PROCLAMATION OF PUBLIC GATHERING AT CITY SQUARE: OCCUPY MELBOURNE

Editor’s note – I scrounged this off a clipboard at the #occupymelbourne protest site earlier today. Any typos are probably mine, and I’ve attached the original images for comparison.

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PROCLAMATION OF PUBLIC GATHERING AT CITY SQUARE: OCCUPY MELBOURNE

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We gather here so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world, from all walks of life, can know that we are here to help, and here to make a tangible change.
We are not here to disrupt, we are here to protect our rights as a democratic country.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our most basic rights, and upon corruption of the system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and of those of their neighbours; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, and corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justive and oppression over equality, run our governments.
Our communal spirit has been bruised, crushed and battered over and over again through generations of legal disconnectedness, by way of a rampant free market system gone mad.

We have peacefully assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

Even now, some local media outlets have chosen to outwardly slander our cause, by sending a clear image to the public that we are not here for any of the above to change, and are a rampant, misguided group, with no action due to the complexity of issues we are opposing.

Even this revelation in itself, is a clear example of the dramatisation the media is forging, to reflect our true cause as bogus and unjustified, when in fact, their own entrenchment within the free market system, entails them to sell a story, not tell a story.

So here is the story here at ground zero.

So far, we have fed hundreds of people in need of food, every single day we have been here.

So far, we have clothed, sheltered, and supported those stricken with inequality, 24 hours a day, in what is meant to be one of the most liveable cities in the world.

So far, as a whole, we have given all these things mentioned above freely, without multi-million dollar budgets, purely by donation, in the name of true democracy and true communal spirit.

So far, we have not had ONE single arrest, one single act of violence, or one single clash with the police.

So far we have given a public space to the voice of the people, given the known nature of our current corrupt democratic system.

Yet some media outlets STILL paint us as a menace to local business and council.

We will not be bullied into losing our rights to gather and publicly protest in city square.

Not when the good we are doing, and the permanent impact this could create for countries all over the world, clearly outweighs any temporary negative effects of inconvenience.

We urge you to help us assert the power we have, to bring back this necessity of empathy, peace and equality to a tangible solution towards society and community here in Melbourne.

The time is now to reach out and give a helping hand.