OccupyTO News Archives - Page 6 of 7

Billionaire Owners had LOCKED OUT Millionaire Players

So the Hockey season has lastly begun! It was the players who have been prepared to play by way of negotiations. It was the greedy owners who locked out it&#8217s players and workers. Toronto has the most worthwhile hockey franchise in the World and however the item is typical though persons still more than pay for their tickets. MLSE has provided to pay for free of charge skate rentals at Nathan Phillip Square so live it up in the cold&#8230 http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2013/01/ten/sp-nhl-2013-group-preview-toronto-maple-leafs.html &nbsp...

What’s the connection between #IdleNOMore and #Occupy?

Occupy Toronto January 27, 2013 by Michael Holloway &nbsp Edmonton Alberta conservative activist Patrick Ross has lately written that #Occupy is &#8220colonizing&#8221[1] #IdleNOMore. &#8220Occupy activists have been gradually colonizing Idle No More&#8221 &nbsp So, ahead of reactionary Sun Media picks up on this correct wing conspiracy theory (if they haven&#8217t currently) – I thought this would be a good opportunity for a little left wing transparency. #Occupy isn&#8217t colonizing #IdleNOMore. Idle No More is as considerably a portion of Occupy as Occupy is a element of Idle No Far more. They are the very same point &#8211 social justice movements. I use the &#8216#&#8217 hastag on the words above for a quite critical explanation these are two grass roots, horizontally organized, world wide web primarily based movements. They are a type of direct democracy exactly where every person agrees on a set of goals and everybody just goes out and does a part. No one particular assigns tasks &#8211 it just occurs &#8211 from every single according to their capacity (to quote a person renowned). Leadership evolves and in the cae of he Quebec Students Stike &#8211 is tested for well-known help Very routinely. In the case of Occcupy Totnto every time the was a Basic Assembly, new individuals lead based on what they have been operating on and how it was developing. The two movements – are World wide web, New Form Best Practice, Social Justice network organizing in action. An evolving form of on-line direct democracy. (Probably a vision of what our constitution will reflect in civil society in a couple of years time.) Right here&#8217s the details, some hyperlinks. The Social Justice Movement is on-line and transparent &#8211 you just have to uncover the essential words and adhere to the hyperlinks &#8211 here are some: The Planet Social Forum (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globe_Social_Forum) is the connection amongst #IdleNOMore and #Occupy. This connectivity goes all the way back to the Seattle IMF meeting in 1999 (N30 -Wikipedia &#8211 &#82201999 Seattle WTO protests&#8221 &#8211 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests) &#8212 years prior to either of the two groups existed! &nbsp Time Travel? Alien Invasion? George Soros&#8217s &#8211 &#8216Tides Foundation&#8217? No &#8212 a international, progressive&#8217s response to corporate globalization, and the emerging International American Empire. In Canada &#8211 in November 2012 &#8211 Social Kind- aka &#8216People&#8217s Assembly&#8217 &#8211 was proposed coming out of the effective &#8216Casseroles&#8217 worldwide solidarity movement which sprang up in support of the hugely profitable Quebec Students Strike against the privatization of public education. This Individuals&#8217s Assembly would be &#8216occupy style&#8217, a horizontally organized discussion towards locating typical ground and in order to hopefully unite progressive social justice activists from English, French Canada and Indigenous Nations from across Turtle Island. That discussion resulted in a Basic Assembly this weekend (Jan26-27) in Ottawa: &#8220Towards a Peoples&#8217 Social Forum in Canada&#8221 &#8211 http://peoplessocialforum.webs.com/ &nbsp Under is a video from the Ottawa Assembly published nowadays on Youtube by skyearthstories. Below the video is a lot more about the organization of the J26 Ottawa Social Forum. &#8220Jessica Gordon &amp Sheelah McLean @ Men and women&#8217s Social Forum Ottawa Jan 26, 2013&#8243 &nbsp To describe the organization of the &#8216J26 Ottawa Social Forum&#8217, I reprint some relevant paragraphs from the &#8220Towards a Peoples&#8217 Social Forum in Canada&#8221 website. The 3 reprints are: The history of the The Globe Social Forum movement The get in touch with for attendance (the meeting&#8217s raison d&#8217etre) and lastly, the proposed architecture, objectives of the Forum. J26 Ottawa Peoples&#8217 Social Forum January 26-27, 2013 University of Ottawa &nbsp Towards a Peoples’ Social Forum What is a Social Forum? (http://peoplessocialforum.webs.com/what-is-a-social-forum) The initial social forum was the Globe Social Forum held in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Basically put, it was a response to the increasing onslaught of the neoliberal agenda of the ruling parties in numerous components of the globe. It challenged the TINA syndrome as properly as the correct-wing theses of &#8220the end of history&#8221 and &#8220clash of civilizations.&#8221 It also proposed the slogan &#8220Another Planet is Attainable.&#8221 The World Social Forum was intended as a regular meeting of activists to move experiences from the individual to the collective. This forum set the trend for organizing such events on an annual basis. Until 2007 there have been seven WSF in diverse cities of the globe with an typical participation of 100 000 men and women. From then onwards a WSF is held each and every two years. The subsequent WSF-2013 will be held in Tunis. In addition to this international event, there emerged national and regional social forums. For instance &#8220Quebec Social Forum,&#8221 &#8220European Social Forum,&#8221 &#8220Africa Social Forum&#8221,&#8221India Social Forum.&#8221 At the identical time social forums were organized on thematic basis. For example, &#8220Democracy Social Forum,&#8221 &#8220Education Social Forum,&#8221 etc.. &nbsp Creating Social Movements as Instruments of Transformation (http://peoplessocialforum.webs.com/why-a-social-forum-now) Anger and discontent against the ruling Conservative government is on the rise all across Canada. Human rights groups, women’s organizations, cultural associations, environment groups, labour, indigenous peoples, students, in reality civil society organizations in basic feel threatened and angered by the government’s policies and actions. Protests for social and environmental justice are erupting all more than the nation. Casseroles have been organized on the streets of many cities in assistance of the student movement in Quebec. The youth across Canada are joining hands with those from Quebec in difficult neo-liberal austerity policies. Indigenous communities are fighting to preserve their culture, and defend their lands from predatory mining and oil corporations. There are a lot of campaigns, gatherings and protests planned for the months to come. But our movements continue to be fragmented and ghettoized. We have to function collectively and develop a space for all these voices of dissent and strategize together our progressive agenda to help create hyperlinks and solidarity across movements and problems. &nbsp A grassroots approach to a Canada-Québec-Indigenous Peoples’ Social Forum (http://peoplessocialforum.webs.com/why-a-social-forum-now) We are proposing a grassroots horizontal strategy to organizing a People’s Social Forum across Canada as a means of stimulating debate, discussion and further our sense of community and collective action. The process of the social forum seeks to reach out to a plurality of social movements, groups and progressive institutions across Canada, Québec and Indigenous communities. The brief term aim becoming to construct on existing struggles by developing a united and cohesive front against the Conservative agenda of austerity and privatization but long-term to assist transform the current political, economic and social paradigm, by employing creative resistance even though proposing options options So far many organizations and folks have come collectively to type Expansion Commissions in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Discussions are going on to form related commissions in Vancouver, Calgary, St. John’s, and so on. The Expansion Commissions will focus on involving as numerous other organizations and individuals in the process. There is a proposal that these Commissions call for a Common Assembly later this fall or in early winter to launch the Peoples’ Social Forum. This general assembly will take the choices on the name, final dates and locations as nicely as the process top to the forum, and its final format. &nbsp _ [1] Patrick Ross @OutlawTory &#8211 &#8220Idle No Much more/Occupy Toronto&#8217s Rhetorical Intimidation Fail&#8221 uploaded by PatrickRoss45 &#8211 http://youtu.be/-X4p57-jxeE &nbsp &nbsp mh...

Occupy Toronto protests provincial Liberal Government

as their delegates select their new leader at their convention in downtown Toronto. I carried a sign that study OCCUPY TORONTO SUPPORTS WORKERS! as protesters met at Moss Park at noon and proceeded to Sherbourne &amp Dundas to point out an abandoned property that could be utilised for housing in this cold exactly where a banner was unfuraled reading &#8220HOUSING NOW&#8221 Marchers proceeded to Allan Garden&#8217s at 1pm and join the OFL(Ontario Federation of Labour) for speeches ahead of moving on to the leadership convention at the Gardens/Mattamy. Where there could have been anyplace from 30-35,000 people in the crowd blocking Carlton St. to streetcars and automobiles&#8230 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/01/26/ontario-liberal-leadership-protest.html &nbsp...

Meditation Flash Mob @ the Toronto Eaton Centre

Meditation Flash Mob @ the Toronto Eaton Centre took place today on Black Friday, November 23 to help to break the spectacle of consumerism and help raise the vibration of the city! Treehugger.com article and video can be viewed here: ‘Meditation Flash Mob Sits in Middle of Mall on “Black Friday’ http://bit.ly/V3auif Facebook Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/495212660513613 Check out this 360 panorama photo: http://360.io/7gUjVQ courtesy of: Simon Plashkes Flashmob artwork design by: Selena Flood Event organized by: Cee Re Ality and Shawn Jason Photos by: Derek Soberal...

One year later: Lessons from “Occupy” on communal living

On October 25, 2012 by Megan Kinch It’s hard to believe that this time last year, I was “living” outside in a park downtown at Occupy Toronto, with several hundred other people. The experience was pretty intense — living in a massive open community situation that we simultaneously built while knowing it could only be temporary, kind of like building an awesome sandcastle while the tide is coming in. It’s hard to look back at such a complicated experience, but as we hit the one-year anniversary of Occupy, I think there are some general lessons that can be learned, not only for political occupations but for more mundane but ultimately more lasting kinds of communal life. Full article: www.offbeathome.com/2012/10/occupy-toronto-communal-living...

1 Year Reunion Video

Filmed and Edited by Mike Roy Recorded in Toronto, Ontario Canada (Oct 15th 2012) The Indignants (Media group) In my opinion Occupy was a success the first day, it brought people together to talk, it provided the tools such as horizontal democracy. It built a broader social network and introduced activist to groups like Food not Bombs and other local affinity groups, which helped replenish the damage done in the wake of the G20. Occupy is what it is, just first the piece of a larger social movement against austerity, and people need to understand that more pieces are to come before we win. About 40-60 people showed up early afternoon at Saint James Park to celebrate the 1 year reunion of Occupy Toronto. No actions were planned and the day consisted of art, music, reminiscing, and reflection. Unfortunately we could not stay for the evening festivity’s, which consisted of a fantastic reenactment play about Occupy Toronto....

Occupy Toronto 1 year later Party at St James Park

We lived in St. James Park for 40 days, built a community, part of a global community, and we were transformed. We saw the impact of austerity, as poor people gathered in the park to share food and stories of strife. Workers talked about how wage cuts, loss of benefits, and unemployment were impacting their lives. Indigenous peoples shared a sacred fire and openly spoke about the scars of residential schools, the loss and destruction of their land and the impact on communities throughout the country. Immigrant peoples detailed how precarious their status is and how Harper’s policies keep families separated and workers grossly underpaid. Through all these conversations, we talked about how the current political and economic system marginalizes and exploits people and keeps us separated. In the park, we found each other and began to build a movement for change. On the 15th, our one year anniversary, we will celebrate our struggle, growth, and accomplishments as a community. We hope you will join us for this celebration! Schedule: 1pm: SE corner of King and Bay – Musical march to call out corruption and celebrate compassion 3pm: St. James Park – Garlic planting jam to ward off vampires sucking the life out of the city 4pm: St. James Park – Free’scool workshop, practicing democracy 5pm: St. James Park – Open Mic at the gazebo 6pm: St. James Park – Common Thread community choir 7pm: St. James Park – Docket Theatre presents Performing Occupy Torontowww.facebook.com/events/392972550775367/ 8:30pm: St. James Park – Hip hop, spoken word & the indie band Leading Armies 11:00pm: We march outta the park and into the future of the movement See you there! www.facebook.com/events/179545805515245/...

Harvest Jam

Harvest Jam – Toronto Sept. 29, 2012 Flickr source: www.flickr.com/photos/87854503@N07/sets/72157631662437938/ Donations Occupy Toronto welcomes non-charitable financial donations to assist with various types of expenses. No one working with Occupy Toronto is paid. Financial donations can be made: A. (preferred) In person, at any Alterna Savings & Credit Union Branch: Account Name: ‘Occupy Toronto’ Account #: 5028427 B. By ‘bank draft’ or ‘money order’ made payable to: “Occupy Toronto” 69 Yonge Street PO Box 17076 Toronto, ON M5E 1Y2 C. By PayPal...

This is not an Occupy eulogy

This is not an Occupy eulogy By Krystalline Kraus This is not a one year Occupy anniversary piece. This is not a reflective obituary of a short-lived movement as if I were writing about a young life tragically cut short. This is not a eulogy. Nor is this some cliché French statement: “Occupy is dead! Long live Occupy!” It’s complicated… I know it’s a struggle for some people to give up the idea that Occupy would always be around at St. James Park, the Vancouver Art Gallery or Zucotti Park. I know some people believed that when Occupy began, that spirit would stay trapped in time, trapped in that park or in that city, forever; as if we humans could control a movement by sheer will and our fear of nostalgic guilt. Full article: rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2012/09/activist-communique-not-occupy-eulogy...

Stop Harper! Real Democracy Now!

#S17 #cdnpoli Monday, September 17th, 2012 12:45pm, Confederation Park, OTTAWA 1:05pm, march to Parliament Hill We have had enough of Stephen Harper! Join us on September 17th, the day Parliament reconvenes after summer recess and the passing of the omnibus budget bill AND the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street! Occupiers have been walking from British Columbia since May Day to spark dialogue, raise awareness, and develop an alternative vision to the one presented by Harper’s Conservatives. Since May 1st others have joined the mission, walking all the way from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba to converge on Parliament Hill on the 17th. Let’s join them to tell the “Harper Government” what we think. Stephen Harper is illegitimate! He came into power through election fraud and with only 21% of Canadians’ votes, not to mention through an unfair first-past-the-post voting system. Harper therefore does NOT have a mandate to implement austerity measures, cut corporate taxes, eradicate environmental research and monitoring, continue to exploit Indigenous communities, cut tens of thousands of public sector jobs, attack immigrants, migrant workers, and refugees, approve destructive oil pipelines, cut minority, women’s, and Indigenous programs, buy fighter jets and drones, build mega prisons, and spy on our internet activity. Mr. Harper, we HAVE been paying attention and we are not going to take it any longer. We demand that you resign immediately. We also demand a total transformation of our political system. We call it a democracy but it is nothing of the sort. Voting every few years for corporately sponsored parties is not democracy. Relying on elite individuals to make decisions for us is not democracy. The definition of democracy is rule by the people. This means ordinary people participating in political decision-making on a regular basis, at every level of government. This is what we want: Direct Democracy. With the power in the hands of the people, we would be making very different decisions. Let’s begin a mass conversation about what we, the people, want for this country. After the rally on Parliament Hill we will hold a Peoples’ Parliament to discuss our desired direction for “Canada”. Please join us on September 17th to stop Harper, demand real democracy, and actually create it! We’ll make history There are still a few seats left on the Occupy Toronto bus! We leave on the coach bus at 6:30am and come back around 9pm. Please contact Travis to reserve your seat: [email protected]. There is a $20 deposit, $10 of which you’ll get back upon boarding the bus. Hope to see you!...

Occupy’s Brief Stay on the Long Arc

“The true problem… is to allow the problems to arise,” wrote R.D. Laing in The Politics of Experience. No less true today than when published in 1967 – or underlined in red the next year. 1968 saw the Prague Spring and My Lai massacre, the Chicago riots and Irish “Troubles.” Students were murdered in Mexico’s Plaza de las Tres Culturas; they brought Paris to a halt when university occupations spread to factories. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Three years earlier, the year of Malcolm X’s murder, King delivered one of his now most-quoted sermons. “[T]he arc of the moral universe is long,” he declared from the steps of the Montgomery, Alabama Capitol, “but it bends toward justice.” New students of social justice still hear stories of ’68 – more than they might about that long arc’s course through their own lifetimes. After all, such stories – activist leaders murdered for their charisma; a world capital nearly taken over by students – seem more fantasy than history, and so don’t implicate Gen X-ers and Millennials, still yet to allow the problems arise in our own time, as more recent events might. After they arise again, as they must, those who ask how will look to 2011 — the Arab Spring, the Indignados, Occupy’s meta-movement. But, with some distance, 2011 might only make sense in the light of the decade that came before it. By this point in 2001, hundreds of thousands of “ant-globalization” protesters – who had captured headlines in 1999 by shutting down the World Trade Organization in Seattle – had laid siege to Free Trade Area of the Americas and G8 meetings, in Quebec City and Genoa respectively. full article: http://www.ryersonfreepress.ca/node/155...

Reflections on a Revolution – “ROAR” Magazine – good source for global news, You should Go!

Occupy Toronto 26 July 2012 by Michael Holloway Click on Image – or here to go to the page shown: http://roarmag.org/about-roar/ From the description: Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR) is an online magazine that seeks to amplify the voice of our generation amidst the clamorous cacophony of a rapidly changing world. ROAR aims to bring you some of the world’s most inspiring news, stories, analysis, ideas, actions, books, poems, tunes, photos, videos and doodles from the front-lines of the global justice movement. ROAR was founded in San Francisco in 2010 as an initiative of Spearhead Action Group, an NGO that champions the creation of a more just and more sustainable world. ROAR is run by Jérôme Roos, a writer, activist and political economist from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. No particular endorsement is indented here; I don’t know these people, or what stripe they are. Good news aggregation of stories of the movement world wide. Via Donna Jennison post (26July2012 ~10:00 am edt) at Facebook Group, “Casseroles Night in Canada” – https://www.facebook.com/groups/242330792546515/permalink/265983363514591/ ...

Memories… of the park…

in pictures: ...

#May1TO OCCUPY MAY DAY 2012 – Toronto

May 1, 2012, 4pm — International Workers’ Day March starts at Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto City Hall * No Work * No School * No Shopping * No Banking * No Housework * Copyright © 2012 Toronto Video Activist Collective...

May Day takes Toronto

May Day takes Toronto by Justin Saunders Annual workers’ rights celebration spills into streets throughout day, night One of the most successful May Day demonstrations in years took place earlier today, as large numbers filled the streets of Toronto in the annual festival of workers rights that is celebrated worldwide. Early in the day, a small Occupy contingent began guerilla gardening in a small patch at Queens Park, behind the provincial parliament building. The two dozen or so police attending the event stood well back, although a video unit showed a strange interest in the goings on. The camera on top of the black SUV with heavily tinted windows swivelled back and forth over a small group busily engaged in planting peas, garlic, onions, kale, lettuce and radishes. None of the other journalists present seemed to notice, so our crew approached and motioned that we wanted to ask them a question. After a few hand signals indicating that we should wait while they finished talking about something, the van pulled away, only to return five minutes later to the same spot. This ‘Garden Party Picnic Potluck’ was held to ‘challenge the lack of food security for many in this city’, said Jacob Kearey-Moreland, who organized the event. Kearey-Moreland said the symbolic garden at Queens Park was one of ’99′ other gardens planned across the city on May Day, intended to connect food security to broader economic issues – namely that, in spite of abundance, 1 billion people globally lack access to food. Occupiers plan to return regularly until the garden is harvested. The day’s main rally and march gathered at City Hall later in the afternoon, and quickly swelled to well over 1500 people. The event, a joint action between the May 1st Movement, No One Is Illegal and Occupy Toronto, denounced austerity policies at all levels of government, and highlighted the struggles of immigants, refugees and indigenous peoples in Canada, drawing links between them and the historical struggles of the labour movement, whose victory in securing the 8-hour workday is routinely celebrated on May Day. Nadia Saad of No One Is Illegal said: “We will connect our struggles.” In a press release, NOII called for the “freedom to move, stay and return” for non-status and migrant workers who have virtually no rights under the Canadian immigration system. Full article: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/mayday-takes-toronto/10726...

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