For the times they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon

For the wheel's still in spin

And there's no tellin' who

That it's namin'

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin'.

"In Madrid, tens of thousands thronged the Puerta del Sol square shouting "Hands up! This is a robbery!". In Santiago, 25,000 Chileans processed through the city, pausing outside the presidential palace to hurl insults at the country's billionaire president. In Frankfurt, more than 5,000 people amassed outside the European Central Bank, in scenes echoed in 50 towns and cities across Germany, from Berlin to Stuttgart. Sixty thousand people gathered in Barcelona, 100 in Manila, 3,000 in Auckland, 200 in Kuala Lumpur, 1,000 in Tel Aviv, 4,000 in London.

A month to the day after 1,000 people first processed to Wall St to express their outrage at corporate greed and social inequality, campaigners are reflecting on a weekend which has seen a relatively modest demonstration in New York swell into a truly global howl of protest.

The so-called Occupy campaign may have hoped, at its launch, to inspire similar action elsewhere, but few can have foreseen that within four weeks, more than 900 cities around the world would host co-ordinated protests directly or loosely affiliated to the Occupy cause. 

For a map of the Occupy camps see http://gu.com/p/32y37

www.guardian.co.uk

Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside

And it is ragin'

It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin'.

"From a distance it has seemed that Occupy Wall Street has lacked focus, throwing a lot of ideas and problems together in one pot without a clear idea of what outcomes were wanted.


On the spot we found an amazing energy. They now have their own newspaper. They have a general meeting where everyone can express ideas and suggestions. We also saw things not shown on TV, such as a big free food area and an office area in the middle of the park. I saw a variety of influences. There was material there from the anarchists and socialists, but it seems that the vast majority had their own personal anger at the way that people have been treated by an increasingly centralized, wealthy, and powerful elite."

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Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'.

"In their stand against mammon, protesters occupying St Paul's churchyard to vent anger at reckless bankers found heartwarming support emanating from the house of God.

Far from requesting that the 300-strong crowd be removed from the cathedral steps on Sunday , the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, canon chancellor of St Paul's, requested that the police themselves move on as the Occupy London Stock Exchange protest entered its second day."          www. guardian.co.uk

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'.

Bob Dylan - The Times they Are A-Changin'

What are your feelings on this? How important could this be, in your opinion, in shifting our world focus, in shifting how capitalism is done? Any coincidence that we're approaching 2012?  Why has it taken so long to happen - we're three years since the 2008 economic crash?


Could this be the Western world's 'Arab Spring'? Can you feel the energy rising, a desire for change? Or is it just a few anarchists and anti-capitalists rattling cages? Are you getting involved in one in your local area?