From the outset our Campaign has sought to connect the defence of democratic youth work with the wider struggle for democracy across all corners of our lives.  In the spirit of this commitment we offer the following links for argument and inspiration.

After the Lobby of Parliament on Tuesday a number of workers and young people visited the occupation outside St Paul’s, itself an expression of a  world-wide indignation at the excesses of global capitalism. Janet Batsleer commented on Twitter, Choose Youth! lobby with great students and then sat among the peaceable kingdom of tented people at St Paul’s. You can’t kill the spirit!

The occupation has received inevitably its fair share of scorn and criticism from across the political spectrum. The protestors are painted in varying ways as not being serious. On the show, Have I Got News for You, Louise Mensch berated them for revelling in the consumption of capitalist goods, namely lattes at Starbucks.

In more serious vein Frank Furedi, guru of the self-consciously contrary Spiked group, is withering about the Occupy Movement’s lack of objectives or demands, arguing that ‘the occupiers’ claim to speak for ‘the 99%’ exposes how determined they are to avoid hard political debate in favour of cheap moralising’.

Slavo Zizek, the maverick critical theorist, talking about the American Occupy Wall Street development in particular, asks us to dream [he is a psycho-analyst!] and for the moment argues, Occupy first. Demands come later . Critics say the Occupy cause is nebulous. Protesters will need to address what comes next – but beware a debate on enemy turf.

Thanks to Guy Smallman for advance notice of police heavy-handedness.

Meanwhile Occupy London issue demands to democratise the City of London, calling for an end to the Square Mile’s ‘unconstitutional power and influence’.

Much more sympathetic to the Occupy movement is Paul Mason, Economics Editor, BBC Newsnight. In thinking about what’s going on in ‘Occupy’ is a response to economic permafrost’ he speculates:

The impulse, I believe, is being driven by two things: first it is – as I wrote in the 20 reasons – a meme. It is an effective action that is transmitting itself independent of any democratic structures and party political hierarchies: if you camp somewhere, the press turn up and you can get an instant hit of well-being by, however briefly and tenuously, living the dream of a communal, negotiated existence.

Second, because this communal, negotiated, networked life already exists in people’s heads as a result of the rapid adoption of social networks and networked lifestyles. As Manuel Castells, one of the first sociologists of the internet, said: the more autonomous and rebellious a person’s attitudes are, the more they use the internet; the more they use the internet, the more autonomous their lifestyle becomes. Something has been going on between the left earphone and the right earphone of this generation that represents a profound change in attitude.

What is absolutely clear however, is what they are determined to do: it’s much bigger than any single-issue campaign or cause. They mean to limit the power of finance capital and build a more equal society, while rejecting the hierarchical methods of the parties that once claimed to do so. In this sense the movement is a kind of replacement social democracy; a mirror image of the be-suited young people who populate the think tanks of Labour, the SPD, the US Democrats etc.

Occupy Everywhere, then, is the kind of movement you get when people start to believe mainstream politicians have lost their principles, or are trapped by vested interests, or are all crooked.

And to sum up we call on an unexpected source, Andrew Rawnsley, not known for his radicalism, who says,
The protesters seem more adult than politicians and plutocrats. With a few nylon tents and some amateurish banners, the Occupy movement has rattled the establishment.

We’ll leave it there at the moment by asking if these events are kicking off discussions amongst young people and youth workers. And by promising that in the next day or two we’ll pick up on the ethical and political issues raised by the clash between God and Mammon.

Occupy London could be protected by Christian ring of prayer