SHAME DOYLE SHAME
DOYLE’S DAY OF SHAME
A peaceful occupation of a city square by hundreds of people protesting their right to a better, fairer and more just say in the political decision making processes, a movement that began in America with Occupy Wall Street and has spread around the globe in an organic expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo, with austerity measures that hurt the poor whilst executive wages and bonuses continue to escalate, when banks that have abused their position and put the deposits of ordinary people in jeopardy have been bailed out by the wealth of nations, the peoples wealth, the workers wealth, in Australia we call it the Common Wealth, in this climate a small but organised group have set up Occupy Melbourne, making a small tent city in the tiniest of City Squares, a group that has cooperated with the police, has kept the place tidy, has held peaceful demonstrations throughout the past week in a genuinely organic fashion, not driven by ideology, not controlled by any one interest group, a people, young and old, rich and poor, expressing their RIGHT TO PEACEFUL PROTEST, has been forced, mandated by Mayor Doyle, to leave their peaceful occupation of the town square.
HUNDREDS OF POLICE, riot police, mounted police, police with capsicum spray. engaged in a forceful eviction of hundreds of peaceful protestors who simply wanted to stay on the only public ground in the city. The police used excessive force to pull apart the tent city and physically drag away and arrest scores of people.
WHAT DID THIS ACHIEVE?
THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY WANTED.
THE PROTEST REMAINED PEACEFUL BUT TOOK OVER THE STREETS OF MELBOURNE.
THE POLICE HAD NO ANSWER TO THE PEOPLE’S PROTEST.
THIS WAS AUSTRALIA’S TIANNAMEN SQUARE, THE POLICE IN RIOT GEAR FORCED THE PROTESTORS FURTHER ALONG SWANSTON STREET, BUT COULD NOT FORCE US TO LEAVE. INSTEAD THE MOVEMENT GREW. COLONEL GADAFFI WAS DEAD BUT FOR FIVE MINUTES THE ABC BROADCAST NEWS OF THE RALLY BEFORE GOING ONTO THE STORY THAT EVERY OTHER STATION ACROSS THE GLOBE WAS FOLLOWING.
WE MADE A STATEMENT. BUT THE STATEMENT DOES NOT END. IT BEGINS!!!
