The snow has arrived here but the determined protesters of Occupy Leeds are snugly grouped round the City Square Christmas tree, settled in for the long haul.

After John Baron visited the camp earlier this month, we asked for blogs in addition to comments on the thread, and Claire Sapphyck has kindly obliged. She emails:

A while back you wrote a piece on the Leeds Occupation and invited comments and blogs from participants in City Square. I have finally gotten around to putting camp obligations aside for a few hours and written a blog piece. Please feel free to post in your coverage of the Occupation, and do not hesitate to get in touch if I can be of any further help.

Pleasure, and anything similar always welcome, and from any other northern Occupy or related activity, though our Launching Mechanism (me) sometimes needs time to catch up.

Claire's full post is on her blog Cosmic Claire here, but meanwhile some taster extracts:

First the good side:

An immense amount of effort has been invested in creating the camp, and truly heartwarming donations of time and equipment have shown that this public demonstration against the present system and in favour of a radical rethink of priorities and public behaviour has touched the hearts of many.  I'm in mind of those who appear, only to stuff sixty pounds or a single pound coin into the hand of a participant and then vanish into the crowd.  The people who ask what we need and turn up a short while later brandishing the very item  in their hands, whether it be dustpan and brush, sandbags or gas canister refill.

Then the less good reactions but, interestingly, ones which might be changeable:

And then there are those whose only purpose seems to deride the purpose of the camp.  I won't repeat the nihilistic remarks, however the small but persistent minority who engage in this manner have caused me to take pause and consider why they take this position.  On those occasions when I have had the opportunity to enquire further on the reason for their views I have found agreement with our position on corporate / governmental corruption but simply say that it will never change, so what is the point?  
 
Most telling is the feeling that many would like to see us fail, whatever that means, if only to confirm their opinions.  But there is a veiled and cautious respect, because this is something that gets beneath the armoured shell of their media programmed belief systems.

Then a challenge to the media and call for new approaches:

The media doesn't understand what the Occupy movement is about because it can't step outside of its own limiting paradigms.  As Billy Bragg said when he visited the Leeds Occupation, 'This may be an opportunity to go beyond ideology'.  Ideology is simply a straitjacket to evolution and we must break out of it, find new ways to adapt our thought to reality as it presents itself.  We are in new terrain, a continuous flow of corruption scandals have exposed the venality of our political classes; their profiteering from ceaseless wars and the inevitable collapse of the entire system which is happening before our very eyes plays into the hands of the power brokers.
 
This must be overtaken by an evolutionary movement, which, while it may well challenge the existing paradigm at all opportunities, is more essentially characterised by its spirit of expansion of ideas and behaviour beyond the artificial limitations now imposed.  It is by no means clear what social models will develop as the machine topples, but people will need to develop ones which work better, ones which rely more on human relationships than economic ones.

And finally, for here/now, a determination to press on:

This small camp is a fragile gathering of souls, pitted against the aloof granite cliff face of a system which sneers at them in the arrogance of its hubris.  Physically we are weak as we stand before the oncoming winter.  But the news media have paid immense attention for such a small tribe, have laughed and joked at us, but always given some hidden, grudging respect.  This gets under their armoured shell, too.
 
Beneath the media triviality that everything is made into nowadays, there is an integrity in the Occupation that is rare in society today.  People who stand in their truth, are prepared to brave night and day in the face of continuous strangers, the threats of drunk and the unknown night.  This is not people who don't know why they are there, this is people who have the utmost conviction: that our society has come to a point where it needs to change course or else not only the people, but our very planet, is in danger from the wilful rape to which it is being subject by these very faceless corporate plutocrats who enslave us with debt. 

More on Claire's blog via the link above, or here

Claire also sent a link to YouTube videos from Occupy Leeds including this one which is very dark but has clear audio of an Afghan war veteran who called by. It gives a good sense of the discussion and debate which the camp is stimulating - quotes from George Orwell's time as a military policeman in Burma et al, plus exchanges with other passers-by.