I have to admit it was a great photo-op, and a sure way to get the attention of the Con media. A small group of demonstrators at the CLC's Young Workers Summit turning their backs on Justin Trudeau. "Honour your promises!" hollered some in the crowd, as event moderators tried to keep the peace.
"We don't have dialogue with liars!"
"Shame! Shame!" While shooting selfies of themselves, with Justin peering over their shoulders. But although I am all in favour of young Canadians getting politically involved, and if necessary giving the Prime Minister a rough ride. I thought their behaviour was appalling.
As Angela Merkel and her gang of EU stooges and bloated banksters give Greece until Sunday to decide how much more flesh they can carve off its shrunken body. Frustrated European leaders gave Greece until Sunday to reach an agreement to save its collapsing economy from catastrophe after an emergency summit meeting here on Tuesday ended without the Athens government offering a substantive new proposal to resolve its debt crisis. And Merkel makes it clear she wants as much flesh as possible. At a separate news conference, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, made it clear that eurozone leaders were determined to set a very high bar for Athens before the Thursday deadline. The pressure on her, the EU, and the whole capitalist system is mounting.
His enemies tried to undermine Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change by leaking it before it was officially released today. But it's still an incredibly powerful document. Pope Francis on Thursday called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront environmental degradation and climate change, as his much-awaited papal encyclical blended a biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action. And what makes it so powerful for me, is its call for a moral revolution.
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.
In the last few days right-wingers in the media and the twittersphere have been going around claiming that the Quebec student movement is running out of steam.
And if you read this story you might think that was true.
Large daytime protests are being held in Quebec today, just as they have for each of the last four months, on the 22nd of each month.
Thousands of people are marching in Montreal and Quebec City.
But the crowds are noticeably smaller than in the past.
Until you saw this photo of the crowd in Montreal today...
There was another amazing freedom party in Montreal tonight.
Thousands and thousands of people marched peacefully through the streets, beating pots and pans. Defying the police to arrest them for taking part in an illegal demonstration.
And what struck me the most apart from the incredible energy, was the diversity of the protesters. Now it's not just students, it's middle aged people, it's seniors, it's EVERYONE.
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.
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.
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
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.
So it's important to remember this: if the police are ordered to clear a campground, the protesters must remain peaceful. So any violence inflicted on the occupiers, will reflect badly on those responsible.
And for every person arrested TWO will take their place.
And the more peaceful our protest remains, the more powerful it will become. The more they hurt us, the more they will hurt themselves.
The occupiers should also remember that if they get kicked out of one space, they can always occupy another, and keep taking their message to the streets.
The message that more and more people are getting.
The people involved share one belief: that the currently dominant “neo-liberal” or “free market” version of capitalism is not working for the vast majority of people. While it creates wealth for some, it is also the destructive global engine behind massive and growing inequality, the current fiscal and economic crisis, and climate change and environmental collapse.
Even if some of the talking heads like Andrew Coyne still don't:
Asked whether the rallies currently sweeping the globe could bring about real change in Canada, Coyne could barely contain himself:
“Even in the U.S. where people have far more problems to actually worry about, it’s not clear that these people represent anybody other than themselves,” he frothed. “There’s always a constituency that doesn’t like capitalism (or) rich people … They just decided to get together and shout about it some more.”
Can you believe it eh? Andrew Coyne, the son of a former Bank of Governor, yapping away on the Con Broadcasting Corporation. With a silver spoon in his mouth.
Yup. Rest easy my gentle occupiers. All we have to fear is fear itself.
I went down to the Occupy Toronto campground yesterday, just as the protesters were setting off on a march to City Hall. So naturally I followed them, and had a great time.
Only to discover later, much to my surprise, that according to some in the MSM I was marching with a dying movement.
Miserable weather for camping and public apathy appears to be taking a toll on the "occupy" movement in Canada, even as protesters in Toronto took to the streets for a march and rally at City Hall on Saturday.
Which sort of echoes what the old Con Andrew "Silver Spoon" Coyne had to say the other day, when he dismissed the movement saying more people had lined up for the latest i-phone.
Now it's true that the core group is still a small one. A coming together of young and old activists, community groups, the poor, and the marginalized.
But what Coyne and the other cons don't seem to understand is that this movement has spread all over the world in a matter of weeks. Its message is resonating with millions, and framing a new debate. The global consensus has finally been broken.
These people have not come to protest just against a bad law or a single issue, but the system itself. They are putting capitalism in the dock. The photograph powerfully captures this moment because it so vividly shows the symbols of the order of things that inhabitants of western economies have up to now accepted.
The monster finally exposed.
Occupy Wall Street and the global movement it is inspiring may yet prove to be an effective call for change, or a flash in the pan. That is not the point. Nor does it even matter if the protest is right or wrong. What matters is that unfettered capitalism, a force for economic dynamism that seemed unassailable, beyond reproach or reform, a monster we learned to be grateful for, suddenly finds its ugliness widely commented on, exposed among the lights of Times Square. The emperor of economics has no clothes.
Yup. The Occupy movement can't fail, because it has already won.
And an idea doesn't need a campground to continue to grow, until it eventually changes the world...
As this one must. For unless the capitalist monster is tamed, or replaced by a better system, it will destroy us ALL.
The writing is on the wall...
As economic conditions deteriorate more people will understand that, and more will join the movement.
So even if the campgrounds go down, the light will burn on. It may be necessary to occupy a physical space right now, as Alice Klein says here.
As long as Occupy Toronto manages to sustain its presence in the park, it will have that vital ingredient of time to work through the kinks. Time is needed to get the logistics together, to build community, to forge links with the larger community of supporters, to develop even more powerful means of communication and group process. And finally, time is needed to coalesce around more specific messages and bigger, even more inclusive actions.
But when I saw the pictures on TV at work, and I saw how the Occupy movement is spreading.
I knew that I was right when I said the other day that this is a movement that could change the world, and save it from destruction.
Then tonight on my way home I went to the park and the mood was electric...
A large group of demonstrators had just finished a noisy march around the block, escorted by a contingent of cops on bicycles.
And in the dark park, a wild drumming party was in progress...
But what struck me was the incredible level of organization. Food, water, and other supplies were pouring into the park, and a logistics committee was running around barking out orders with almost military precision.
Don't be fooled by appearances. These people are serious, and they won't be easily moved.
And the dumbos in the MSM shouldn't be confused by their seemingly disparate demands. Because as far as I can see most of them have one thing in common. They are all complaints about a decaying economic system.
Companies, Roubini said, are motivated to minimize costs, save money and stockpile cash, but this leads to less money in the hands of employees, which means they have less money to spend and flow back to companies -- [thus] weakening the capitalist system.
Now, in the current financial crisis, consumers, in addition to having less money to spend, are also motivated to minimize costs -- to save, to stockpile cash and to pay down debt -- thus magnifying the effect of less money flowing back to companies.
They can fix the banking system in Europe, but it won't bring the good jobs back. Without those jobs, and with high levels of debt, consumers can't keep consuming.
So far governments have responded to the renewed crisis of capitalism by frantically seeking to invoke the old magic again, to start the engine of creative destruction once more. The means to do so no longer exist. Even if they did, they would only delay and enlarge the underlying problems.
But now, in the wake of the English riots and faced with possible collapse, we are at last beginning to talk about the issues ignored while the illusion persisted: equality, exclusion, the feral rich and the discarded poor and, in WH Auden's words, about "what the god had wrought / To please her son, the strong / Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles / Who would not live long."
It will DIE. It's really that simple.
Yup. The conditions for a movement like OWS to grow have never been more favorable.
As the Occupy Wall Street protests continues to grow. And unions join the struggle.
Some old wankers still struggle to explain what it means.
The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fighting to upend the system. But what gives their movement the potential for power and potency is the masses who just want the system to work the way they were promised it would work. It’s not that 99 percent of Americans are really struggling. It’s not that 99 percent of Americans want a revolution. It’s that 99 percent of Americans sense that the fundamental bargain of our economy -- work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- has been broken, and they want to see it restored.
But not me eh? I don't want to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation on a rotting corpse. I want to BURY it.
And I know that when a Con whore like Ann Coulter is scratching her smelly balls and calling it "mob rule."
The capitalist pigs are trembling in their boots trotters, and we are heading in the right direction.
However, if somebody STILL needs to understand why it's happening, and where the river of history is leading us, all they need to do is remember this.
It's time to check ourselves, to see if we still have that small part that believes in the values that America promises. Do we still have a shred of our decency intact in the face of debasement? If you do, then now is the time to give that forgotten part a voice. That is what this movement is ultimately about: giving voice to decency and fairness.
And him...
Each of us is of great value to the whole. Do not forget your greatness. Even when the world around you is telling you you are nothing. You have a voice. You want a better life for your children and the people you love. You live in a democracy. You belong, and you deserve a world that is fair and equal. You have a right to take your place and be heard.
And all the others.
Glory, Glory Hallelujah !!!! It's springtime in America !!!!
But instead are caught on video watching a group of marchers from a balcony.
Laughing and swilling champagne...
As it has others, the video reminds me of the classic scene in Dr Zhivago. When the boobeoisie are gathered at an opulent ball, swilling champagne and rattling their jewels, and the party mood is momentarily broken by the unwelcome sound of hundreds of commie demonstrators outside, singing The Internationale.
A nervous silence descends on the glitzy gathering, until the sleazy lawyer Viktor Komarovsky, played by Rod Steiger, stands up and says: "No doubt they'll sing in tune after the revolution."
The tension is broken. The fat cats laugh and applaud, and the band plays on.
But of course, as we all know, not for very much longer.
Whatever else these protests are achieving, they are drawing a line between THEM and US.
Their protest may be angry but unfocused. They have been ignored by the MSM. Brutalized by the police, and arrested in massive numbers.
But slowly but surely Occupy Wall Street is rediscovering the radical imagination.
We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.
Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?
And who would be surprised if it happened here? Where the fat cats and the union-busting Harper Cons are trying to turn young Canadians into slaves.
The CEOs have decided. The value of young people is lower than the value of people from my generation. You don’t deserve the same salary, even if you are better educated. You don’t deserve the same vacation time or health benefits. And you certainly don’t deserve to have the same kind of secure retirement. It’s just not in the business plan.
With the same predictable result.
When the history is finally written, though, it's likely all of this tumult – beginning with the Arab Spring – will be remembered as the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire. Thirty years of relentless prioritising of propaganda over substance, and snuffing out anything that might look like a political basis for opposition, might make the prospects for the young protesters look bleak; and it's clear that the rich are determined to seize as large a share of the spoils as remain, tossing a whole generation of young people to the wolves in order to do so. But history is not on their side.
First came the feral phase. The young are animals.
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.
They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.
Then came the punishment phase. Beat them, flog them, shoot them.
Throw them out of their homes.
Now at last some are turning their sights on the culture of an economic system that makes greed a virtue.
In a society that has abandoned or devalued most forms of mutual assistance in favour of a solipsistic entrepreneurialism, it's hardly surprising that, faced with the end of the good times, people help themselves. Fear and greed are our ruling passions. That's true of the kids smashing shop windows to steal trainers. It's also true of the MPs fiddling their expenses, the police officers taking backhanders, the journalists breaking into phones. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't any of us? The example has been set by our new masters, the one per cent for whom and by whom we're governed.
These have been a disgusting few years. That form of looting known as corporate larceny continues to rage unchecked. Economic scavengers bring the world to the brink of ruin. We don't need the discrepancy between rich and poor laid out in percentages, we see the brute fact of it with our own eyes in the shops and on the roads and in the restaurants of our richest cities. One medium-sized banker's bonus would probably pay for all the trash that's been looted this past week. And we don't even have the decency to conceal the extent of this legalised pillage from those for whom, without sentimentalising them, a pair of trainers is a treat.
The poor who must be punished, the rich who get away with it. Even as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
And the money runs out...
And all I can say is that if it took four nights of rioting to get people to focus on our corrupt and decaying economic system, in the long run of history it will be worth it.
Because if the message is not understood, those riots will spread all over the world. Even in Canada, where youth unemployment is twice the national average, and Stephen Harper's Cons are planning to throw tens of thousands out of work, and lock up even more young people in their swanky new prisons.
Yup. The rich and the old can scream all they like. Jail them, throw them out of their homes, flog them, hang them. But it won't make a bit of difference. The young will not be denied, will not be robbed, will not see their future torched.
For years I have warned about a generational war. And now the writing is on the wall.
I guess we should have known. The old toad will not be moved.
To the horror of Egyptians and the world, President Hosni Mubarak – haggard and apparently disoriented – appeared on state television last night to refuse every demand of his opponents by staying in power for at least another five months.
But sooner or later he will. He will.
Too many have been murdered, firebombed, and bloodied...
For them to give up now.
But how much will their freedom cost them?
History may later decide that the army's lack of faith in Mubarak effectively lost his presidency after three decades of dictatorship, secret police torture and government corruption. Confronted by even greater demonstrations on the streets of Egypt today, even the army could not guarantee the safety of the nation. Yet for Mubarak's opponents, today will not be a day of joy and rejoicing and victory but a potential bloodbath.
Which is why now more than ever we are ALL Egyptians.
