Sunday, October 16, 2011

Occupy Toronto!

Greetings all,

I decided to participate in the Occupy Toronto movement that is part of the Occupy Wall St. This was my first protest and it was interesting. My friend has been following this so that's how I learned about it. She actually went to New York to observe and film what was going on there.

A couple of us were there and when we started to march to the location from King and Bay, I ended up getting disoriented and lost my sense of direction. There was so many people and it was easy to lose track of where we were in the city. I didn't make a sign but I wanted to be there.

It was interesting to read what some newspapers have been saying about this movement. Many criticisms going on and I think it goes to show that they just don't get it.

I probably won't camp out since I have a job and really don't want to take time off work. I may camp on a weekend but it's a bit too cold and I think I can just visit. Camping is not really my thing.

I've always wanted to see some sort of movement and protesting going on in this country. Canadians seem so docile. We should be more like the French who protest all the time. For me it was interesting to be a part of something bigger where we all understand that something is wrong with the way things are in the world and we are at least expressing our dissatisfaction.

I don't know what this will lead to but it's interesting that it has spread across other countries. America has quite the influence but at the same time, something like this spreads because there is some sort of unsatisfaction and frustrated with the external world.

Many people came together for many different reasons. It appears Adbusters is the one who initiated this so it does make me a little suspicious of their motives. My friend seems to think the issue is really the banks. I think it's a bunch of things like the banks, the government and corporations. There was some anti rich sentiment but I don't think it necessarily means they are against people with money.

It will be interesting to see how things unfold. I'm on their Facebook group and you can see how hostile people can be towards each other. It's just a microcosm of the macrocosm as there will be people not agreeing and having different opinions.

I should hope some change comes to the world. I have done my inner work and I do wonder if people use this as a distraction from working on themself. It might feel better to make corporate greed a scapegoat. But then you can still be happy and just are genuinely opposed to their behaviour.

I can still hear reverberating in my body the words of the crowd "we are the 99%" and "we want justice".

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