople emerging? How do you see it

playing out as a process?

The political left has always had problems

with this. All my life I've been sitting in meet-

ings where loony guys get up and talk, and

eventually very little happens. This is the kind of

weight that is dragging the political left down.

We don't seem to have the clarity of vision that

for example the Tea Party has. This may be our

undoing again. This whole movement may fizzle

out in a bunch of loony lefty kind of bullshit.

Then again, at the same time, I've been in

daily touch with dozens and dozens of people in

cities all around the world who are involved in

this. And I have a feeling that because of the In-

ternet and a different kind of mentality that

young people have, a horizontal way of thinking

about things, this movement may not just come

up with some really good demands and put in-

credible people pressure on our politicians, but a

more beautiful thing may come out of this

movement: a new model of democracy, a new

model of how activism can work, of how the

people can have a radical democracy and have

some of their demands met. This new model

may well be a new kind of a horizontal thing

that in some strange way works like the Internet

works.

David Graeber, an anthropologist and Ad-

busters contributor as well as one of the origi-

nal organizers of the protest, told the

Washington Post the other day:

You're creating a vision of the sort of society

you want to have in miniature. And it's a way of

juxtaposing yourself against these powerful, un-

democratic forces you're protesting. If you make

demands, you're saying, in a way, that you're

asking the people in power and the existing in-

stitutions to do something different. And one

reason people have been hesitant to do that is

they see these institutions as the problem.

Isn't that a fundamentally different model

than making one single demand?

This is the deeper level of the debate that is

going on within this movement. I think that as

this movement grows, it will have room for dif-

ferent things. I think it's wonderful that people

are doing exactly what Graeber describes and

providing an example of how a democracy can

work, sort of creating a mini-democracy within

Zuccoti Park. But that doesn't stop other people

from actually starting to make demands. I don't

see any reason why we can't have some people

who really want a 1 percent Tobin tax and why

those people can't be putting pressure on the G-

20 in November while at the same time the peo-

ple in Zuccoti Park and other cities are

providing this inspiring example of real democ-

racy. I don't think that the two are mutually ex-

clusive.

How it all began

If you are interested – contact: occupybelfastcityhall@hushmail.com

Free PostPeople’s

No political parties please

STATEMENT OF INTENTWe are a non-violent

movement committed toputting an end to the

inequality that exists andpersists in this day and age

through peacefuldemonstration. We exist insolidarity with the Occupy

Wall St movement.No political parties please

By Justin ElliottSalon.com

“There is no alternative.”

WE are told that the only wayto reduce the deficit is to cutpublic services.

This is certainly not the case. There are alter-

natives, but the government chooses to ignore

them, highlighting the fact that the cuts are

based on ideology, not necessity.

One alternative is to clamp down on tax dodg-

ing by corporations and the rich, estimated to

cost the state £95bn a year

Another is to make the banks pay for free in-

surance provided to them by the taxpayer: a

chief executive at the Bank of England put the

cost of this subsidy at £100bn in a single year

Either the tax avoided and evaded in a single

year or the taxpayer subsidy to the banking in-

dustry could pay for all of the £81bn, four-year

cuts programme.

“We are all in this together.”

Since the banking crisis: average pay of FTSE

100 directors has risen 55%, corporation tax has

been cut, the government have not delivered on

a manifesto pledge to clamp down on tax avoid-

ance, instead cutting staff at HMRC, bank prof-

its and bonuses are back in the many billions

(last year banks paid out over £7bn in bonuses

and just four banks made £24bn in profit), there

has been no reform of the banks.

David Cameron himself has said that the cuts

will change Britain's "whole way of life".

Every aspect of what was fought for by gener-

ations seems under threat – from selling off the

forests, privatising health provision, closing the

libraries and swimming pools, to scrapping rural

bus routes.

What Cameron doesn't say is that the cuts will

also disproportionately hit the poor and vulnera-

ble, with cuts to housing benefit, disability liv-

ing allowance, the childcare element of working

tax credits, EMA, the Every Child a Reader pro-

gramme, Sure Start and the Future Jobs Fund to

name a few.

The facts speak for themselves; we are not all

in this together, we are paying for the folly of

reckless bankers whilst the rich profit.

The government are forced to claim that there

is no alternative to making drastic public sector

cuts as they know that people would never ac-

cept their plan otherwise.

By repeating the same lies over and over

again, they hope to brainwash people into inac-

tion.

There are alternatives to the cuts, and we are

not all in this together.

But unless we take action, and take the facts

to our friends, our families and those around us,

they will get away with it.

Source: UK Uncut

Workers, communities, students, pensioners

unemployed and our social welfare structures are being

SOLD OUT

THE Belfast & DistrictTrades Council organisedan activists seminar to dis-cuss resistance and alter-natives to the government’scampaign of austeritymeasures.Speakers included:Patricia McKeown – UnisonRegional Secretary;Andrew Murray – Unite,Chief of Staff;John Douglas - Mandate,General Secretary; JimmyKelly, Unite’s Irish RegionalSecretary; George Pon-tikos, a speaker from GreekTrade Union Federation,PAME andDesi Donnelly,from the community sector.

Blocking the Bill: Occupy protests reach London but the House of Lords pass the Con-Dem NHS legislation

If you are interested – contact: occupybelfastcityhall@hushmail.com

Free PostPeople’s

No political parties please

Union reps hit thestreets ... time tojoin the globalbattle against corporate greed

Free PostPeople’s

In the heart of Belfast’s financial

district lies the dome of delight

If you are interested – contact: occupybelfastcityhall@hushmail.com

Let’s make it our home aswe protest against globalcorporate greed in Northern Ireland ... andplay our part in the worldwide demonstrations

THIS is a call to all interestedgroups in Northern Ireland to launchour very own protest...It’s our turn to join the worldwidedemonstrations against global cor-porate greed and set up our ownGeneral Assembly and make our de-mands tailored for our needs (seebelow the Occupy Wall Street decla-ration as a guideline). If you are interested in playing apart then contact:occupybelfastcityhall@hushmail.com

We are the 99% – time to make a stand

As we gather together in solidarity to express afeeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight ofwhat brought us together. We write so that all peo-ple who feel wronged by the corporate forces of theworld can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the real-ity: that the future of the human race requires thecooperation of its members; that our system mustprotect our rights, and upon corruption of that sys-tem, it is up to the individuals to protect their ownrights, and those of their neighbors; that a demo-cratic government derives its just power from thepeople, but corporations do not seek consent toextract wealth from the people and the Earth; andthat no true democracy is attainable when theprocess is determined by economic power. Wecome to you at a time when corporations, whichplace profit over people, self-interest over justice,and oppression over equality, run our govern-ments. We have peaceably assembled here, as isour right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegalforeclosure process, despite not having the origi-nal mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with im-punity, and continue to give Executives exorbitantbonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimina-tion in the workplace based on age, the color ofone’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orienta-tion.

They have poisoned the food supply through

negligence, and undermined the farming systemthrough monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement,and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman ani-mals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employ-ees of the right to negotiate for better pay and saferworking conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens ofthousands of dollars of debt on education, which isitself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor andused that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve thesame rights as people, with none of the culpabilityor responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legalteams that look for ways to get them out of con-tracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.They have used the military and police force to

prevent freedom of the press.They have deliberately declined to recall faulty

products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.They determine economic policy, despite the cat-

astrophic failures their policies have produced andcontinue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politi-cians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energyto keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicinethat could save people’s lives in order to protect in-vestments that have already turned a substantiveprofit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, acci-dents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredientsin pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed andfearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murderprisoners even when presented with seriousdoubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home andabroad.

They have participated in the torture and murderof innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass de-struction in order to receive government con-tracts.*

To the people of the world,We, the New York City General Assembly occupy-

ing Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assertyour power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; oc-cupy public space; create a process to address theproblems we face, and generate solutions accessi-ble to everyone.

To all communities that take action and formgroups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offersupport, documentation, and all of the resources atour disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

Declaration of the Occupation of New York CityThe Issue is Fairness

No political parties please

WHAT IS OUR ONE DEMAND?

OCCUPY THIS SPACE (DATE TBA). BRING TENT.

The Free Post has been brought toyou by We Are Anonymous...And We Are Many.If a General Assembly is convenedthe media matters and contentwill be turned over to it. The firstissue is just to see what interestis out there for organising our owndemo...No political parties please...

People’s