London | Fwd: [Dem-Village] We have taken Hyde Park (in some style)

[Mark Barrett]

Please see message below from Mike R about Hyde Park.

Tomorrow Sunday morning there are plans for a big assembly, either Speakers
Corner, Trafalgar or Parliament Square from around 11am. Thanks to Mike, as
there is a now marquee in Hyde Park the location may make most sense... ?

Anyway, wherever it  / they take place, plan was for a place where people
from across the country / London could discuss ideas for future strategy..

With that in mind some key ideas / meetings that might be worth a mention
are:

(1) the general call for *local bottom-up city-wide assembly organising* -
see call out with links at:
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/03/pa-article-in-new-statesman/

(2) the *planned mass public meeting *now being convened for *April 2nd
3pm-6pm at UCL* (by NCAFC and others)  and

(3) the *peoples assembly network meeting* now being convened  for *April
9th 1pm-5pm at Birkbeck*
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/03/help-build-the-people%E2%80%99s-assemblies-network/

For long-term strategic militant 'big society' organising

Mark

Subject: [Dem-Village] We have taken Hyde Park (in some style)

Hyde Park Occupied! We have a big, white marquee and an ever growing number
of tents. 100m south of speakers corner please come down, bring some Jasmine
spirit

Xxxxx

Sent from my iPhone

On 25 Mar 2011, at 18:48, Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com> wrote:

Hi there

I managed to get the following article put up on the New Statesman site, but
they took out all the links I'd put in (see below) and published it at the
end of the day when they promised me it would be up 1st thing (otherwise I
would have given up on them and sent the following around sooner!) plus they
manged to put it up somewhere no-one will ever look with a crappy picture to
boot.

Anyway, it's at
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2011/03/assemblies-across-assemblybut
the fully linked article is set out below.
 <http://www.resist26.org/>

 *What are we Protesting For ?
The Power of the People's Assembly!*

George Monbiot has recently
written<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/06/march-26-protest-aims-first-draft>that
the creative groups mobilising for March 26th need to become
'propositional' and not just oppositional. He is right about this, yet
he misses the main point. For many of us, the fight against austerity is
about far more than merely resisting job losses and reduced services, and
calling for state reform. Fundamentally, it is an opportunity to bring into
being a new political model based on the power of democratic structures, or
what some of us call people's
assemblies<http://www.socialistproject.ca/relay/relay30_gindin.pdf>.
Therefore, our proposition is not to the state, but to our fellow marchers
and the wider public.

To sum it up, here then is our simple manifesto:

(1) We are fighting for a new model of
democracy<https://groups.google.com/group/project2012/web/crd-principles?hl=en>,
and not for mere state reforms
 (2) As was shown with the Iraq invasion, we cannot defeat the cuts with
marches from A to B
(3) We want to go beyond defence of the welfare state and organise to
liberate people. By way of a common politics of constitutional
change<http://www.peopleincommon.org/archive/C421.html>, community
welfare or 'common-fare'<http://www.gemeinwohl-oekonomie.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Common_Welfare_Economy.pdf>
.

(4) These aims cannot be achieved by old political structures such as
parties, unions and sectarian pressure groups.
(5) They can be achieved ONLY through new forms of political
organisation<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/about/>
(6) We are calling these new, common organisational forms People's
Assemblies. PAs are a non-sectarian, strategic organizing tool which, when
joined up have the potential to transform
society<http://www.aworldtowin.net/documents/assemblies.pdf>everywhere.
(7) In Canada the Greater Toronto Workers’
Assembly<http://www.workersassembly.ca/>is building a movement of
trade unionists, workers, students, and social
movements which cuts across the usual sectarian lines. And there are many
other examples worldwide
<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/03/international-examples-of-peoples-assemblies/>of
Popular Assemblies springing up in recent years. It is clear that Assemblies
have the potential to build a movement to peacefully transform the way that
services are owned and run locally and nationally, but also internationally
too.
(8) After the march on Saturday, we should like to see People's Assemblies
spring up in cities and rural locations across the country and further
afield.
(9) During last December's UK student protests, campus-based
assemblies<http://studentassembly.org.uk/>of students and local
anti-cuts campaigners temporarily appeared across the
country, with over 300 in attendance at Cambridge
University<http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/assembly-fight-voldemorts-cuts>and
a regular Student Assembly established in London.
(10) More recently, anti-cuts campaigners occupied  Lambeth Town Hall and
declared themselves to be a People’s
Assembly<http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/23/protesters-occupy-lambeth-hall-cuts?INTCMP=SRCH>
in
solidarity with the movement
(11) At the recent National Educational
Assembly<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/01/national-education-assembly-reports/>and
the European Assembly in Paris last February students and workers
voted
for the formation of campus-based and city-wide assemblies across the UK and
Europe
(12) On March 24th-26th in addition to actions in the UK, there will also be
international demonstrations
<http://www.thecommonseminar.org/kafca/kafca-A4-screen.pdf>against austerity
and the financialisation of human life. Many of these actions have been
organised by Popular Assemblies across Europe and
world-wide<http://www.emancipating-education-for-all.org/SoR_2011>.

(13) After the march this Saturday, we plan to camp the night in Hyde Park
and Trafalgar Square.
(14) On Sunday, we are inviting everyone to participate in a National
Constituent Assembly in Hyde Park, from around 11am to plan future strategy
together, and in particular to commit to building permanent People's
Assemblies in their local communities so that we can begin the process of
democratic revolution here in the UK, Europe and world-wide.
(15)  It is possible to imagine, and collectively build a world in which
everything gets properly looked after through commonly owned and run public
services working alongside the best of the services we already have. This is
our dream, to perfect democracy and the political economy of public service
provision so everyone can live in dignity, and be empowered to shape our
culture together as equals. The key to making this great dream a
reality is the development of new structures, working People's Assemblies
and the embrace of a new local to global politics of the common.
(16) Thomas Paine said it far better than we can: "we have it in our power
to build the world anew"
(17) For more information, have a look at the People's
Assemblies<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/> web-site,
and help us make the Network grow. Better still, join us on Saturday night
and on Sunday morning in the park!
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