Occupy London, where are you now? The remnants of the group that camped in our Victoria Park pulled a lame little stunt this week while just a couple of kilometres away what they claim to be fighting is spinning out of control.
Electro Motive is a diesel plant that’s been in London about 60 years. 700 or so people work there including a good friend of ours. There have been rumblings and grumblings for quite a while that something was up at the plant. Now as talks between the union and company are at a stalemate, the truth is out. Caterpillar, the plant’s parent company, wants to roll back worker wages and benefits by 50% to match what it pays its workers in Illinois.
Caterpillar made $1.4 billion dollars last year. Its profits rose 44% year over year. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for what it is trying to do in London. None. There is a reason: greed. But it can’t be justified. The union is outraged. The workers expect to be locked out at any moment. At one point this fall, a huge fence was being erected around the building while no one would say a word on the record. That fence has since come down.
Where were the Occupy activists this week? Well, one afternoon they put a couple of pup tents up in parking spots downtown. Parking is currently free at many meters for 2 hours to encourage holiday shopping so they stayed two hours. They pissed off a bunch of merchants and then they left.
Corporate greed is unfolding in front of their eyes and they are doing nothing about it. What’s happening at Electro Motive is what they had claimed their mission was about. Here it is, plain as day, and nary a peep from the protesters. Their movement, at least in London, is a rudderless ship that just passed by its lighthouse without giving it so much as a wave.
and their ship is slowly sinking.
Seems like you have a real “Bee in your bonnet” about Occupy.
Unfortunate. Maybe, you could find a positive here (in the Occupy movement) ? We certainly have.
Jeff I have to ask how you can find no fault whatsoever in the way the movement is carried out. They have not captured the imagination of the public at large and they are fractured and not even following through with what was ostensibly their core message: taking down corporate greed. Certainly you can see there are grey areas here and as good as their intentions may be they are not achieving their goals. It’s not black and white.
I could find many faults but I am not going to spend my time exposing and focusing on them. There are plenty of people that want to be negative and criticize. I choose not to be one of them. I don’t see how blogging negativity helps. It would be fine to focus on the corporate greed angle but I don’t get why you want to use this as an opportunity to take pot shots at the Occupy movement.”They” are not the story here nor should be the focus. I don’t see how this is being constructive in any way. Maybe you would like to get involved to help achieve the goals ?
Lisa, you are bang on. The campers had a chance to protest economic injustice, and they blew it. Instead, they aimed at the wrong target yet again. That’s a hallmark of this group, in London at least. Keep in mind these are the same people who blocked crosswalks and streets downtown, pissing off Londoners and failing to make a coherent statement yet again. They would do well to listen to your suggestions, they could learn a lot. Unfortunately, I see a lot of passion here but it is not focused. This isn’t how you gain support and change the world.
Good for you Lisa – you have my vote. Jeff noted there are plenty of people that want to be negative and criticize and the he chooses not be one of them ….. well seems to me like he is being negative and criticizing you for your right to have your opinion and taking the time to express it. Maybe he should get his own blog.
They are too busy protesting the holidays. I hope things work out for those at EM.
The way I see it, when this movement gains new momentum (and it had better!) we have to know what mistakes were made and learn from them so they are not repeated. If we don’t learn, adapt and improve we’re no better than, well, our government! By pointing out what doesn’t work or is counter-productive, we can improve the effect of the effort and see some positive change.
Bingo!