Now that there is another storm raging elsewhere with regard to the content of this website and it’s creators, I thought it best to deliver some sort of response to the accusations. While I am attempting to defend the website as a whole, I have to state from the outset that these are my personal views .

Occupymelbourne.net is accused of being  right wing  by the left and left wing by the right. Herein lies a clue: we are close to anarchism on the left-wing spectrum, close to libertarianism on the right-wing spectrum, but we reject fascism  and  neo-liberalism. This would be  obvious if people actually cared to read the 600+ posts that have been made here.

We support  the rights of the individual and that of small communities  over those  of the state or any other violently enforced systems (political, corporate or religious).  the rights of the individual, human rights, are actually a Western concept, but this does not mean we ignore what other societies may have to offer, in Australia this largely refers to the rights of the original people who we support.

Our views on religion and spirituality vary greatly amongst contributing members, Atheism, Christianity, Eastern spirituality and more are all represented. We do not have identical views on topics like moneyless society, climate change, gun control or conspiracies or even Socialism., although most of us agree on a basic anti-corporate stance. If you include the people on the ground, at the Free Kitchen , the same variety of views applies. Some of the persons involved in the Free Kitchen have their own websites and pages, preferring that outlet over contributing on this website and some of them overlap with this website to some extent.

This is what Occupy was meant to be, a leaderless movement with a variety of individual voices.

Some activists have been heavily criticised by us because of their actions, mainly in relation to the hi-jack of media resources early on or who have generally hi-jacked or attempted to hi-jack  or tried to profit from their involvement in the movement. They are only the tip of the iceberg, as we refuse to waste our time with every bully, hypocrite, rapist or paedophile  associated with the movement in the early days.

Early after the inception of this website, invitations were sent out to dozens of former “occupiers”‘ asking for contributions, and they know very well who the request came from, so the names of people involved here  are not really a secret. Our anonymity online is not so much to protect our privacy, but an attempt not to promote our individual egos to the outside world.

Ultimately, we refused to the let Occupy Melbourne die, when others were quite happy  to pronounce it dead because it ceased to  serve their agendas . We believe that the worldwide occupy movement  continues to operate as  it is evolving.