Occupy Canada

[sabotabby]

Occupy Toronto is going to get attacked. They've been able to go this long because the police are justifiably concerned about fallout after the G20 debacle if they get brutal on the occupiers.

The Honourable Wife-Beater, as we have seen, does not really care about bad publicity. And if he says "jump," Bill Blair will ask, "on the heads of how many dirty hippies?"

The propaganda efforts have already started. With 58% of Canadians surveyed in favour of Occupy, confrontations in other cities have been depicted as involving a certain degree of violence on the part of the protesters, with an emphasis on weaponized bodily fluids.*

St. James Park now seems like a very good location, as the church has said that the protesters can flee to its grounds if need be. But get ready to see things get, if not Oakland-level ugly, then really bad.

* This is not just propaganda; I entirely believe the Ottawa RCP shit-blanket story, despite having zero love for the Cult of Avakian.

Comments

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

scary.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Read in the news crawl today that Occupy London (Ontario) camp has been dismantled.

Occupy Victoria (my city) got served a notice of eviction on Monday because the city wanted part of the campsite (the square next to City Hall) for an ice rink (!) and to light up its big Christmas Tree. They shifted a few tents around and one guy went to live in the big maple tree at one end of the square, and a rumour went around he might have dropped a plastic bottle of what might have been pee near a policeman - that's about as Oakland as things will probably get here.

One problem is that the protestors are all on one side of the square, and the other side is a bunch of homeless people - makes sense, they have nowhere else to go and for a while they could get free food and water and someone to talk with, but there are more and more incidents and the police are going to use that as a lever to shut the whole thing down. The same will happen in Occupy Vancouver, especially since a young woman died of a heroin overdose in their camp on the weekend. (of course, someone dies of a heroin overdose every week or two in the Downtown Eastside, about six blocks away from Occupy Vancouver, but they don't shut that down, nosirree) And you've already read about how NYPD sends drunks and addicts and crazies to Zucotti Park, to make them look worse and worse... oldest trick in the book.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

One thing I found confusing in that article is that in the beginning it says that "lawyers for St. Paul’s Cathedral and the city" are working to evict the protestors, but then further down (and everywhere else I've read) says that the church do not want them evicted and have been generally supportive. Not sure what's going on with the contradiction.

Very much agreed that any plan that Ford comes up with will be a bad plan (even if it doesn't involve anyone losing their hat - sorry, Girl Genius moment there).

At least the Star article seems relatively positive - though could they possibly have picked a more clichéd image? Wow.

Also: "Ottawa RCP shit-blanket story"? Do I even want to know? No, no, I probably really don't...

[sabotabby]

Also: "Ottawa RCP shit-blanket story"? Do I even want to know? No, no, I probably really don't...

Occupy Ottawa wanted the RCP to pack up its Communist Tent and leave. Which is an understandable impulse, really. RCP argued they had every right to be there too, especially given some of the unsavoury characters allowed in the camp without being questioned. Someone responded, well, I wouldn't call it the "shit-blanket" story if it involved polite asking without the use of fecal matter.

Later they apparently allowed neo-Nazis to hang out there, no problem.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

This and the Occupy Oakland* incident makes me think that Occupy has used up the brief time it had the potential to become a revolutionary movement.



*The dockyard protest I mean, not the police riot, which was an attack by the police. Though the militancy of Occupy Oakland could be a special case, since just about every hipster "poverty by choice" anarchist in the Bay Area lives there.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

I have lost a significant amount of respect for Occupy Vancouver after a large troupe came to a Vancouver mayoral debate and spent a large fraction of the time shouting loudly over speakers (even citizens just asking questions). I watched them threaten to start a riot in a church if the candidates would not agree to stay hours past the end of the debate to answer every person in a long lineup of speakers.