The protest, largely against corporate greed, had been running in a peaceful and non-violent way for a week.
Interestingly, Melbourne City Square is itself a victim of corporate greed - half of it was sold by Melbourne City Council years ago to developers who built a hotel and shop complex on it, leaving a much smaller portion of it for the public.
Our elected leaders are out of touch with the people. Violence does not solve problems, it creates them. I think the increasing concentration of wealth in our society does not bode well for the future. I also think that the banks who caused the GFC through dodgy and illegal practices were rewarded by taxpayer funded bail-outs provided by politicians - and are continuing on with similar practices.
Things need to change. Protests such as those held by the Occupy movement are valid and part of a vibrant democracy. Quashing them with force is counterproductive and illustrates which politicians and governments are part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
Links
- Occupy Melbourne - Greenlivingpedia
- Occupy Melbourne: eviction - Overland literary journal
- Occupy London protesters set up tent city in the City - CNN.com
Actually Peter I think the City of Melbourne and State Gov were quite patient. With the visit of the Queen, and the feed back from the public about the mess and poor sanitation, it was a wonder that they were left as long as they were.
ReplyDeleteAs for corporate greed, QANTAS is a good example of what the Corporates are trying to avoid. QANTAS will have to dramatically reduce staffing / maintenance costs if they are survive in the future. There is no way they will, in the long term, be able to compete against airlines with much lower costs structure, based in, for example Asia. On our recent o/seas trips we used, Cathy Pacific, Singapore Airlines, and Air Canada, as their fares were hundreds of dollars lower than QANTAS, and each provided excellent service.