‘Occupy Toronto’

October 17, 2011 By 23 Comments

Fortunately for the capitalists, unlike his communist predecessors, Morgenstern, who was carrying a red flag, does not advocate violence, at least for the moment. The captains of Canadian industry will be understandably relieved at this revelation. Morgenstern referred to Lenin’s work Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder as to when this tactic, so instrumental in communists’ gaining and maintaining power, should be used.

“Use violence when it can be productive; right now violence couldn’t be productive. People would turn against us,” he said.

I was tempted to ask Morgenstern when and where communism has actually ever worked and about its accompanying genocides but I restrained myself not to ruin his enthusiasm for the demonstration and the second coming of the Marxist-Leninist world order.

Unlike last year’s G-20 in Toronto, there was no violence at Saturday’s “Occupy Toronto” protest. The atmosphere and the crowd were strikingly peaceful, as the absence of a large police presence attested to. Another pleasant and noticeable aspect of the protest was that there were hardly any anti-Israeli demonstrators; this writer encountering only one.

The bike-riding gentleman in question said he was looking at different causes 20 years ago and decided to take up this one when he saw the “war crimes” Israel was committing. Wearing a T-shirt that said “Terror, Genocide, War Crimes, Israel,” he caused my confusion to return when he said he truly believes “world peace begins in Palestine.” Again, as with Morgenstern, I had to restrain myself from asking an obvious question regarding how an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would end, for example, the war in Afghanistan or Somalia, or even closer to home, the Libyan war and the killings in Syria. Perhaps now I’ll never know.

The surprising lack of anti-Israel bias at the protest also exhibited itself when someone with a loudspeaker yelled, “Free Palestine!” This prompted a person, who was kind enough to remember the renowned leftist quality of “inclusion,” to instantly yell back, “Free everyone!” Whether that included rapists, murderers and child molesters in maximum security prisons was left unsaid.

The environmentalists also had a strong contingent present, of which some were quite impressive in their sincerity for their cause. And not all were anti-free enterprise. One of these, a young female student, even said there “is a lot of hope in this system we have,” but believes, environmentally, “we are killing ourselves.” She viewed the demonstration as “an alternative trajectory to the status quo and we need that.”

Not surprisingly, the young lady was the most articulate person I interviewed on Saturday. But perhaps I am biased in this judgment, since she gave me a tasty banana walnut muffin she had baked herself and considerately brought to the demonstration in a bag with others. Her baking skills, though, did help lift my spirits about the terrible capitalist society I was apparently living in.

The only other demonstrator who could have helped with this creeping feeling of despondency after several hours spent at the protest was the pretty young woman who was holding the only sign that read: “Free Hugs.” Whether this was an expression of her personal, anti-capitalist sentiment by not charging for her services remains unknown. But she was unfortunately too busy with possibly worse cases than me, so I left it for another time. The anti-capitalist demonstrators should, however, learn a lesson from my pro-hug predicament. Like in all socialist societies, past and current, where there is no competition, there will always be shortages.

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  • Fred Willcutt

    Let me explain something to the reader that the author doesn't seem to understand. We like the opportunity for confusion caused by the press to be cleared up, for even the dimmest among us are aware that everyone has an agenda of their own.
    As with any peoples movement taking place within the public sphere in a free market where rights are protected, many individuals and groups move in to subvert it into something of their own. The socialists are attempting this with their banners and slogans, some crackpot neo-nazis may try in their furies of butthurt, the big media guys work by using their advantageous positions strategically in ways that reflect the time and state of the situation. Right now the voice of the media is unified in their criticism, that the movement need produce a list of demands and statements of representation. The attempts to marginalize made by a media looking to move opinion directions that serve their corporate interests will not be something that we forgive.
    This is a movement of people worldwide who have been disadvantaged because of a corrupt system that has nothing in common with its name. These people cannot be marginalized – even if a segment hammers out a list of demands or a manifesto or whatever, it won't be representative of the whole. This is an unfortunate fact that the hand full of network/print/web media owners need to come to terms with – this is the first movement that you will not be able to marginalize onto a sideline by using emotionally packed labels. You will not get an appeal to authorities from this movement. You will be made to understand who the authorities are. The authorities are the people, and this will be made known in a way that will not be easy to forget.
    Then what is the problem, what is the complaint? The matter at hand is obvious even to those behind these inauthentic attempts to slow it down. It will continue – in the free marketplace of ideas, socialists, communists, and nazis are welcome to embarrass themselves when they pretend to represent the people. The media is welcome to play pretend with them. Have fun playing pretend amidst a legion of dissent. Expect us to not be bothered!

    We'll just wait here in the street while you guys resolve the ancient partisan conflict over the cause and solution to what is now a crisis. When you realize that the only obstacle left is your partisan conflict, we'll still be here in the street – we're in it for the long haul. Each wing focuses on cause being fault of either gov or corp, reception of criticism by opposite wing returns defended exaggerations. The right sees selfish greed covered in ignorant adolescent idealism, the left sees selfish greed covered in bigotry, ignorance, or superiority protective of wealth. Both are victims defending their corrupt abusers who play three ring circus while playing musical chairs.

    Heads up! The division bell rings from the line, and the sound is heard from above by 99% of us.

    Politix is broken, the memo is camping on the streets. The few actors in the game with electable positions serve the same agenda. Those buildings that came down mirrored each other, but terrorists brought them down and they now no longer exist. The cause isn't worth arguing about, the only partisans left will not fix politics through their winged sound byte philosophies. The target of your scorn does not obey the boundary conditions found within your fury of complaints you hurl at the supposed opposition. The focus of your blame for this fiasco does not divide itself between the side that you defend and the object of your scorn, the seats are labeled with their name in both boardrooms and government offices.

    There are no strategies left to engineer consent of the status quo. There are no remaining methods of managing perception using emotional levers. There is no public relations strategy in the toolbox, no social construction possible for concerned stakeholders, and no creative destruction on or off the menu for resolving a world wide uprising that requires only the return of justice to an unfair world.

    Let's fix this problem so that we can bring politics back! I really miss arguing with you fools. I posted a shorter version of this comments earlier and expected it to not be approved, I'll be surprised if this on is accepted.

  • PhillipGaley

    To such a well done presentation, the only which I might offer in the way of correction might be that, the last sentence: "The anti-capitalist demonstrators should, however, learn a lesson from my pro-hug predicament. Like in all socialist societies, past and current, where there is no competition, there will always be shortages.", requires its own paragraph. But I should mention too, as with: "And wouldn’t a lot of workers, who anti-capitalists say they support, be unemployed if people didn’t?"—the author's skill in the clever and not all that common of use of regard for power of thought in his reader, to connect the parts of a paragraph together, . . .

    But however all of that might be—and, all of the pleasant expertise in sardonic presentation quite aside, somewhere along the line, doesn't someone have to say something about what capitalism really is—I mean, making investments in tools, books, people, employees, land, education, buildings, transportation and so forth (these, spoken of as "capital investments"), so's you can say, tear up and plant and grow, or, dig up and process, or, it might be something like chopping down and cutting up and making, and all of this so that, you'll have something to sell?

    This old woman once told me—she's a pianist in Portland, Oregon—"Men like to work—if they get a night's sleep and get up and have breakfast, they like to go out and work.". And, with those capital type investments, isn't that about what a large part of the world would like to do, in freedom?

    And, so much of that capitalist type of activity is so very private; I mean, say you have a shovel, and you make a deal to trench up your neighbor's yard for a new water line, because only one person can use a shovel at a time, that digging is going to be a very private activity; and contrariwise—though the many of them so apparently disparate—isn't what the OWS people are doing, demonstrative of wishing for some kind of group way to gain and well-being? At bottom, then, isn't their fundamental paradigm, wrong? And yes, I did get that idea from the article—beside having lived on "the left coast" for thirty years—I just wanted to point out further that, though a bank can have some part in a capitalist enterprise, to present that, capitalism is all about banks and mortgages and foreclosures, and embezzlement and so forth—in its larger practical use—is to have sort of hi-jacked the word, itself, . . . I don't know, . . . I have some tools and things, and I like to make a deal and do the work and get paid, . . . I'm a capitalist—if academic economic theory and labels are worth anything, . . . it's a good way to go, . . . it can give you a chance to get ahead, . . . the OWS folks appear of the type who've not yet learned how that, digging and chopping and cutting and welding and hammering and making and selling is a great activity, . . . helps others, and so, is fulfilling of our mission as social creatures.

    And so, no wonder that, the article could present that gathering true-to-life as mere disparate individuals, . . . they appear not to have learned what the race of mankind is all about, . . .

  • stern

    Great article, thank you. Just one question: Who arrested Hugs and why? Unless I get an answer, I shall also demand FREE HUGS.

  • Guest

    It looks like the writer here could use a plex-i-otomy. That's when you head is so far up your as you need a window in your stomach to see where you are going. As long as the are writers like this we will solve nothing.

    • tagalog

      An "otomy"-type operation is to make an incision, usually to take something out (as in "epesiotomy" or "appendectomy"), not to add something. Just for the sake of the terminology.

  • StephenD

    Guest, that was so authentic and clever! What did he write to cause you to revert to childish snide remarks? Just a thought, but if I wanted to convince someone that what they just read is faulty in some way I think I would quote what was written and refute it with facts. If on the other hand I merely wanted to sound off and be heard, why I guess your approach works well for that.

    • stern

      Guest is the typical leftist blowhard. The only aim is to make enough noise to drown out any opinion that disagrees with yours.

    • PhillipGaley

      "But if on the other hand, I wished to blow hard and merely sound off, why, I guess your approach works well for that.", . . . that's funny, . . . good hit!

  • Great White North

    Occupy Toronto. Lol.

  • tagalog

    Isn't Toronto already occupied?

  • mrbean

    Almost three-quarters of Torontonians aged 15 or older have direct ties to immigration. About one-half (52%) are themselves immigrants while another 22% are 2nd generation immigrants with at least one parent born outside of Canada. The remaining 26% of the Toronto population (aged 15 or older) is comprised of individuals who were born in Canada to two Canadian-born parents. The dark side of diversity is coming and was best illustrated when In Europe, the harbinger of the new century came a half-decade ago when North African youths in the Paris banlieues went on a 7 days-long rampage of firebombing cars and attacking police and firemen, many of whom drove off and let the fires burn out. Coming to America with the non assimlating cultures,

  • Lisa_H

    Stephen did you perchance see 'the only sane man" at occupy toronto? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7ZTM0Z2Nec

    • stern

      Great video, thanks for posting. Just proves how the left cannot bear to hear any dissenting opinions. I also particularly enjoyed the useful idiot who showed up near the end pushing his marxist.org website. What irony!

    • StephenD

      Thank you Ms. Lisa. and Sir Stern. I like the thought of being associated with folks like yourselves.

      • Lisa_H

        The feeling is mutual, I'm sure
        Have you read the comments section to the video? The leftists are hysterical (as in funny ha-ha and panic-mode). As a Canadian, I'm enjoying it!

  • stern

    Great article

  • Jacques

    Here's where Canadian cities have the advantage over their US counterparts when it comes to parasitic occupation: colder weather. Throw in a bit of cold rain or some snow and voila! the tent cities will thin out like magic.

    • tagalog

      "Rain is counter-revolutionary."

      -Talleyrand

  • waterwillows

    Well the 'occupiers' can wait in the streets until the sun and the moon disappear from the sky. But it is not going to change human nature and it's ongoing quest for personal gain and self interest. They are simply going about it all from a losing standpoint.

    Do none of them realise that trying to change the usual human nature, is really just 'hidden' usual human nature trying to promote it's own self interest and gain? So do they think to eliminate it…..by promoting it? They are very confused.

    • tagalog

      They're not confused, just wrongheaded. Ever since the French Revolution, the Left has adhered to the principal that the human race is so malleable that the correct power structure in government can create the New Man. Back in the French Revolution, the ideal was the worship of Reason; during the period of socialist utopian community experimentation, the Fourier/Owen, Brook Farm/New Harmony period back around the time of the First or Second International, it was the New Communal Man; around the end of the 19th Century, it was the Working Class, conscious of itself and revolutionary; after the Bolshevik Revolution, it was the New Soviet Man. In the 1970s, in Cambodia it was the New Agricultural Man. The Left has attempted to fit the human square peg into the Leftist round hole for as long as it has existed; it has NEVER worked, and has resulted in attempts to force people into shape, causing scores of millions of murders.

  • Guest 1

    This planet is not getting any bigger and the human race as we know it will not survive under capitalism. It's time you righties stop whining about the non existant lefties and offer up some solutions otherwise stop the gum flapping.

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