Category: ThinkableWords

Words that induce thought…

Nearly 6 Month’s Later

With the all too predictable absurdity of the G8 and G20 Circus’ behind us, and life returning to normal — for both the privileged minority and, sadly, a disadvantaged majority — it’s business as usual, as they say. Nothing productive has or ever will result for the masses from these meetings. In fact the opposite is more likely the case (see Naomi Klein’s piece, Sticking the public with the bill…, published in the Globe and Mail, today).

However I think it’s much more productive — more than getting into a low stakes pissing contest with disgruntled city citizens who have little to no understanding of what’s being protested — to highlight an issue that is most definitely related to the policies that were discussed, over the weekend, and have largely been forgotten by mainstream media. That being Haiti. The aftermath of the January 12th earthquake. And the reality facing Haitians, nearly 6 month’s later…

Continue reading Nearly 6 Month’s Later

Please Consider Someone Else

As the G20 Summit approaches at the end of this week in Toronto, the city prepares for the expected (and well deserved) protests by turning a lot of the city’s core into a virtual apartheid state. How’s that saying go? “Those who would make peaceful protest impossible will make violent revolution inevitable?”

Irony aside, for those wondering “why protest,” I urge to check out a rather effective piece that was posted on The Bullet, last week: Their Crisis, Our Misery: OCAP Versus the G20;

“When the governments of Canada choose to spend more than $1-billion on a conference instead of housing, food, or transportation, they send a message that is loud and clear about where their priorities lie. The Federal and Provincial governments are all gutting the money needed by women’s groups, First Nations peoples, immigrants, public transit, social assistance and healthcare. These same governments are increasing taxes for poor people but cutting corporate taxes. These same governments are spending enormous sums on the global circus that is the G8 and G20 Summits. The only way this will ever change is with the organized resistance of poor, working class, and marginalized people here and around the world.”

Please give it a read before talking your shit, from your comfortable life, about something you don’t face, or, more likely, couldn’t understand. Take my word for it, when the shoe is on the other foot, things are anything but how you once assumed they were. The act of protest is all an alarmingly gross number of people have left.

Don’t fault anyone for wanting, and doing what they can to affect, change…