I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somehow over the past....say...I don't know....34 years, I've turned into a real grumpy, old bat. This new personality of mine seems to have appeared completely out of thin air. I used to be such a nice person......you can laugh, that's OK cause I am too!
Whereas I used to smile and help old ladies cross the street, I now yell at them to "hurry up and learn to move it, cause I ain't got all day". I needed to quote that, cause well, I've actually used those words before. Hey look, in my defense, my grandma was moving really slow! Anywhoooo.
Like I was saying, I'm morphed into a really cynical person. I'm leery of cute babies, and of people who are happily married. I question women who claim to enjoy motherhood. And I snicker behind people's back when they have something stuck to the bottom of their shoe. Basically I'm just mean! To help cope and hopefully return to my once gleeful self, I've started a special series of blogs called "random rantings". What better place to share my thoughts and/or alcohol induced opinions about the stories and events I hear and read about all day long. And there ain't a darn thing you can do to stop me, so ha!
For my very first rant, I'm going to start with the occupation movement! And before I go any further, I am as close to a tree-hugging hippie as you can get, when you've got bills to pay, 3 hockey playing, always growing, constantly eating boys and a mortgage bigger than the national debt. So I don't want to hear or read any comments about me being a Harper loving conservative - NONE!
I freakin love the whole idea of fighting the "man", and standing up for what you
truly believe in. I would absolutely attend any type of protest that was well thought through and clearly had a purpose. The problem with the "Occupation" movement is that it has none of that! It is one of the worsts planned and disorganized protests I've ever seen. Yes, they have movements spread throughout the world. However, if you look closely, its only the first world cities which are "hosting" these protests. The people who are actually affected by global social injustice are the ones who are making $1.00 a day sewing COACH bags and GAP sweaters in the back of some seedy factory in India and China. And they wouldn't touch the protests with a ten foot pole, cause they know the real effects of standing up to corporate greed. More on this later.
And yes, the protests have a lot of media coverage. The only problem is that its not mainstream media, where any sort of coherent message is heard by the masses. The only media source that gives a flying fart about this movement are very small and very unknown underground media. So the only people hearing about any positive aspects of the occupation are the protesters themselves. Next to that, the whole world of hard working folk, like...well myself, are laughing at them.
Seriously, you've been living in a park for about a month, in $20,000 yurts which were purchased by Jimmy Hoffa and the other boys down at CUPE. Why aren't you working like the rest of us? If I didn't show up to work for a month cause I was "protesting" I know I would get canned. So how can it be that hundreds of protesters can stick it the man for so long. There are 3 possible reasons.
A) You are already homeless, living in a park. And you think this whole "occupation" thing is great cause you've upgraded from a cardboard box to a spacious 3 bedroom, 2 bath yurt
B) Mommy and Daddy live in Rosedale and support this new phase you're going through. But they secretly have their fingers crossed that you'll outgrow it at some point and get a real job
C) You have tons of OSAP money left over, and its only because of your enormous loan that you can hang out all day.
I highly doubt its the former is true. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the protesters have forced the homeless to relocate. Can't have a protest fighting social injustice and greed with stinky homeless guys around. They might mess up the new American Eagle hoodie you just bought. I have a feeling that most people sitting down at St. James park are there simply so that when they have 2 kids, a mortgage, car payments and a real job, they can look back at say "I was there". Kinda like Woodstock.
The protest is meant to send a world wide message to stop corporate greed. And to create social justice for all. Pretty lofty goals I must admit, but sitting in a yurt smoking dope all day long is definitely the way to make some serious changes around here. It worked....well never...but I have a good feeling about this time.
Actually, I don't. As I go about my day WORKING, I see that not a single normal, employed person is affected by the protests. Which means the CEO's of the big mean corporate world are definitely not feeling the pitch. They're just looking down at you from their 5,000 square foot, marble decorated offices and laughing. Heck, they've probably just rolled a big fat doobie made with 100 dollar bills and are getting high off of the hard work of people like me! And that can't be stopped by singing kumbaya all day long.
Having the right to protest and not face the very real possiblity of being killed or seriously hurt is a privilege that most of the world does not have. But just because you have the right to speak doesn't mean you have to step up to the mic to blab on about nothing in particular. Cause by you sitting in a park smoking dope all day long ranting and raving means that real stories of social injustice and corporate corruption get bumped off the evening news and eventually ignored all together.
Standing up for the rights of others is a very noble thing to do, but please actually do it. If you want to make real change, go down to the local soup kitchen and volunteer. Or become politically active (by which I mean actually vote or run for office; sitting Timmies trying to sound smart does not constitute political activism).
To make global changes, you need to hit the CEO's where it hurts.
In their wallets. Stop buying the newest iPhones (which by the way, I love!), stop shopping at the GAP and boycott Starbucks. Cause only then will they understand the impact of their evils ways, and start to make changes.
And furthermore,
stop blaming the big, bad evil CEO's. We're all part of and support a system where the "haves" continue to rob the "have-nots". We (and by "we" I mean mostly white, North American consumers with expendable money) have to understand that you CANNOT buy a sweater from Walmart for $10 and expect that the Indian worker who assembled it is making a liveable wage - it just doesn't work that way. "We" have to, therefore be willing to pay higher prices for the goods we soooo must have. Only then will the scales of social justice begin to even out.
But that will NEVER, EVER HAPPEN! North Americans love our commercial goods way too much. We are far to willing to bitch and complain about how bad the world is, without realizing that its our commercialism that makes it bad place to begin with.
Rant over, continue with your day :)
As some of you may know, I recently started taking an introductory french class. And because of this I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on the "old dog, new tricks" dilemma. My classes are on Wednesday evening; during classes and shorty thereafter, I able to communicate perfectly with anyone who ONLY wants to know a) my name b) if I'm tired c) if I'm happy. However, for some stupid reason, this new found linguistic knowledge is only able to remain in my brain for a matter of hours. No matter what I do (listen to the course CD continuously, read the textbook repeatedly, stuff cotton balls in my ears) I cannot retain this language! Which leads me back to the old dog-new tricks question. Is there a point in one's life that language acquisition is nearly, if not completely impossible? 
