Dreary micro shanty town of waterproof cloth, nothing like the vast tents city of St Paul’s or the heart of Rothschild’s boulevard, but does size really matter. when the world’s leading puppet masters driven by our faith alone plays around with the size of figures we can barely begin to comprehend; wither those numbers that flash up on stock exchange even exist is of little relevance, and are tolling up the cost of interventional “liberation” in nations that previously would be considered as lands at the mere foot stool of globalized throne. But digressing aside, not two shits does size matter.
As you’ll will find wandering pass the remnants of the downtrodden; litter built up around the two bins knee high, the unheard voices in a sea of inner city statistics, it would almost be cliché of me to say “your tired, your poor and your huddled masses” but alas the masses that have been victimized by the system and become chronicled icons by the guardian, were but a minimum of twelve; well at less for the occupy Manchester settlement, just off the oxford road tram station in the sheltered park picketed with sizes of various posters reminiscing the following 200 strong public outcry that took place in the town square headed by the north west disability equality; completed with discriminated autistic speakers and the pillaged aged and infirmed who’ve lost considerable pension and social welfare entitlements, and not forgetting a handful Marxist SWP unionists fresh out of university complete with loud halers and Yasser Arafat keffiyeh draped round their necks.
The camp in itself; as I wandered through the midst taking on the form of some self-righteous Attenborough trekking through the fucking concrete jungle, was built of some homeless, to whom on any other day we all would fight the urge to “kick them repeatedly in the face”.. Obviously we don’t, but that what it amounts to once we’ve walked past, ignoring their pleads for change. There was also a few MET students, checkered shirt, skinny jean hipsters; you know the type, and of course where would anti-capitalism be without a few anarchist just to keep the momentum going; as they post updates on Facebook and Reddit about how the many will conquer “the few, the fascists, war criminals and neo-colonial rapists”, but ask yourself… Why not protest? The simplistic answer often told time and time again goes back to the streets of Sidi Bouzid; the origin of the Arab spring, which went on to highlight the corruption that has long been blatantly obvious; that my five year old nephew can sum it up in a single word “greed” not that it needs to trouble him, given that these polar opposite people [occupy Manchester] have felt the compulsion, that thousands of other people prior to them; Wall street, London, Madrid, and around the “Developed” world at various stages of their distain and bitter contempt towards the systems that created the rise and collapse of numbers that supposedly amount to our collective economy; numbers on notes to which we all attribute a specific value, or the back pocket of the few and the ultra-elite maintainers of our “protected” bubble, to whom we simultaneously envy and despise without a single sense of irony. The twelve or more protesters left with their tents a week after they began “occupy MRC”.
This may come across as some form of obituary, or tribute to the fallen or figure heads of the occupy movement and other social shakeups, such as the suicide of 20 year old Mohammed Bouaziz from the Tunisian uprising , injured Iraqi war solider Scott Olsen at occupy Oakland, and the controversial police killing of Mark Duggan triggering the august riots, but I don’t know those people, for all I know they could be people whom may have had terrible character faults, it’s all arbitrary, but I’ll tell you who this could go out to, Lorraine Gonzales USF student resident in the east Oakland projects, Rachel Feldman new school NYC student worker at Detroit rescue mission, and Jerusalem residents, former IDF prisoner and Refusenik Rotem Mor making ends meet as a freelance social commentary tour guide and head chef Ibrahim working 16 shifts at the Abraham hostel; who experienced sharp rise in his rent payments while settlement encroachment occurs in his neighbourhood of Shu’fat, and much closer to home, Jimmy, 35 years homeless on the streets from the age of 17 with his collie Whitney most likely at Bolton infirmary; he had developing sepsis on his left arm, these are the “figure heads” I think when all the ills are mentioned and all the united sentiment is yelled into the crowds; like teachers to emotionally starved primary school kids waving badly written slogans on poster boards, but that all I do, remember.
That being said, upon your own personal self-reflection the “why not?” becomes simply “Why?”, I didn’t protest; as I was busy sorting out my student finance and seriously pondering whether conservation will prevail in the end, I don’t believe you reading right now protested; I hope that I’m wrong but that’s my assumption, all I’ve done is simply come across the few in this northern commercial beacon that have, but behind all the emotional charge banners and bed sheets painted with catchphrases such as “capitalism doesn’t work!”, “condemned to poverty and despair!” and my favourite “abolish money!”; can any of us imagine? Were a Few unwashed protesters and genuine ruff slippers, but what stuck out like sore thumb to me was the sheer number of passers-by, off to work, school, the pub, going in and out the city; if was as if the city and its inhabitants were going on with their day as normal.. wait that’s exactly what happened, nobody gave a shit about the huddle of tents by the tram station; maybe a few minutes of murmuring could be overheard between a few bystanders but that’s about it, the big issues salesmen or the disability equality & SWP protest that same week. Another day this sky rise metropolitan, maybe the nationwide general strike this 30th; aided at bring the war-hungry administration to a mild inconvenience, will be different, though my magic novelty 8 ball”; not to mention some disgruntled socialist student unionist, tells me “outcome is not so good”.
But what reason is there to be fazed by any of that? we all knew from the beginning, how the world was when we first went into that “Toy R Us” in our push chair or parents hand, at a young age and felt that euphoria of getting our hands on that, hot wheels, teddy, Barbie, bike or whatever shiny object took your fancy. This is our “bubble” that we like, where we seek out comfort & wants, and now we need it; nothing bad happens in the bubble as long as we don’t acknowledge there is a bubble, a thundering rat race, or anything fundamentally wrong about it. It keeps us content, “happy” and supported… or so we unquestionably believe, like the domestically abused on valium.
That’s the main thing about faith it holds power to those who have faith, and across the world we see those who’ve lost faith in intuition, the status quo, or “the land of the 1%”; [the elite that is not the protesters], the protesters don’t make up anywhere near 1%; well at least in greater Manchester, let alone the 99% we are continuously bombarded with as potentially being; in terms of solidarity, against our new hate monger, the mortal enemy, those 1% [those bad people] who make insanely more money than we ever could dream of and in doing so commit unspeakable things for the sake of a quick shilling, dollar, yen or euro; stop me if I’m spouting Chomsky like nobody’s business, but there you have that’s what happens in democratic industrial society we go through booms and bust, prosperities and depression, is it ridiculously and dangerously faulty? Absolutely, does it suit our lives to personally attempt any intervention towards it? Not in the least! Until we’ve fallen from the burst bubble; which I’m sure it won’t, probably.
But don’t take my slightly cynical, salvinorin-A analysis for it, as; and here the best part, you have no reason to! for the simple but numerous facts that we are, the sky television watchers, the bread winners, Man united glory hunters, satisfied minimum wagers, the unplanned mothers, the pub crawlers, the naive freshers, the Xbox game raggers, the iPhones fiddlers, the devote theologians, Dawkins groupies, legal high chasers, the shoe gazers, the dub-steppers, bunny huggers, energy wasters, the pretentious travellers… and the countless other identities we seek to become in our frantic “termite colony” style pursuit of fulfilment in our whirlwind existence, so don’t be angry, don’t be depressed, don’t be fritengtened for we are many, we are indifferent and void of any social responsibility.. We are the 98%!
Who follow no other voice but our own, and who are not numbers.
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