Uh oh. Hold the onion rings. It looks as if the backlash against Facebook has begun. Making an onion ring more "popular" than Stephen Harper implies that a) you have too much time on your hands, and or b) you can make people do almost anything on Facebook regardless of how trite, meaningless and time-wasting it is. Onion ring popularity is the activist's version of Farmville. Pardon me for believing that everything on Facebook is an onion ring contest and nothing is really serious. Oh boy. That is serious. Especially since I LOVE onion rings. Mmmmmm. And disappointing. Because although my view of Facebook is somewhat similar to this one.
I do have to say this: The Facebook Army has done MORE to mobilize progressive Canadians, and put a big dent in the side of the Harper dictatorship, than anything or anybody has done in more than FOUR years.
And nowhere is it written that you can't organize a popular revolt, encourage young people to join in the political process, and still have fun. Especially in a country that's dying of apathy, tiredness, and BOREDOM. And nowhere does it say that you can't use an onion ring to ridicule Stephen Harper, like the Cons used ridicule to DESTROY Stephane Dion. Which is why I believe that all progressives, young and old, should respect each other, and concentrate on uniting our forces. Instead of fighting each other, and doing the same old, tired, boring thing over and over again, and getting NOWHERE. And I'd rather concentrate on the next step in the struggle. The not so secret democracy mission...or the 31 days of action.
Because ANYTHING that helps topple the tyrant is good enough for me. So don't be discouraged Facebook Army. You're doing great. Just hoist the onion ring high eh? Because darn it I'm HUNGRY !!!! For victory. And hey hey, ho ho, the struggle CONTINUES...
Golly. I sure hope Stephen Harper decided to play the piano last night rather than watch TV. So he couldn't see all those Canadians telling him exactly what they thought of him. Because I saw Great Strategic Genius Desperate Leader on TV yesterday morning, and he looked awful. Poor tin pot despot. I blame it on those fifteen points he lost in fifteen days. That's enough to make ANYONE look like a drunk or a junkie eh? So I can only imagine what he'll look like if he sees those pictures or reads this. In ten years working on Parliament Hill, I’ve had a front-row seat to all kinds of mass gatherings and rarely do you see one this co-ordinated, this large and this unified. It takes a lot to make Canadians take to the streets in numbers worth noting. Never before has Facebook filled Canada’s streets. It did today. Friends and families reached out to one another to voice their collective disgust at a system that allows the Prime Minister to silence the voice of debate in the House of Commons on a whim. Not too pretty I imagine. And with good reason. Because it's not just the number of Canadians who turned out in the middle of winter that was so amazing. It was the extraordinary mix of young and old, and above all the PASSION. Even in Toronto. I know because I was there.
And the energy was INCREDIBLE...
Gawd it was fun. To march down the street with a Raging Grannie, singing my absolutely favourite song. Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Stephen Harper has GOT to go !!! In fact too much fun. I was planning to make a fancy music video eh? But then I made the mistake of mixing revolution and pleasure. So all I could do was splice some clips together. *hic*
Still isn't the sound of raw democracy WONDERFUL? And out of this great start will come even greater things.
Congratulations everybody. You were all magnificent. Today we march. Tomorrow we organize. Then we vote.
Can you believe the timing? Tomorrow's rallies for democracy will take place on the fourth anniversary of the day Stephen Harper and his Cons came to power. He promised to change Canada beyond recognition. And boy did he ever. "Here's the verdict: We're less prosperous, less respected, less fair and we're less democratic. That's Stephen Harper's record." Once we were peacekeepers and humanitarians. Now we're torture freaks and planet burners. Now this sinister political thug is getting to use his reckless deficit as an excuse, to stab and slash away at government services and Canadian institutions, until the knife scrapes the bone.
Mr. Harper said yesterday Ottawa doesn't plan significant cuts to transfers, although he seemed to leave the door open to smaller trims. “We are not looking at the kind of deep cuts in program transfers we saw by the previous [Liberal] government.”
Last week he was promising NOT to cut transfer payments. Now he says he will.
Bye bye lower tuition fees, bye bye medicare. The young have no future, just a lifetime of low paying jobs. The old will die in hospitals being served watery soup and toast for supper, and using catheters ripped out of corpses. But then we've changed too.
Four years of HarperCon rule have made us a nastier, meaner, greedier society. And much much more AMERIKAN. So while I always try to inspire hope in others, I have to admit that I've been slowly losing it myself.
Which is why for me tomorrow's rallies are so important. A last chance to show that democracy counts. A last chance to keep hope alive. A last chance to show that the Canada we love isn't dead yet.
Which is why I made slightly different version of a video I first ran last night...
As long as there is resistance there is hope. Tomorrow let's make our voices heard. We want Canada to be Canada eh? Down with the AmeriCons and their crazy leader.
