In hindsight, I can gladly admit that my original reaction to the first day of Occupy Melbourne was wrong. As a left-wing cynic, weary from years fighting alongside the fragments of an old and obsolete reactionary left, I noted the usual suspects and assumed too quickly that these dogmatic, semi-cultish organisations would try to succeed […]

While protesters in Oakland, Portland, Boston, New York and cities throughout the US faced riot police with tear gas canisters, their comrades in Los Angeles enjoyed a much cosier relationship with the city and its police. From the very beginning, organisers of Occupy LA made a decision to work closely with the city government and […]

When I ran away from activism to be a writer about ten years ago, I did so with a degree of guilt. I was in need of consolation, and the imagination has always been my strongest fortress, my best escape. I felt exhausted by the anti-globalisation and squatting movements I was intensely involved in, bruised by the mode of pressing bodies against barricades, fighting for inches of territory.

God Without Borders: an address to the ‘owners’ of St Paul’s… St Paul’s, we will Not let words fail On your threshold, Nor world be sold Off to the rich Who will entrench In their towers Of selfish prayers. Witness the tents, See homelessness, Mark ‘industry’ In community! St Paul’s, we will Not let words […]