It’s the first weekend of November 2011; we’ve been talking about the Republican presidential race for the past six months and we still have a full year to go before the real deal. Anyone sick and tired of it all already? For three years we’ve witnessed the do little Democrats and the do nothing Republicans fight it out in the Senate and House as if the election was tomorrow. I can only assume this year; with unlimited ammunition being donated from corporations and two vocal, but leaderless grassroots organizations… there will be blood! Let’s start off with the Republican presidential nomination. You have…
Year: 2011
MIGS Conference: The Responsibility to Protect
The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) celebrated the 10th Anniversary of its program the Responsibility to Protect on October 20 and 21. The conference featured some of the key players in the international arena, such as Dr. Frank Chalk, Kyle Matthews, and the former Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin among many others. Some called the MIGS conference “a conference of conscience,” but in my opinion, the conference had a political agenda that lacked the human story and the reality of what leads to a genocide…
Justice Moldaver: An Injustice Waiting To Happen
When is Canada going to learn what Québec already seems to understand: that Harper and his Tories were never really serious about ensuring that recognition of Québec as a nation ever become more than a bone one throws at the proverbial dog that you otherwise ignore. After appointing a unilingual Anglo judge and Attorney General (Judge Moldaver & Michael Ferguson, respectively), it’s now blatantly obvious that the PM is thumbing his nose at official bilingualism, an institution that not only directly affects Québec but also the 1 million, francophone’s scattered throughout the country…
I am the 7 Billion
Experts say it took mankind almost two hundred millennia to reach a billion people, that mark was reached back in 1805. Just over two hundred years later our population has increased seven fold. But as the Earth welcomes resident #7,000,000,000 this Halloween day, 2011, we have more to worry about than the over population of our little planet…
Thoughts on Occupation, Patriotism, and Semantics
I’ve noticed a very interesting development over the last few weeks since the Occupy movement has really taken off. At first the criticism was that the protestors were vague and didn’t know what they were protesting. This became a pretty hard myth to push once it became very clear their position was quite simple: It is unfair that one group of people (billionaires) and one subset of society (corporations) are held…
Occupy Everything: My Hippie Perspective
This isn’t a dirty hippie movement (we’re totally welcome, obvs). This is not, as Fox News’ Kimberly Guilfoyle called it, “Woodstock meets Burning Man, meets people with absolutely no purpose.” This is what it looks like when the people are dissatisfied, but still have hope and faith. Not faith in the system as it stands, not hope that a super mega Platonian robot will rise above, hit a magic Utopia button making it rain sparkles and house deeds, but a conviction that if enough of us believe the same things that we can create a positive change…
Insite: Supreme Court Strikes a Blow for Evidence Based Government Policies
My advice to readers of this paragon of progressiveness known as Forget the Box, with regards to the recent decision on the Insite safe injection and harm reduction program in Vancouver’s notorious east side, is savour it. The sad truth is that this type of legal and moral victory will in all likelihood become increasingly rare in the near future…
A Thousand for One
On Oct. 18th, in a deal brokered by Egypt, IDF Sergeant Gilad Shalit was released by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, several hundred Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli prisons in the first phase of an agreement that will see the release of more than a thousand Palestinian captives by year end.
This prisoner exchange has been in the works for years, so why the sudden breakthrough? A few reasons might have come into play: the Arab Spring that has…
One week in, Occupy Toronto draws 1,500 to downtown rally
Over a thousand people marched from the camp at St. James Park through downtown Toronto to Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday, one week after the beginning of the Occupy Toronto protest. “I think it’s really exciting and I’m really glad to see this big mobilization today,” said activist and researcher Emily Paradis, accompanied by her teenage son and his friend. After a week and extensive media coverage, it was still unclear…
Welcome to Place du Peuple: #Occupy Arrives in Montreal
I’m a big talker and it can be hard to get me off the couch. For Occupy Montreal, I wanted to stand and be counted. Coming out of Square Vic all alone with my first ever protest sign, I was relieved to find a friendly campsite, replete with folks from all walks of life talking to strangers who looked nothing like them. It was around 4p.m, and everyone seemed settled in, with tarps strung through the treetops creating a roof above the campsite.
I was glad to see they took the lead from other live-ins…