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…
Category: News
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…
Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies Conference
This Thursday and Friday the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) will be hosting a conference on the media’s role in halting Mass Atrocities and to mark the 10th Anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) initiative by the United Nations. For those familiar with the terrain of activism in mass media, it is common knowledge that spreading awareness is one of the keys to preventing crimes and injustices…
Institutionalized Graft Part I
Let me get this straight. Tories do not favour so-called socialist state-economic planning??? That said, we’re in the midst of a global economic depression and Canada must find ways to stimulate its own economy in order to survive. Ergo, the federal government must set an economic policy in place that allows core industries to continue operations while further providing stimulus to at-risk industries. As it so happens, the Tories have decided…
Occupy Wall Street Goes Global
Occupy Wall Street and the so called 99% movement got a big boost this past Saturday as hundreds of thousands of citizens from the developed world marched…
Protesters occupy downtown park in Toronto version of Occupy Wall Street
Hundreds of people were still gathering in St. James Park on the east end of downtown Toronto late Saturday for the Occupy Toronto protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Earlier, reports said about 3,000 people rallied and marched from Toronto’s financial district to the park, the group’s chosen occupation site, at the corner of Jarvis Street and King Street.
The movement, which is against increasing financial inequality and excessive corporate influence in politics, arrived in Canada with…
We are The 99% and So Are You
At five in the morning on October 14, my Montreal based roommate Kamee Abrahamian (producer of the Blood Ballet Cabaret) and my native New York self crawled out of bed to head to Wall Street. We heard that chaos was going to go down before the sun even came up. We thought we would witness some arrests and be part of the fight for whatever these protests are about…