Occupy Toronto (Canada) Message Becoming Muddled

[skydiver604 0]

Occupy Toronto protesters don't seem as organized or clear on their message to the world.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/05/occupy-torontos-message-gets-muddled

TORONTO -

When Occupy Toronto’s Chris Wiseman is asked what the protesters’ main goals and messages are, he looks down, shuffles his feet and sheepishly looks to a colleague seated nearby.



“It’s an expression of discontent and ... a speaking of conscience against the global economic system,” said Wiseman, 27, outside the occupiers’ media tent in the northeast end of St. James Park in the King St. E. and Jarvis St. area of downtown, where occupiers have camped since mid-October.





Fellow organizer Alexander Brown, 40, when asked the same questions, was as scattershot in his answer as Wiseman was vague, quietly ranting about everything from the “privatization” of the world economy to genetically-modified food to global warming.Neither organizer could say how long the occupation of the park will continue, although several unions have donated three yurts for the demonstrators to use during the winter months.
“So far, we haven’t had any message from (authorities) that what we’re doing here is a threat to safety,” said Wiseman, a film editor with a “long-standing interest in political philosophy and alternative economics.”

“We’re here to practice our democratic rights,” he said.

All around the area of the media tent sat signs reading: “Corporate Feudalism!” and “Capitalism Creates Poverty! and F--- Rent!”

While the raw passion for protest and changing society may be there, the ill-defined messages being conveyed by most Occupy organizers these days will cause the movement to eventually “fizzle out,” says Kalle Lasn, whose magazine, Adbusters, sparked the birth of the first demonstrations in New York in mid-October.

The Occupy movement to a large degree has been taken over by “the loony left,” said Lasn, whom he describes as “visitors” to the movement who have clouded its original messages with unfocused, left-leaning rhetoric.

“I see some organizers being interviewed on TV and I just cringe” said Lasn, who estimates there are around 100,000 occupiers that have set up encampments around the world. “The difference is...most now will say, ‘We want to overthrow capitalism’ or, ‘Tax the rich!’ But if you talk to the intellectuals in the movement, they will say it’s to see a deep changing of capitalism.

The Occupy movement came to life in July when Adbusters called on “redeemers, rebels and radicals” to flood New York’s financial district in protest of economic disparity. It also made several specific demands though its website, one being for a Robin Hood tax: a 1% fee on financial transactions and trades that would be divvied up to “fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world.”

By mid-September, around 1,000 protesters — mostly a hodgepodge of young and loosely-organized idealists — took to Wall Street, claiming to represent 99% of the people on the planet, whom they see as the have-nots. They marched in protest of what they called the 1% — the small, tight knot of political and corporate elite running the economy on the backs of the have-nots.

As the New York demonstration gained momentum, others started popping up in other cities throughout North America — Atlanta, Tulsa, Buffalo, Vancouver, and Halifax are just some — as well as various places worldwide.

The movement landed in Toronto in mid-October, putting forth a challenge to city hall on how to deal with the occupation of the downtown park. “We’ve got a group of people that have occupied one of our public parks, and who don’t really have an objective or goal,” said Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who doesn’t buy the view Occupy Toronto advocates on behalf of the majority of people in this country.

“In Canada we have a good quality of life, and we should be proud of what we’ve built.” Mammoliti said. “People get up in the morning and...look after their families, and they do that by working.” In other words, said Mammoliti, things aren’t as bad as demonstrators say. Median after-tax income for unattached people in Canada remained stable from 2008 to 2009 at $25,500, according to Statistics Canada. And the prevalence of “unattached individuals” with low, after-tax income decreased from 30.5% in 2005 to 26.7% in 2009.

Low, after-tax income among families also decreased during that period, but to a lesser extent.

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo

[DesertAttorney 0]

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Occupy Toronto protesters don't seem as organized or clear on their message to the world.

As opposed to the American ones, who have yet to specify their exact goals, the justification thereof, the route to them, much less the financing?

THat's not saying much...

[tkhayes 125]

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As opposed to the American ones, who have yet to specify their exact goals, the justification thereof, the route to them, much less the financing?

THat's not saying much...

kinda like the Tea Party - muddled messages, lots of gibberish, not really knowing what they want or where they are going...

Maybe they have less to complain about in Canada. Life is pretty good there (I here). They weathered the economic crisis a hundred-fold better than we did. Might be all those hefty regulations looking out for the people, ya think?