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Sheffield Cathedral, Barclays, HSBC

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In his letter of 5 December 2011, Peter Bradley of Sheffield Cathedral wrote about the 'inconvenience' caused by Occupy Sheffield to named institutions, among them Barclays Bank and HSBC. In the context of countless press reports detailing Barclays' involvement in money laundering, market manipulation, rate fixing and massive tax avoidance, together with recent revelations detailing the breathtaking scandal of HSBC and their tax evasion racket, I wonder if anyone at Sheffield Cathedral might care to comment?

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Guess that's a no then :hihi::hihi:

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Former Barclays traders jailed

 

'Lisa Osofsky, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said: "These men deliberately undermined the integrity of the financial system to line their pockets and advance the interests of their employers.'

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47779993

 

Sheffield Cathedral apologised to Barclays Bank for the inconvenience caused by Occupy Sheffield and their camp, which was a quarter of a mile away from their Sheffield Branch. Cynical, partisan, revealing? I think so!

 

Justice then? Very partial justice, and a long time coming.

 

But note: Sheffield Cathedral remains unapologetic for siding with wealth, power and criminality and against the common good.

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Curiously enough, I have yet to see any kind of public apology or acceptance of wrong doing from the occupy sheffield mob for illegally invading and taking over the sheffield cathedral forecourt, disrupting at least one service, probably more, causing the cathedral financial losses as well as the intimidation of members of the general public attempting to go about their lawful business.

 

As for your expectation of comment from Sheffield Cathedral, did you write to them asking for an explanation or did you just hope that Peter Bradley would pop by Sheffield Forum and think, tell you what, despite this not being an official request for information, i will lay myself open to abuse, just for the laugh??

 

In fact, are you expecting him to pop by now, 4 years after the event???

 

My views are my own and are not representative of Occupy Sheffield, Sheffield Cathedral, Barcleys Bank, Sheffield Council, Sheffield Supertram or Uncle Tom Cobbly and all.

 

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What a strange idea. I don't expect peter Bradley to do anything. He successfully used his privileged position to attack the few people who sought to draw attention to the vicious, criminal practices of finance capital.

 

The Occupy movement understood an important fact, that it's no good having a march or spend an afternoon on a demonstration. They knew that they had to maintain an enduring presence. And that is why it was attacked, with violence in the precincts of St Paul's and with cynical legal tactics at Sheffield Cathedral.

 

Bradley's sneering letter exposed his hypocrisy - defending the rich and powerful even as they lay waste to our world. The urgent debate that Occupy sought to begin is not over yet. After nine years of ideologically motivated austerity the North of England has been drained of capital, it's public institutions left exhausted or corrupted by private interests, while the resulting social despair has opened the door to the authoritarian threat manifested by the likes of Jacob Rees Mogg, Arron Banks and Mark Francois. Sheffield Cathedral would like us to believe that Christ is represented in its presence and its mission. Yet there is nothing of the spirit of Jesus in their institution or their conduct.

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calm down lad, you will give thissen a heart attack!!!  Anyone got an umbrella?, i can feel the ranting spittle from here!!!

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Oh what a jolly wheeze eh? What fun, what a lark. But not really. In fact not at all!

 

Sheffield Cathedral was presented with a unique opportunity to support Occupy, to make its resources available to their movement, to facilitate the urgent debate that Occupy represented. Instead the institution demonstrated contempt, and employed cynical legal strategies to destroy the movement. And it did do with the overt interests of finance capital as its motivation, which was clearly signalled by Bradley's craven epistle.

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Ahh, Camp Casper.  How we all remember that farce, organised by Tedious Tarquin and his life long faith partner Pointless Petunia.  An event so much of a jolly wheeze that we were expecting the Famous Five and the Secret Seven to turn up anytime!  A protest supposedly against the banks, so they squatted a wannabe shanty town on the forecourt of that well known bank, Sheffield Cathedral.  When asked why they hadnt camped outside an actual bank the brave determined band of stop at nothing "protesters" said, "well we dont want to get arrested do we?"  So dedicated were these middle class losers that as soon as it got a bit chilly they went off home to their nice warm centrally heated beds, paid for by these very same banks, leaving the tents empty at night to protest on their own.  The camp was soon taken over by the homeless and drinkers so at least some good came out of it for a while.  Still no determined protests against the banks mind, that might have got them in trouble and how could they show their faces down the golf club after that?

 

I presume that these bored paper warriors went on later to protest about trees in middle class streets

 

You ask why the Cathedral didnt support them, well perhaps if they had actually ASKED, instead of invading private property they might well have had some support.  But no, lets not let common sense get in the way of a rant against someone who you yourself have said you dont expect to defend himself.

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Occupy were resource poor, but they disrupted their own lives in selfless service to the common good, enduring scorn and abuse, and put themselves at risk. They found a peaceful and open way to draw attention to the corruption of neoliberal politics and the financial scandal that ordinary people were paying for with their jobs, their savings, and the services that have been lost to them. All factors that one would have expected followers of Jesus to embrace. Sheffield Cathedral failed so to do. Their established position, their wealth, their privilege came first, before the basic needs of ordinary people, here in the UK, and across the globe.

 

Bradley is unlikely to answer for any of the harms he or his friends in finance capital have done, not because he is defenceless but because he (like they) simply refuses to be held accountable. It's a standard policy for the wealthy and powerful self-enrichers that strode the neoliberal stage.

 

Now that neoliberalism has collapsed and even more sinister forces are taking advantage of the political vacuum, wealthy self-aggrandisers like Bradley will be insulated from much of the devastation that today threatens ordinary people. Neoliberalism effectively dissolved democracy, the very notion that Occupy sought to champion, and opened the door to the likes of Farage and Francois.

Now that we begin to see these even more vicious forced at work we should honour the selfless dedication of those who committed their efforts and  energies in an attempt to mobilise some resistance, to alert people of the horrors that austerity unleashed, and that the coming authoritarian move  shall only inflate. Sheffield Cathedral had a chance to do the right thing, but ease and sleaze prevailed. That is hypocrisy, a moral dereliction, and it is a disaster for the people of their diocese. 

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Well, obviously you like spouting off about things that you know are not going to get an answer from the people concerned without enquiring as to all of the facts.  So, tell you what, write all that down in a proper letter, mail it to the cathedral and if you get a response let us know. 

 

On the other hand, you can continue to be a keyboard warrior happy to spout rubbish, safe in the knowledge that the people you are attacking are unlikely to defend themselves.  I bet you feel SO proud that you have now showed it to the man :)  How many points does that get you down the local?  Perhaps you might actually believe it yourself, or are you merely repeating the words of some manifesto parrot fashion?

 

Actually, I am not interested

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Some people are clearly not interested, but we all have an interest, and that interest is not being defended by those elected to govern. We have a prime minister who is clearly inadequate to the task and an opposition leader who seems incapable of opposing.

 

Today the UK is in crisis. Law and order has broken down, the police depleted beyond the capacity to function, the courts failing, probation and preventative services hollowed out, privatised and wholly inadequate to the demands of their remits, the prisons in chaos. Schools and hospitals are struggling on as best they can thanks alone to the selfless work of their dedicated staff, even as the privatisers and profit-seekers circle. Council functions are now in the hands of private interests, that is why tree-felling came before the basic needs of people with care needs or disabilities. Students face decades of debt, our children cannot hope to buy a house, we have delivered the young into the hands of the loan-mongers and landlords.

 

Occupy saw these forces looming and sought to draw our attention to the criminal and corrupt practices of the CEOs and politicians as revealed in the financial scandal of 2007/8 and the public-funded bailouts that followed.

 

Unfortunately we didn't listen, and it's taken Cameron's hopelessly miscalculated EU referendum to shine some light on the inadequate, grasping, venal character of the government. But too late. The hard right is preparing to clean up. And if we pause to consider the character of individuals such as Rees Mogg, Farage and Francois we are unlikely to discern any compassion, we shall detect no concern for the vulnerable, the poor, the sick or the low-paid worker except, of course, as scapegoats.

Edited by Staunton

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