#occupydamestreet statement marking 100 days of occupation

Sunday January 15, 2012 20:48

by occupier - #occupydamestreet

Today marks Occupy Dame Street's 100th day of occupation in the shadow of the Central Bank of Ireland building in central Dublin. It is a good time for us to reflect on where we are now, and where we can go from here.

Today marks Occupy Dame Street's 100th day of occupation in the shadow of the Central Bank of Ireland building in central Dublin. It is a good time for us to reflect on where we are now, and where we can go from here.

The last 100 days have been exhilarating and exhausting for those of us involved in this occupation. There have been moments of great hope, but we must also recognise there have been moments of difficulty. Today we mark 100 days of direct opposition to the economic suffering being imposed on Ireland and we look to the future and the alternatives we can create together.

In our demonstrations we saw the positive and hopeful energy of vast diversity of people in this city who were no longer prepared to obey this government's demands, on behalf of the EU and IMF, that we tighten our belts and give in to unnecessary and unfair use of public money.

We have made many new friends, and forged new alliances with people who saw, as we did, that this country and its institutions are increasingly run in the interests of the privileged few - the 1% - and at the expense of the many - the 99%. The Central Bank plaza became a key site in the city for dialogue, learning, song, poetry, friendship and resistance.

We've been humbled and inspired by those people who have extended their support in so many ways, via donations of blankets, food, money, clothing, construction expertise, and their time; by standing guard over the camp in the middle of the night in sometimes difficult circumstances and awful weather; by participating in workshops, marches, celebrations and on-line; and by spreading the word in their communities.

In these people's acts of solidarity and support, we glimpse a better future than the one planned for us by the European and Irish authorities. Their future, the ideal future of the 1%, involves untold billions more in public money being stolen by bank bondholders, higher taxes on poor and working people to fund the wealthy, continued high unemployment, the implosion of small businesses, and the ongong and accelerating dismantling of our public services, our social safety net, and our protections in the workplace. As a result of our constant interactions with the multitudes of ordinary people who have stopped off, however briefly, to express their support for the occupation - it is clear to us that these concerns are widely shared and that those who are prepared to resist the anti-democratic imposition of such a future can expect broad public support.

Here outside the Central Bank, we stand in opposition to the 1%'s future of inequality and fear, and we will stand alongside anyone else prepared to resist. We stand for collective action and stand against privatised despair; we stand for a decent wage and against unemployment and unpaid labour; we stand for justice and against inequality. We stand for the 99%.

We are a group of ordinary people. Many of us have never been involved in anything like this sustained act of protest and resistance before. We, together with the network of supporters that has formed around the occupation, are learning from our mistakes, growing up in public and developing new ways to resist. We continue to stand together, to learn with and from each other, and to provide a platform for people to generate their own, varied and multiple, solutions.

As winter gives way to spring, we resolve to maintain our occupation at the Central Bank. We are determined to continue to challenge the anti-democratic and unjust power of the 1% and to support real, participatory democracy of the 99%. We intend to strengthen the bonds we have forged with Occupy movements across the island -in Galway, Cork Belfast, Dublin, Limerick, Waterford and Louth, and with our friends from the Spectacle of Defiance.

We are inspired by the new Community Resource Centre in Cork and the courage of workers staging sit-ins at Vita Cortex and La Senza, the Kingscourt Brick workers, and all the everyday people showing their support for them. We also salute the campaign of non-payment of the household tax and salute those involved in building it.

Our own movement began in response to what we had seen in North America, Iceland, Greece, Spain and North Africa. Slowly but surely, despair on this island is giving way to resistance, and it is now seeing what other people are doing here that propels us onward. We are progressing steadily, our confidence grows that we are going far.

Right now, there can be no better an example of how this country is ruled in the interests of the wealthy few than the planned payments to Anglo Irish Bank unsecured bondholders, the first of which is due on January 25th.

From Occupied Dame Street, we say to the people of this country and beyond: This is nothing but a robbery and extortion of the people on an epic scale. It is quite simply economic treason. THESE PAYMENTS MUST BE STOPPED.

Occupy Dame Street are committed to a vigorous campaign against these payments and we encourage other groups, formed and yet to be formed, to commit in their own ways to doing the same in the coming days and weeks.

We are presently organising our own direct actions and civil disobedience to forcefully oppose the payments. We ask you to join us.

We can stop them. We are many - they are few.

We are the 99%

save preference

Comments (35 of 35)

Jump To Comment:

Occupy..

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Thu Mar 08, 2012 10:08

..the parade...we are the fucking Paddies.

Or is it now the Sainted Bankers' Day parade?

Gone

by Brian

Thu Mar 08, 2012 08:42

I heard that the camp was taken down overnight. Can anyone confirm what happened?

I presume this move is linked to the St Patricks Day nonsense. The city must look "nice".

I hope they reoccupy the site on St Patricks Day itself. Or maybe someone organises an RTS-style protest party.

no fast track to utopia

by otherwise occupied

Sun Jan 22, 2012 23:11

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/20/occupy-wall-stre...oads/

meantime, back at the actual facts

Sun Jan 22, 2012 14:33

You wont find this in todays paper

http://www.globalresearch.ca?index.php?context=va&aid=28753

yeah, joe...

Sat Jan 21, 2012 19:23

whatever you think. Ciao.

apartheid

by JoeMc

Sat Jan 21, 2012 18:49

Apartheid was not "idiotic " to black people living under it . The rich whites who supported it were far from being delusional . The Israeli wall is not "idiotic" or delusional either , it serves an extremely important , real function for the Israeli apartheid state.

I lived under ..

Sat Jan 21, 2012 18:04

..the original namesake apartheid regime in South Africa...it did not stop many of us refusing to buy onto the racist mass delusion and flouting the law.

But I am increaingly convinced you are more interested in sterile polemics than actual idiotic injustices. I'll leave you to it.

Let's face facts so that we can change them

Sat Jan 21, 2012 14:18

Fair play to you for criticising and not sanctioning israeli land confiscations ,Opus but they aren't delusional any more than the Apartheid Wall is. To deny that slave ownership was ever a fact is a different matter as well. I'm sure that your ideological mentor Pliny the Younger would have disagreed with you on that one! But having said that I'm no expert in Latin .(Neither are you going by what you wrote yesterday).

.

back at the lie of the 'land..

Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:34

..ownership is a fact..'.

If it is its only a psychological fact, as in Israeli 'facts on the ground' as they expropriate the 'non-existant' Palestinians in their terra nullius. I'm not sure what your ideological mentor would make of that endorsement.

I refuse to sanction such factoidal delusions, as I refuse to grant Lizzie Windsor her preposterous majesterial pretensions, or Joey Ratzinger his theistic mirages.

In the end I think you'll find its the land that will hold us. That will be all our final facts.

well joe

Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:31

thats a false association, and while I'm open to all opinions, including theirs, I retain my own, plural.
I consider myself an anti-ism-ist, i.e. ideology stultifies,. First disagreement with the first paragraph of that reference is the Tea Party type elevation of the 'family'(nuclear).

As i wrote, dont be jumping to so many premature conclusions. I'm heterdox. That is a right I claim, and its inalienable.

'The only certainty is that nothing is certain.' Pliny the Younger, 1st cent CE,( among others). None of us has the full picture.

Opus

Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:57

I didn’t call you a religious nut. That would be an insult to yourself as well as to religious people, and as I wrote before I try not to be abusive .
I don’t think you are a nut , but I do think that you were wrong to describe capitalist proprietorship as “delusions of ownership” . Land ownership is a fact and not a “falsification of reality” as you put it . I think that you invoke the notion of natural rights in much the same way as the Freemen on the Land do and that's why I criticise what you wrote.

You're obviously not a Trotskyist Opus , but the Freemen Movement's intervention in the OCCUPY movement and its dependence on this notion of inalienable “natural rights” has been criticized by anarchists as well . See this Indymedia UK article for instance :

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/487943.html

pleased to keep you amused but

Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:08

Why do you think that I haven't been engaged on the street Sarzy ? I don't claim to speak for the OCCUPY people but I have visited the Dublin camp on several occasions to show support . I have marched with them , argued with some of them agreed with others. Surely I have a right to express my opinion here as much as you do.

Intell

by Sarzy - General Public

Sat Jan 21, 2012 00:46

Nenagh

As much as you two are great fun to read, its just amazing that you can get lost in the detail. Nothing will change as a result of the argy bargy. Its just that people with less ability to analyse and more ability to act are required now.
Its very good to read but it does not connect with the man on the street.
How about ye wait until its won by the action men, and then when they are all dead ,ye can move in and sort it all out.

I did ask you

Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:31

to desist from projecting your imputations, and quoting out of context; both propagandist methods.

I wrote that I am as entitled as any to an acre...not that i have some absolute right..go check, and stop the smear techniques, or else admit polemical distraction and obfuscation is your game, not a search for clarity or understanding. Or perhaps you cannot shed your ideological propensities.

One minute I'm a religious nut, then YOU are quoting religious definitions and I am some straw freeman of your own conjouring...and you are not happy with the Oxford English Reference Dictionary etymologies but insist on your handy online downloads...just WHO is dreaming their etymology?

And where exactly do you derive YOUR innermost conviction of your rightness?I have assumed no such position: the exercise of conscientious methodology leads me to attempt to maintain an openness to counter-argument, rather that presume I have conclusive formulaic answers; it improves the chances I might learn and refine my ideas....but I certainly will not defer to your dictatorial Trotskyist doctrinal certitudes.
That I do my thought processing internally was hardly the point at issue...we dont all download our ideas from dead Bolsheviks. And then cling to them like nurse, for fear of something worse, like having to think for ourselves.

Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:04

The Freemen of the Land movement argues along the same lines as Opus does. Every man entitled to his acre of land as of some timeless inherent natural right ;the forces of state repression only able to operate because the majority of people are not conscious of the fact that the Harp of Erin on display in courts must have fourteen strings and all that sort of baloney. Every freeman entitled to dream up his own etymology for words without recourse to online dictionaries etc

conscience
early 13c., from O.Fr. conscience "conscience, innermost thoughts, desires, intentions; feelings" (12c.), from L. conscientia"knowledge within oneself, sense of right, a moral sense," from conscientem (nom. consciens), prp. of conscire "be (mutually) aware," from com- "with," or "thoroughly" (see com-) + scire "to know" (see science). Probably a loan-translation of Gk.syneidesis, lit. "with-knowledge." Sometimes nativized in O.E./M.E. as inwit. Russian also uses a loan-translation, so-vest, "conscience," lit. "with-knowledge."

fine

Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:32

so we're working off different understandings of words. I dont accept your 'divine' definition of conscience, or Trotsky's if you prefer. And 'spirit is simply a metaphor for breath used for religious purposes, which you accuse me of.

I see conscience as what it says etymologically, con(against, as in contra) and science(meaning 'know') from which I reach the human capacity to consider the opposite position to that which we hold to know, and therefore not a fixed presumption of a divine dictatorial conclusion, but like science itself, as manifest, an evolving system of deepening understanding by dialectical development of ideas.Hence I accept your conventional definition of 'ownership' and 'right', but refuse to accept them as the final definitions, on the grounds they are inadequate, and even dangerous in that they legitimise athrophied ideas which facilitate our dispossession of our actual rights of common ownership over private and corporate theft. I hope that clarifies, but keep on arguing if not. But try not to impute beliefs I do not hold.

spurious claims ?

Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:55

These are not spurious claims of ownership , they are real, and so is the 1% - 99% division . The right to own slaves doesn’t exist anymore , but to say – I’m sorry ,to write - as Opus does that there never was a right to own slaves is absurd . The right to ownership of slaves in the southern states of America before the Civil War - or in pre-feudal Ireland for that matter- didn’t rest on the bad ethics of slave owners or on the conviction of slaves that slavery was ethically justified.

Opus D wrote earlier : “You actually believe the 1% owns the sweat of the workers who built their empires. Often through slavery of one description or other.”
They don’t own the sweat , but the 1% do own the surplus value produced by workers , from which capitalists derive all their profits. Their real, non-delusional ownership of this surplus value is enshrined in law and protected by real, non-delusional police forces and armies.

@ Opus. I try not to be abusive when I write . Please don’t take personal offence when none is intended . I quoted from Trotsky’s Their Morals and Ours to show that this discussion isn’t a new one. It wasn’t a new one in Trotsky’s day either .

“A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person's mind that compels that person to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be self-defeating and thus contrary to reason. Later thinkers took the imperative to originate in conscience, as the divine voice speaking through the human spirit. The dictates of conscience are simply right and often resist further justification. Looked at another way, the experience of conscience is the basic experience of encountering the right.”

for starters..

Thu Jan 19, 2012 20:25

..we're not talking, we're writing. The right to own slaves, the right of the rich to rule comes from ...their military might...thats not the ethics of the bully...
and because i dont recognise your messianic trotsky I'm lapsing into religious outlook...is English your first language?

I simply cautioned against granting the 1% their spurious and assumed claims of 'ownership'. Your consent may grant them that ownership, mine is not quite as reflexively to be subducted. You should re-read a little more carefully, not least yourself, before you get abusive.

Your so called 'concrete' is conceptual and abstract. Legalist terminology is not concrete, you deify jargon. There is no right to own slaves, never was, except abstractly and arbitrarily within a cultural framework. If you want to buy into that, go ahead and delude yourself, but you cannot enslave without convincing your target. Nor are you the arbiter of all meaning, this is not a Trotskyist dictatorship, no matter your desires.

and your 1%/99% division is another abstraction, you mistake convenient shorthand for concrete reality and fact. Methinks the ideology occupies your cortex.

might and right

Thu Jan 19, 2012 20:07

We were talking about concrete rights , as in the right of a man to own an acre of land . Thus the right to work for a decent wage , the right to own slaves , the right to education , the right to inherit wealth , the right to a health service etc. These rights have always been won by might . The right the rich have to rule comes from their economic , political and military might , the right of workers to a decent living standard has been won in struggle by their collective might . The might of the ninety nine percent can overcome the might of the one percent . That's not the "ethics of the bully".

The existence of abstract , ethical right that Opus changed the subject to - as in "right versus wrong" is usually postulated either by people who have a religious outlook or else by "petty secular popes [who] speak about eternal moral truths without naming their original source". (Trotsky)

having the police,

Thu Jan 19, 2012 17:22

army and political system on your side dont make you right. Might aint right. Not ethically. Unless you subscribe to the ethics of the bully, again common enough.

I think I noticed it is not pre-feudal Ireland. Its neo-feudal coporate global totalitarian hell-bent EU$$A and its proxy elites. Its unsustainable. Watch and see, its unravelling by the week, its 'leaders' are lost, its governments are bankrupt, in multiple senses, and it is resorting to war on all fronts, including domestic and ecological, in its blind desperation. Your money wont reverse that process. We need post-feudal structures to cope with the age we have created. That my rights, and those of others, are denied by criminals does not obviate them.Or we can join earlier dinosaurs and dodos.

You must be very intelligent if that's the case .

Thu Jan 19, 2012 16:56

This isn't pre-feudal Ireland and you certainly do not have as much right as any other man to an acre of land unless you have enough money to pay for it. . As of this week , Dubliners don't even have the right to a visit from the fire brigade if their house catches fire unless they have 500 euros .

while we're on the subject

Thu Jan 19, 2012 16:13

heres a nice one from that master of illusion-puncture, Eric Blair

'There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.'

I have no illusions..

Thu Jan 19, 2012 15:15

..about batons or bayonettes...but I'll stick with my illusion that I have as much right to an acre as any man, and that the ruses used to facilitate the theft of our common human heritage on a first come first served basis is a falsification of reality derived from feudal conquests elaborated into opportunist laws made by the greedy for their own benefit at the general expense, no matter how many of the thus dispossessed buy into it.

A differnt set of laws would dispel this fundamental LIE of the land. It is not, like gravity, a law of nature. It is a human convention, like religious belief, maintained by obedience to the threat of punitive power.

Nor has it been common to all human societies. Other societies, including the pre-feudal Irish system recognised the commonality of ownership and adjusted stewardship rights to reflect needs at necessary intervals to take account of changing population, clan size, and other factors.

ownership

Thu Jan 19, 2012 14:57

Yes, I do actually believe that a tiny minority owns this huge amount of wealth. It’s no delusion .The batons used to defend this situation aren’t illusions either was the point I was trying to make.

Correction

Thu Jan 19, 2012 14:49

It’s not that 1% owns 99% of the wealth .

In the US “ in 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%. Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%. Financial inequality (total net worth minus the value of one's home)[51] was greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 42.7%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50.3%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%.[52] However, after the Great Recession which started in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 34.6% to 37.1%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 85% to 87.7%. The Great Recession also caused a drop of 36.1% in median household wealth but a drop of only 11.1% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the 1% and the 99%.[52][53][54] During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.[34] This is in stark contrast with surveys of US populations that indicate an "ideal" distribution that is much more equal, and a widespread ignorance of the true income inequality and wealth inequality” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

Perhaps somebody from the OCCUPY movement can give the figures for Ireland .

So Joe

Thu Jan 19, 2012 14:44

You buy into the rights-of-conquest foundations of our economic structure. Thats your choice. I see it as theft.

You actually believe the 1% owns the sweat of the workers who built their empires. Often through slavery of one description or other.

You are in the majority, I accept that. Doesn't mean I agree, or have to.
To me it just means their ancestors had better weapons are were more vicious. If you think that entitles to ownership of all you can grab I'll hardly persuade you to alter your opinion.

I fail to grasp your extension of a legal sophistry to actual material constitution of trucheons. Can you clarify the reasoning?It certainly doesn't represent my logic.

it's all a mirage

Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:53

I daresay the things that look like batons that policemen carry around with them are made of ectoplasm or something like that .

phew , at last some good news

Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:47

So all that business about 1% owning 99% of the wealth is just a delusion . What a relief .

dont buy into..

Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:57

..their delusions of ownership. The planet is our common heritage. At best they are the thieves.

The property of the capitalist class

by Mervyn Crawford

Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:05

Occupation and pickets

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We do live in a world that IS divided into two main hostile camps - the owners of the property (and the state) - the capitalist class; and those that work for the property owners - the working class.

When a section of the wage-earners break with the legal restrictions (of the capitalists) and seize their property, they are implicitly rejecting the legal right of the capitalists to own the property. Implicitly they are stating that this system is unjust, unequal and inefficient ( if it was efficient the gross poverty and want would not exist).

This class action of sections of workers is in direct opposition to the so-called leaders of the working class - the unions and the mulifarious 'Left' parties who at every turn try to trap workers in Grand Old Duke of York protest 'action'.

Furthermore, Irish workers have had centuries of violent street action, and individual terror. And we are still not free of want.

Ref Senza, Vita Cortex, Lagan Brick:

"Taken together, the three disputes show that workers are turning to class struggle methods and are seeking to unite against the unrelenting destruction of jobs, social conditions and living standards. The disputes have drawn support directly from other sections of workers in Ireland and internationally. They also reflect a deepening distrust of the union bureaucracy, whose monopoly over communication between workers has decisively been broken by the use of social media. But this has to be translated into a political break with the trade unions and a turn by the working class towards independent industrial and political struggle." (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/irel-j16.shtml)

OCCUPY Belfast take over city centre bank .

Tue Jan 17, 2012 18:01

Statement from Occupy Belfast

"Occupy Belfast have taken control of the Bank of Ireland on Royal Avenue in opposition to soaring homelessness, lack of affordable social housing and home repossessions.

"We hope today’s announcement will serve to initiate the building of a housing campaign. Building such a campaign will not be easy.

"To do so we need to begin to organise as workers, students and the unemployed in a real and meaningful way in our communities – to become involved in discussing, agreeing on and organising the tactics necessary to build resistance and a better society for all.

"No politician will do it for us. We hope the seizure of the Bank of Ireland will be the place to begin.

"Banks take our houses so we take their buildings. This is a repossession for the community! "

Blogger Slugger O'Toole writes: "On Saturday, Occupy activists entered the disused Bank of Ireland branch on the corner of Royal Avenue and North Street, which was the home of the Belfast Stock Exchange in the days when we still had one… at least until the late 1990s, if my memory is correct.

"They did not make their presence public until just before noon today [Monday], when they unfurled a number of banners from the top floor of the building, quickly attracting a crowd of curious onlookers,
along with the PSNI and, for a brief period, keyholders and the Fire Brigade.

"They could not have picked a better metaphor for their critique of free-market democracy.

"Not only did is it the former home of a stock exchange, it also hosted a branch of an institution that has benefited from the controversial taxpayer-funded rescue package for profligate banks in the Republic.

"This gorgeous building, one of Belfast’s few pieces of art deco, has lain empty at one end of the City’s main shopping thoroughfare for almost half a decade.

"The property developers who bought it in 2007-ish were doubtless working on assumptions about the future of Northern Ireland property prices that have turned out to be grossly unrealistic.

"And so, one of the gateways to the city centre is overlooked by a decaying shell rather than something productive and well looked after. This is indeed a case where the logic of the market flies directly in the face of the common good."
http://vastminority.blogspot.com/2012/01/occupy-belfast....html
Keep up to date with the global insurrection - follow VM on Twitter

contacting TDs

Mon Jan 16, 2012 18:29

"Our aim is to get 4,000 people to email every TD and Senator about this outrage, which will mean about 1,000,000 emails arriving through government servers with a very clear message - THIS IS NOT OUR DEBT."

I don't think that people should be focusing on the government , TDs senators etc . It's up to the 99% to act independently of the political establishment . Isn't that what the Occupy movement is supposed to be about ?

nice link

Mon Jan 16, 2012 18:20

ta 4 dat.

Ali turns 70 today. Appropriate birthday card for the man that said NO.

UUUU

Mon Jan 16, 2012 17:06

Conscripted US soldiers in Vietnam who didnt believe in the 'cause' for which they were expected to die and often had more affinity with the so-called enemy, used to use symbols to help highlight their grieveances.
One of the best was (U U U U).

The UNWILLING, led by the UNQUALIFIED, doing the UNECESSARY, for the UNGRATEFUL.

I think this would be a great symbol for you all, indeed US all.

Don't Pay the UNSECURED Anglo Bondholders #NotOurDebt

by Contact.ie - Contact.ie

Mon Jan 16, 2012 08:54

Well done to #OccupyDameStreet on 100 days of occupation - you're doing great work.

We (Contact.ie) have just launched "Don't Pay the UNSECURED Anglo Bondholders - Part2: Not Our Debt" at www.contact.ie/debt

Other groups around the country, most notably the coalition of groups under the banner of "Debt Justice", will also launch similar campaigns this week. Why this week? Well, because at the end of it UNSECURED and UNGUARANTEED Anglo bondholders are "due" to get paid €1.25bn of your money.

Our aim is to get 4,000 people to email every TD and Senator about this outrage, which will mean about 1,000,000 emails arriving through government servers with a very clear message - THIS IS NOT OUR DEBT.

Please add your name to the campaign here:
www.contact.ie/debt

Please also post it on your Facebook page and tweet it (using the hashtag #NotOurDebt).

Thanks a lot,
Contact.ie

Number of comments per page

Upcoming Events

New Events

Other Press

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

The Saker

Public Inquiry

Human Rights in Ireland

Lockdown Skeptics

#occupydamestreet statement marking 100 days of occupation

Comments (35 of 35)