Occupy Christchurch - The Beginning is Nigh

For a large part of my working life, I stood at a counter or sat at a desk earning (most recently) about 20 bucks an hour. In a lower-middle-class daze, I regularly pondered the reality that the CEO of the same company for which I toiled earned somewhere in the region of 2000 dollars an hour. And something about that just didn’t sit right.

Sure, it has to be said, he’s clearly a lot cleverer than me. He’s done the hard work, studying the right thing at University (business studies as opposed to my now-useless religious studies) and climbing the dog eat dog ladder in the corporate world. It’s those tenacious tendencies that get rewarded financially in this world. And surely one’s income is the most accurate standard by which we should judge our fellow human beings’ total value.

Isn’t it?

When I heard about the Occupy Wall Street movement, something resonated within me. I really had no idea what the details were; I simply heard that a bunch of people were pissed off about corporate “greed” and something long-buried in my psyche said “Right on!” And when I heard about its evolution in New Zealand, I thought I would at least give it a look.

The temptation was to dismiss the “movement” as one more tree-hugging, Greenpeace supporting, weed-smoking, dissent-loving, Leftist leaning commie uni-student special interest pressure group driven by the extreme liberal wimps in this, (in New Zealand) an election year.

But perhaps that might be a bit harsh. As protestor John Campbell (yep, that’s his name – and no relation) says “when you take a movement like this and try to describe it, you limit it.”

It’s all about freedom. Maybe that should be FREEDOM!  “An ethereal concept,” according to Campbell. And that it is. Too big to deal with in one blog entry and how it applies to Occupy.

But our own Occupy movement is encamped in the corner of Hagley Park, opposite the hospital. They are there, according to Robert Read for “as long as it takes.” As long as what takes is a little more vague, however. But the principle on which the protest stands is sound. Something is wrong. As Read correctly points out, you know something is wrong when (sleepy, apathetic New Zealand) stands up to protest.

Freedom Fighters? John Campbell, Jesse, and Robert Read occupy Hagley Park

It is glaringly obvious that the corporatisation of the global economy has left 99% of average Joes out in the cold (literally). Of course, it could be argued (as I have before) that that is how it’s been since the beginning of human endeavour. An elite few have subjugated the masses for their own profit. And those same elite few have manipulated the democratic, or any other political process to cement their positions.

But it can also be argued that never has it been so pervasive. It’s one thing to decry a landlord who dominated a few hundred peasants on a few hectares of land during the middle ages. It’s another thing when a modern international corporation has its fiscal fingers in a million pies including banking, insurance, core local services, and most dangerously government to the point that that same corporation can manipulate politicians and law-makers to satisfy its own greedy intentions, controlling literally millions of people world-wide, forcing them into poverty so its directors can live lives of luxury and excess.

Something is indeed wrong, but that something has always been wrong. Things have been changing in a pattern of social punctuated equilibrium. Is NOW the time for another level of change?

And then there’s the “media”? In the beginning of the Occupy movements there were media blackouts. Robert Read would like to think it’s not true, but just how under the corporate thumb the mainstream media is is blatantly obvious, and it’s certainly not a large step to make correlations between the two. The “media” has abandoned its fourth state ideals and bought into the “greed is good” mantra. Sure, they still crow about their important role in international affairs, and of course they get it right sometimes. But is their bias counter-intuitive? The mainstream media is now as much or more about making money than actually reporting the news (truthfully).

Stuff.co.nz reported 30 people making a stand in Christchurch. THIRTY? What hack reported that? Did they drive past Hagley Park at speed as the event was setting up and do a quick count? Did they not go back later and check out the march on which at least 300 people walked through the Park and down Riccarton Road?

30 indeed! Is that the level of accuracy the media thinks is appropriate for a movement that is determined to bring down its financial friends? Isn’t it then only another small step to suggest a deliberate campaign of misinformation so the public (who generally believes everything they read in the newspaper) underestimates the importance of the movement?

Sure, even 300 is only a very small percentage of the population of Christchurch. But to suggest it was 30 is insulting and not a little disingenuous. The number of toots received while on the march might suggest that there are more supporters in the general population that don’t have the time or the inclination to make a more committed stand, but at least appear to support the principle.

So it’s understood that “the media” is in fact one of the largest global corporations, and it stands to reason it would not want to report truthfully on a movement designed to bring down large global corporations.

So what difference can a rag-tag gathering of dissidents camping out in Hagley Park make? Maybe none. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot.

“I’m looking to events overseas,” says Campbell.

It’s clear that the Occupy movements overseas are getting attention. The media, who love violence and conflict more than truth or human interest cannot ignore the riots in Rome, or, now, the demonstrations in London, New York, San Fransisco, Sydney, Hong Kong or Auckland (even if The Press can largely ignore Occupy Christchurch – until some violence happens or one of the protesters is caught with some weed).

And neither can Campbell.

New Zealand is not immune to the global corporatisation that has a stranglehold on the average Kiwi. Chief protagonists are the banks, and those organisations that hold the global purse strings. Cash flows in abundance for 1% of the population, while the other 99% are faced daily with mortgagee sales, insurance claim bureaucracy (surely we in Christchurch understand that one), unemployment, sky-rocketing food prices, rising energy costs, increased government “levies” (a nice word for taxes), and tightening legislation restricting and/or compromising fundamental freedoms. The rich are getting richer, more often than not on the backs of the poor who are getting poorer.

Exorbitant salaries for the elite few, and massive profits by global organisations that have reneged on their trickle-down promises can only be described as corruption of the worst kind.

And don’t forget just how deeply in the pockets of the corporates are many (most?) western governments. Sure they need corporate money, but at what price? Freedom? Democracy? Truth? Such things matter little to the people who define them (the 1%), but to the 99% they mean everything, and aren’t governments supposed to be of and for everyone, not just their favoured few?

So the rag-tag gathering in Hagley Park that is there “for as long as it takes” is doing us all a service. They are representing every Joe who ever got screwed by the government, an insurance company, a bank, an employer or anybody else with ties to the global plutocracy. Instead of telling them they are not wanted in Christchurch (as many of the commenters on the Stuff article/s have done), we should at least be encouraging them, if not joining them in their community (more on community next post).