Golly. It looks like that fancy pajama party in Davos, has considered the state of the capitalist pig, and found its condition rather alarming.
For decades, this ritzy Swiss resort has hosted an annual celebration of capitalism where luxurious Audis ferry potentates and presidents between lavish hotels so they can bemoan the perils of socialism, high taxes and debt. And yet, this year, the veteran founder and Chairman of the Davos World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, declares that "Capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world around us."
And is so shaken by the situation it's taking a page out of the Occupy movement. Just like Obama did last night.
For all the forced conviviality in the chamber, the most memorable parts of the speech were shaped not by shenanigans in Washington, but by the protests in the streets that have shifted the focus of the nation from debt and government-bashing to the enduring inequalities and inequities in American society.
Because they can see the writing on the wall, and the power of an idea whose time has come. Unlike Stephen Harper.
I visited St James Park the other day, about a month after the Occupy Toronto campsite was torn down. And not even the Christmas lights on the old gazebo, could brighten up the bleakness.
I much preferred it when it was full of gentle dreamers, talking about changing the world.
For long after this horrible year is history, I will always remember how after the horror of Stephen Harper's majority, and the tragedy of Jack Layton's passing, the birth of the Occupy movement made me feel alive again.
In the Great Darkness of Harperland, where so many look on helplessly as a sinister regime sets out to turn us into a prison state, privatize medicare, and sabotage all efforts to try to save the planet, it revived my will to RESIST.
Oh sure, like any other baby movement Occupy Canada has made many mistakes. Like when it tried to close down the port of Vancouver recently, and alienated some of its good friends in the union movement.
But its heart is in the right place. It's right to want to save the world. It's encouraging many young people to get involved in politics.
And in a country suffocating with apathy, this picture still haunts me.
If nothing else, Occupy Toronto has created an infrastructure for resistance at a time when resistance is as necessary as breathing.
And of course I agree with Stephen Lewis.
“We will not recognize the Canada that exists in 2020,” he said, exhorting progressives to do what he suggested Occupy has done: “Grit your teeth and go after these neanderthals and philistines.”
So I decided to put together a little video, with some pictures and videos I took, some pictures from others across the country, and some music from the Canadian folk group The Travellers.
To say thank you to Occupy Canada. For keeping my hopes for a kinder, gentler, better world alive. For saying Harperland is not Canada. This land is OUR land.
Uh oh. I mean oink oink. I see the unrepentant capitalist pig just can't help itself. Stuffing itself with human misery. While the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
A new report finds that the gap between the rich and the poor just keeps getting wider in Canada.
So much for the Con plan to cut government jobs, drive down wages, reduce benefits by attacking unions, while giving the rich juicy tax breaks.
I see that Kalle Lasn, one of the Canadian instigators of the Occupy Wall Street movement, laments the way things turned out in Canada.
While protesters from Halifax to Vancouver emulated their global counterparts by pitching tents in public spaces and brainstorming ways to challenge the status quo, Lasn said the efforts he witnessed lacked some of the passion that characterized rallies in the United States.
I don't question Lasn's good intentions, but it all sounds a bit hollow. Firstly, since he only visited the campsite in Vancouver his views of the Canadian movement are obviously extremely limited. Secondly, since he came up with the idea of occupying campsites, and providing free food and shelter, in cities full of homeless people, street kids, drug abusers, and the mentally ill, like Vancouver, he should take some blame for what happened.
Twenty four hours after this little campsite was demolished, I see that Margaret Wente couldn't restrain herself from going down to St James Park, squatting on all fours, and delivering this dreary dump.
Despite the current circumstances, every single protester in North America is pretty well guaranteed a comfortable middle-class existence – so long as he or she can manage to finish school, show up for work and avoid excessive substance abuse – in a functioning democracy with the rule of law.
Right. Just remember which end of her it came from eh?
But of course she wasn't the only one. Who can forget the Progressive Bloggers who called the occupiers "degenerates" and "rabid animals?" Or all those other angry old people who screamed that the baby movement should be strangled in its cradle.
I visited the Occupy Toronto campsite on my way back from work today, and it was a sad and desolate sight. Exhausted street kids tearing down their tents, as an icy wind blew the dead leaves around them.
The demolished kitchen that once fed hundreds of people a day, now only feeding the sparrows.
I'm going to miss the Occupy Toronto campsite, this colourful little progressive utopia in the heart of a cold grey city. For by tomorrow night it will almost surely be destroyed.
I'm going to miss the endless discussions about how to change the world and make it a better place. I'm going to miss the amazing collection of gentle idealists and activists who kept it running, so long and so peacefully.
It's going to be a cold night at the Occupy Toronto campsite, as the clock on the church that has refused the occupiers sanctuary, counts down the hours before they are evicted.
Because you don't have to ask yourself what would Jesus do eh? Or be a weatherman, to know that a cold wind is blowing.
Not only is the hanging judge in fine fettle, the right-wing rabble is in a frigging frenzy, some neighbours are outraged their dogs don't have enough room in the park to shit, and some old lefties are comparing the Occupy movement to Jonestown.
All over North America the assault on the Occupy campsites continues. From New York City, to Regina, to Vancouver.
And in Toronto the Con tool Tasha Kheiriddin, can barely contain herself.
The Occupy movement has had two months to develop a coherent message, engage broad public sympathy, or begin its transition to a political movement. It has done none of the above, remaining instead an incoherent voice grating on the nerves of the very 99% it claims to represent. It targets big business, but hurts small business; it claims a right to public spaces, but sees fit to trash them; it claims to want to influence politics, but has not morphed into the “Tea Party of the left” many expected it to become. Sorry, Occupiers, but the mayors are right. It is time to pack up the tents.
Too stupid to realize that by demolishing the camps the corporate porkers are only doing us a favour.
This sign in the Occupy Toronto campsite still stands defiantly. But of course the occupiers will be moved eventually. Because the power has the police. Just not tonight.
Occupy Toronto protesters will not be evicted tonight following a last-minute court injunction against the city’s plans to forcibly remove them...Full arguments for and against eviction will be heard Friday, with a decision delivered on Saturday.
Which is great eh? Because I can't make it down to the camp tonight, but I sure will be there on Saturday. And so will thousands of others.
In the meantime, everyone should know this: the reason The Power, and the Pig Mayor, want to evict Occupy Toronto has nothing to do with claims that it is damaging businesses in the area, or that the camp is dirty, or that the city can't winterize the sprinkler system, or that nearby residents can't use the park, or walk their dogs in it.
By the time I made it down to the Occupy Toronto campsite this weekend it was getting dark. There seemed to be more tents than ever, but although they were celebrating their one-month anniversary, the mood was definitely subdued.
Maybe it's because they can see the writing on the wall.
Maybe it's because many of the 500 or so occupiers are poorer and more desperate than the ones at the beginning.
You can see it in the hungry faces of the people getting something to eat at the food tent...
I haven't been able to visit the Occupy Toronto campsite in the last two days. But I have spent quite a bit of time wondering why so many Canadians seem to hate the occupiers so much? And I mean HATE.
Because this isn't just manufactured bile, this is visceral.
A leaderless movement that initially attracted a disparate collection of well-meaning activists along with just plain folk was ultimately hijacked by a hoi polloi with questionable ambitions.
The rabble that rose each morning from their tents headed off to attend meetings intended to build the infrastructure of some kind of fairy-tale parallel society. Before our eyes, an anarchist collective was drafting a set of demands; the terms, apparently, of any kind of surrender.
Now the Occupy movement is dying. And not a lot of people seem to care
I see that London, Ontario, has become the first Canadian city to evict its Occupy protesters.
And that others are gearing up to do the same thing.
As news spread of what happened in London, Toronto's mayor said it was time Occupy protesters in his city left their encampment in a downtown park.
And although I'm disappointed, I'm not surprised. Canada is an aging, conservative country, where an authoritarian regime is making a mockery out of our Parliamentary democracy. And most people couldn't give a damn.
Nor am I surprised that our Con media has been attacking the peaceful Occupy movement like a pack of rabid hyenas, to stroke their corporate masters.
But what does surprise and shock me is the way some Progressive Bloggers have been attacking the protesters. Calling them degenerates.
I see the Mayor of Vancouver is using a tragic drug overdose to justify evicting the city's Occupy protesters.
"I have directed the city manager to expedite the appropriate steps to end the encampment as soon as possible with a safe resolution being absolutely critical to that," Mayor Gregor Robertson said Saturday night.
Even though everyone knows that a similar death could happen anywhere in Vancouver. In any other park, in a cheap hotel, in a squalid alley. Because it happens ALL the time.
And everyone knows that excuses are a dime a dozen, when every Mayor has a different reason, but the same goal : It's time to clear those "undesirables" out of OUR public spaces, and if the Canadian winter won't do it, we will
Uh oh. I see that Eurozone leaders don't like George Papandreou's idea for a shit kebab referendum.
The leaders of Germany and France told Greece on Wednesday it would not receive another cent in European aid until it decides whether it wants to stay in the euro zone.
And that he has been spanked by the Iron Frau Angela Merkel.
When I wandered through the Occupy Toronto campground today it was quiet, like most places in the city on a lazy, chilly, Sunday afternoon.
But there were more tents than ever. The food tent was busy...
So were the sign painters...
Even on a lazy Sunday, the little community was humming like a bee hive. There may be divisions.
The question of trade-offs with authority keeps arising as an irritant. I was a little antsy Monday night when some speakers wanted to ignore the Parks Department’s request to remove the straw now covering the ground to keep the mud down. “If we allow ourselves to live with bureaucratic bullshit and this petty tin-pot dictatorship,” the demands will keep on coming, was one comment in a line of similar others.
But they are being talked out, the protests remain peaceful, the camp is clean (apart from all that straw) and superbly organized...
(click pic to enlarge)
It still looks a lot like Woodstock to me, a wonderful little progressive oasis, in the heart of a cold, grim, Money City. And its small band of mostly young and poor inhabitants seem so innocent about the beast they are facing, I fear for their hopes and even their lives.
But their numbers are growing. For every one of them there are 50-thousand sympathizers. And together with all the other occupiers all over the world, they are making a difference.
Two weeks — or six weeks, in the case of the original Wall Street occupation — does not a movement make, but there is no doubt the Occupy campers have already made a difference.
Not to the extent that the ubiquitous Michael Moore claimed in a rallying speech to the Oakland protesters Friday, when he claimed the protesters have killed despair and apathy in his country.
Apathy is a tougher foe than that.
But Moore was right when he said the protest camps have already altered the public discussion.
Even if to me that discussion sometimes seems too slow, too vague, and too scattered....
At the Gazebo today this guy was rambling on about the glories of the sixties, and how they were for peace, and against the "neutrino bomb." And how the media should belong to the people, and why we didn't need the pharmaceutical industry because we had herbal remedies the natives used before the white people came to Canada.
But the only applause he got from the crowd, which included quite a few homeless people and street kids, was when he said he didn't like to use the word homeless because "we are all nomads."
Which is when I wandered away.
But then I'm an impatient guy. I have no time for the mindless babble of pompous poobahs or street prophets. I hate every minute of every day I have to live in Harper's Canada. I want to see a simpler message. I want to channel all this energy into a drive for political power. I want to start changing the world TOMORROW.
So although I'm glad the unions are going to give the occupiers special tents to help keep them warm in winter.
I wish they could also send in organizers to help them focus their message sooner rather than later.
The occupiers however, have other ideas. They don't want to be packaged, or co-opted, or rushed. They seem determined to get there, THEIR way, and in THEIR own time.
This it appears will be a peaceful and PATIENT revolution...
And who's to say they're wrong? Not me.
Not when in just two weeks they have started a whole new debate in this country. Not when they are using campgrounds as an incubator of new ideas, engaging the young, the old, the poor, and the marginalized, many for the first time. Not when they are taking their protest to the streets. In a country as smug and complacent and democratically lazy as this one.
So what now ? I guess I'm going to have to wait and see. Damn.
But what I can say is that whatever is happening, may not be happening fast enough for me. But something new and different is definitely happening.
