If we don't occupy everything now -- what will there be left to occupy later??
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights of Canadians in this country. Section 1 of the charter states that these rights are "subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
The actions taken by the police during the 2010 G20 protests were anything but justified and they have shown to me that we do not actually live in a free society.
Section 2 of the Charter has to do with fundamental freedom including 2(b) "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression" while 2(c) states that everyone has the right to "freedom of peaceful assembly."
I envision that October 15th on Bay Street in Toronto, Ontario when people join forces to peacefully assemble and plan for Monday's Occupy Bay Street march, the police of this fine country will begin their battery of harassment and arrests.
This will be the second very public act of violence on the part of those sworn to protect citizens.
If this takes shape the way I imagine it will -- if the police do not allow a peaceful public protest by those who wish to exercise their Charter rights, then I think we shall all have a very strong message delivered loud and clear: Canadian citizens have no rights and freedoms; this is a Police State.
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At the heart of it -- why march? The placard I saw that captures it best:
"Its only called class war when we fight back"
Bay Street (the Wall Street of Toronto) has been occupied by the over-paid chicly dressed employees of finance for so long they don't even know they're them and we're us.
We trade our time for money and they trade, trade, trade that money away.
The fallacy of what we call an "economy" has been built on mistruths and bogus statistics for so long that finally the house of cards blew over and now those Kings and Queens of the upper crust scrambled together, intent on making the divide between even wider.
The crux is -- everybody in the occupation is just looking for an occupation. A way to keep a roof over their head and some food in their belly. When basic human rights are stripped away there's nothing left to lose and its time to rise up and fight back.
At least we live in a country where we are doing this with our voices and our words. There are other places in the world where this is done with bullets and blood.
What must the government, the police, the rulers of our nation do to push the public to that point? If millions in the streets in American can be ignored, what will happen here?
As stated by a friend when discussing the matter "They don't think we can do it." The fact is, those 1% sit in comfort and don't even begin to quake in their boots. They really don't think we have it in us to cause much of a ripple in the well-oiled machine they've been driving across us for so very long.
Apathy has kept us quiet. How long will we shout before we deem it necessary to fight back? Because frankly, I don't see them listening to our bleating cries -- we've been sheep for such a very long, long, long time.
I know I'm not ready to take up more than a digital pen in this fight, but do you really want to "beat your plowshares into swords..."?
