Tag: #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

2011 Year-In-Review: News

With revolution in the streets from the Middle East to middle America, a major power shift in Ottawa and a smattering of other events that would have stolen the headlines in any other year, 2011 will be largely remembered as the year that got the ball rolling for the future, good or bad…

Enigmatic Zeitgeist: A reflection on the Occupy Movement

I feel we’re not that different you and I, at least I hope not. We’re both here, so there must be something that unites us. And even if it is difficult to pinpoint what precisely brought us here, perhaps that’s only an indication of just how grave the situation truly is. A uniting force we can’t yet properly define is braiding together diverse yet inter-related interests into a solid bond. And yet, all I can see for the moment are individual fibres, weak, limp, useless by themselves. I’ve been reflecting. Haven’t come up with much – nothing but an endless series of questions whose answers elude me…

Some people never change: Tremblay evicts Occupy Montreal

You know when you dislike someone and then they go and do something really cool and you start thinking that maybe you’ve misjudged them? Inevitably, they go back to their old ways and you realize that nope, you were right about them all along and you kick yourself for doubting your preconceptions. That’s exactly how I feel right now about Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and I doubt I’m the only one. For weeks, Tremblay kept a drastically different tone than the mayors of other major cities with an occupied public space. Following the 1am commando-style raid…

The 1% View on Freedom

A thought occurred to me the other day as I read about New York Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg releasing the hounds on the protesters occupying Zuccotti Park. As the police evicted, assaulted and arrested both protesters and journalists, destroyed a 5,500 book library and blacked out media coverage I couldn’t help but think that the rich of this world seem to look at freedom a bit differently. In a land where freedom is taken for granted, where the average man’s idea of freedom…

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…

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…