By Doug Draper
While the grand poobahs of various cities across Canada, including Toronto, Halifax , Vancouver and Victoria, are in the process of clearing ‘Occupy Movement’ protestors out of their parks, the Occupy Buffalo wing of the movement still seems to be going strong.
Occupy Buffalo with city hall looming in background.
During a short visit this November 5 to the encampment for Occupy Buffalo, located on Niagara Square in front of Buffalo, New York’s majestic city hall, this Niagara At Large reporter was told by some of the protesters that things are still going fine with the city.
“Our relationship with the city has been good,” said one of the protesters as the colony of tents here goes into its second month. This encampment that appears to have gone out of its way to keep the area clean and free of drugs or alcohol was also continuing to enjoy a good deal of support from drivers and passengers, honking horns and sharing waves of support as they passed by.
The Occupy Buffalo effort, like Occupy Toronto, represents an expansion of the Occupy Wall Street protests that began toward the end of this summer and have spread to communities across the continent. It is a demonstration against a hollowing out of the middle class and a growing lack of decent paying jobs that has seen about one per cent of the population hording most of our societies’ wealth.
Occupy Buffalo. Photos by Doug Draper
One of Occupy Buffalo’s handouts reads as follows; “The national news and local news have not told our story, just like they haven’t told your story. Why not? Because they are controlled by the top one percent who own 50 per cent of this nation’s wealth. … The top one percent said that the banks were too big to fail. The 99 per cent say – ‘We the people are too big to fail!’”
The organizers of Occupy Buffalo invites everyone to assemble peacefully with them, any hour of the day or night, including their neighbours across the border in Niagara, Ontario.
You can learn more about Occupy Buffalo by visiting www.occupybuffalo.org .
Just as a p.s. to reports that some Canadian cities are moving to close down ‘Occupy’ encampments in their parks, it was reported on CBC that one reason is that some of these parks will be used for upcoming Remembrance Day commemorations. It is too bad that both events can’t continue in the parks at the same time. After all, didn’t our veterans go to war to fight for a better life for the 99 per cent too?
(We invite our readers to share their views on this post below. Remember that Niagara At Large only posts comments by people willing to share their first and last names.)
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The fact that much of the media is owned by the “1%” is a significant problem. They like to focus on the negatives.
Kudos to the Toronto Star though. Editorials from that paper have been largely positive. Likewise, when the occupiers demonstrate, as they did this weekend, the general public seems supportive. Apparently polls indicate this as well.
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I am very glad to hear that Occupy Buffalo is going so well. This whole Occupy movement has been so important at opening some political and moral space to finally point out what’s happening in society.
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It is just about over. Occupy has moved from an undefined protest to boring and now to dangerous.
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Kudos to the officials in London, Ontario.
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You are right Mr. Strugar. Let’s just crush the Occupy Movement in any way we can through police and government powers. Why should anyone have the audacity to use public space, or “the commons” as it is known in New England, to challenge the great gods of Bay Street and Wall Street with their hedge funds and other paper shuffling that is ballooning their fortunes while a once vibrant middle class in Canada and the United States is sucked to death like a lamprey suctioned on to a lake trout.
Have there been some problems at some of the encampments of this movement that have been seen as “dangerous” or out of line with city bylaws, etc? Yes there have. But what troubles me, Mr. Strugar, about your ‘the government-is-always-right’ mentality is that maybe, just sometimes, the people who have suffered under government and finacial mismangement by those you hold up as gods, may be right every now and then too. Can you accept the possibility of that, or is that beyond you as you search for every nuance in a bylaw that says these protesters shouldn’t be camping in a public park???!!!!!
In that regard, and to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, one of the great fathers of American democracy, perhaps a little rebellion and civil disobedience every now and then is a good thing.
But of course, you wouldn’t understand that, would you? The very thought of Jeffersonian democracy would likely make you vomit more poison forth on anyone who questions the imperial powers of government and police. Isn’t it fine that you are always on the right side of government and the law.
You may be as strident in your indignation of protesters of government as you wish, yet as Remembrance Day approaches, I remain hopeful that your mentality bears little or no likeness to the mentality our veterans fought and died against during present and past wars.
Doug Draper, publisher, Niagara At Large.
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How dare you insult the veterans that fought and died for DEMOCRACY a system of government based on law. You are an insult to their courage, valor and sacrifice
You may get up on your soapbox and pontificate all you want about about Jefferson and imperial powers but when you begin to allow some laws to be broken you slide down a slippery slope. As I stated before if you are the 99% you have the power to elect people that will enact laws that you support. Until then, break the law if you wish but be prepared to pay the for your own lawlessness.
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Our electoral process ensures that corrupt and self-seeking governments can pervert the legal process. And what do we do when governments consider themselves above the law, Mr. Strugar? What happens then? The law is made by fallible mortals, and it is also only as valid as the system that enforces it. Our system is rotten to the core. If you don’t see that, obviously you’re one of the few for whom it is working nicely. Well then, good for you — but don’t assume that yours is the only window on reality. And please, let’s leave the veterans out of it; to assume that you have a clue why individual people fought and died is presumptuous in the extreme. Salute their courage — but do not presume to speak for them. Nobody has that right.
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Firrst of all it was Doug Draper not I that brought the veterans into this conversation and made himself their spokesperson. The law would not be fallible to you if you of the 99% (or so you claim) elected people like Draper, McMurran, Taliano and more of that ilk. So get out of the parks and get on the campaign trail. You cannot lose because you are the 99% (or so you claim).
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