occupy canada

 

Today, people around the world are uniting to address the leaders of the world, the haves, the ones who fashion the world to serve themselves, all to say that's enough.

That's enough getting wealthy off the backs of the poor.

That's enough looting of our societies.

That's enough of the middle class and poor getting poorer and being asked to make all the sacrifices while bankrolling the greed of immoral corporations.

That's enough of our government serving corporate interests at the expense of the people.

In Canada, our government trivializes the protests, saying that hey, at least we're not as bad as the United States! It's not that they don't get it, but they think that Canadians are stupid enough to not get it. They know that the side with the clearest message and the loudest voice will win every time, and that an apathetic public will accept what's easy to understand. They're playing a divisive game they know works, trying to turn Canadians against Canadians because the best thing for them is to distract us from this reality: our society is fucked up.

The opponents of the Occupy Movement say that protesters are inarticulate, that protesters don't know what they're talking about, that they have no clear message. Of course we don't. This is the inchoate frustration of the majority who are exhausted with being fucked over by the leaders of our society; lack of a clear message, despite what the government will tell you, does not mean a lack of valid issues:

Many of us suffer from untreated mental illnesses, leading Canadians to live on the streets and try to scrape by day to day in conditions that we wouldn't accept for our dogs. Our society is fucked up.

Many of our sisters have disappeared into the night and have never come home. They're murdered year after year and our government is more interested in prosecuting looters of Sears than preventing further deaths of our most marginalized sisters. Our society is fucked up.

Our media, the tool on which we've trusted to keep our government honest, is being taken over by corporate ownership and is more interested in kicking the weak than exposing corruption. Our society is fucked up.

Our environment is being destroyed in an effort to keep the oil industry alive, instead of focusing on green initiatives. The rest of the world is disgusted with us and nobody can tell us if we're expected to drink the gas when we run out of water. Our society is fucked up.

Our crime rates are at their lowest in decades, but our government wants to scare us with lies to push through asinine Tough on Crime legislation which will cost us billions, send thousands more citizens to prison, and contribute to the further explosion of the Canadian Poor. Our society is fucked up.

We spend $600,000,000 on a roof for a stadium while refusing to properly fund our schools. Our society is fucked up.

We charge students tens of thousands to educate themselves, then keep them in debt for decades with unnecessarily high interest on government student loans. Our society is fucked up.

So, if you have a heart for the poor, or want to live in an environment and not in its ruins, or want the media's lies to stop, or think that we should be spending money on education instead of war and prisons, then Occupy is for you. Canada is a heartbreakingly apathetic country and our government will use that to their advantage. Don't let them. Turn off you computer and go join your fellow citizens in your local Occupy event. Bake them some cookies. Write your MLA and MP and tell them that you care, that you vote, and unless they speak for you you'll find somebody who will. 

Take back what is supposed to be yours.