On the side of the hill, is a natural amphitheatre with a large stone.
Orators would stand on the stone and address the crowd.
That is what democracy looked liked.
The last time we saw democracy, real democracy, was in ancient Greece.
Democracy is not casting your vote at the Polling Station, deciding who will sit in the House of Commons and act for Big Business, it is not deciding who will sit in the council chamber and get in bed with greedy developers, it is direct action, it is participation in the political process every day of the week.
If a progressive movement can gauge the effect it’s having from the response of the State, then the Unions should be ashamed of themselves, and the Occupy movement should be cheering loudly.
Depending on whom you believe, the Unions roused between 50,000 and 100,000 people to march a tiring long course to Hyde Park to listen to the same old speeches from the same list of actors, demanding change but seldom challenging the system.
Policing was hands-off, relatively low key, and generally good-natured.
Meanwhile, globally there is a movement growing that recognises the present system of central banking and corporate power is so out of all public and democratic control, so corrupt, and so destructive that it can’t be ‘changed’ but must be replaced.
Although in the UK the movement appears to be small in numbers, it’s clear it has a growing resonance, and that more and more people are…
They were met by brutal attacks by the police. They managed to hold their ground, but have now been dispersed leaving one man clinging to a statue of Winston Churchill.
Man and statue are now surrounded by fencing and a phalanx of police.
Anyone who tries to pass the man food or water is arrested or threatened with arrest.
For a couple of weeks or more, pro-democracy activists have taken to the streets of Hong Kong demanding open and fair elections. They have faced down police brutality and attacks by thugs orchestrated by the imposed illegitimate chief executive (Hong Kong a business not a democracy).
At the weekend, supporters mounted a rally in solidarity outside Parliament.
With full backing of the political establishment?
Er no, akin to scenes from Hong Kong, police were sent in to brutally break up the rally.
In the face of police brutality, Parliament Square has been held.
And as usual deathly silence from mainstream media.
In the UK we do not have democracy, we have a sham democracy.
We have party apparatchiks who are out of touch with the people, who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives, who are in the pockets of Big Business. The people are reduced to Election fodder, cast your vote every five years then keep quiet.
In Hong Kong, thousands of people are fighting courageously for the right to a real vote. They know that a system where candidates are decided by the state is no democracy.
In Scotland, 45% of people rejected Westminster rule. They know that a system that takes the power to make local decisions out of their hands is no democracy.
Democracy is not just about having a vote every four, now five years. It is about having the power to make your voice heard. It is about people taking the decisions, not corrupt politicians.
A government that answers to profit before people is no democracy.
In the UK today, record numbers of people are homeless, record numbers rely on food banks to feed their families, and record numbers face fuel poverty as energy prices rise eight times faster than wages.
At the same time, inequality is back on the rise, making us one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. The amount we ask businesses to contribute to our social services in tax is set to be the lowest of any of the G20 countries. Tax evasion and avoidance costs the UK £95 billion a year, enough to fund the NHS in England.
Nobody voted to be made homeless, hungry or unemployed. It is clear whose voices are being heard.
Austerity, Shock Doctrine, is not working.
We need to start a movement for real democracy. The voices of the majority have been ignored for too long. We need to give ourselves the tools to hold our politicians to account, and to end the corporate lobbying power that drowns our voices out.
Parliament Square is to be occupied 17-26t October 2014, to begin a fight for a real democracy. There, in the shadow of Nelson Mandela’s statue, we will transform the Square into a civic space where we can re-envision what our society could be like, with talks, workshops, community assemblies, music and theatre.
This is what real democracy was like in Athens. People met on a hillside overlooking the Acropolis. Anyone could speak. They stood on a large stone and addressed the assembled crowd. That large stone is still there. Not the sham democracy in Parliament.
The NHS is being privatised whilst the politicians claim it is safe in their hands.
TTIP is being forced through in secrecy. A trade agreement that is a front to hand more power to global corporations.
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