At last night’s General Assembly, the following Statement of Purpose was agreed…
At last night’s General Assembly, the following Statement of Purpose was agreed on by consensus. Until now we had only issued a Statement of Solidarity which was a re-statement of what had been put out by Occupy London. While that had served us well we felt it was time to issue our own.
Occupy Bristol Statement of Purpose
Our current economic and political systems serve the interests of a tiny minority over the interests of the rest of the population.
We are here as part of a global movement to peacefully make our voices heard about the problems with these systems and to provide a space for people to come together to discuss how to change them for the better.
We welcome all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
Successive governments have too often been influenced by and acted to serve the interests of those that benefit most from our economic system. We want to see a democratic system that serves the interests of everyone, and hope to demonstrate an alternative by organising ourselves using participatory decision making.
We believe that our economic system has a detrimental effect on the well-being of the population and we reject GDP as a useful measure of our nation’s success.
Our economic system requires perpetual growth in order to remain stable. This in turn requires the production of ever more goods. On a planet with finite resources this is impossible.
We need to find a way to use the world’s resources as efficiently as possible to prioritise people and the planet over profit, and to co-exist with the rest of the natural world in order that the planet remains habitable for future generations.
The rights of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the right to privacy are being gradually eroded by changes to the law and increasing surveillance. We wish to see this process reversed and oppose any further attempt to diminish our freedoms. We support the right of all peaceful protests.
We believe that everyone has the right to a basic standard of living and that in a country as wealthy as ours this should be easily achievable.
We believe in a free press with effective right of reply.
We believe in the right to a fair trial regardless of your financial resources, and strongly oppose government cuts to Legal Aid.
Join us and make your voice heard, this is just the beginning.
This statement may be subject to revision, the latest version will be on our website at:http://www.occupybristoluk.org/statement-of-purpose/
Why we’re here |
www.occupybristoluk.org