I remember seeing a lot of signs like those during the heady days of the Occupy movement.
Back in the days when everything seemed possible, and it looked like the beginning of a revolution.
But of course it didn't happen, the movement was brutally put down, and seemed to fade away. Even as the rich grew richer, and the poor grew poorer.
But you can't kill an idea or a movement whose time has come.
And the Occupy dreamers were right, capitalism doesn't work.
It's been almost a year since the Occupy Wall Street movement was born, and in this very gloomy article Gerald Caplan wonders where it went.
It flashed through our lives like a comet in the sky, illuminating the most insidious development of our time. Then just as suddenly it flamed out and died. Or at least disappeared. Having made headlines around the world, having made the phenomenon of unprecedented inequality a major issue, having popularized the concept of the 1 per cent versus the 99 per cent – after all these triumphs, the Occupy Movement is playing no perceptible role in any of the big events that now affect our lives.
It was such an awesome sight. Tens of thousands of people marching through the street on a muggy Montreal afternoon.
To show their support for the student movement, denounce a fascist bill.
And show Jean Charest and his corrupt government that they are still THERE.
On my way home today I visited the park where Occupy Toronto once lived. And I could hardly recognize the place.
The old gazebo where so many passionate speeches were made, and so many dreamed of a better world, was quiet now.
And where there were once tents huddled together in the cold...
At first glance they are two very different stories. Quebec students stripping down to their underwear, and then meeting with the government.
Hoping that they can also make the Education Minister an offer she can't refuse.
And the British criminal Conrad Black cavorting on the grounds of his massive mansion, after being released from the Big House.
