Occupation art

"Support Our Neighbors" by Madeleine P.

Madeleine and I went down to the Occupy Ottawa gathering on Saturday. There was a fabulous cross section of people there and quite a few dogs, too. One of the signs read: "The revolution will not be televised" - which may be true, but it will definitely be on facebook. It seemed that the main activity there was taking pictures and videos of everyone else. Madeleine posted this watercolour on the facebook event page, and within minutes the guy (Matt) and his dog (Bella) were identified and he even "liked" it himself.

It is a brave new world we live in, and I'm happy to see lots of people with their eyes open asking questions. I certainly admire the earnest facilitators using the people's mic, consensus decision-making, politically-correct speech and all that, but I wonder if all this good behaviour isn't precisely what the powers that be want to see. And if ever the young testosterone-laden lads get out of hand (and Bella, the golden doodle, too), well, the full force of the state will be brought down on the whole thing and everyone will be written off as hooligans and criminals. Interesting times, indeed.