Notes from Day Seven: The Occupy movement may vanish

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It would be interesting to look into the future. Unfortunately most of us can't do what Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) does in Oceans 12. He says, "I hire professionals to (predict the future), and even they sometimes get it wrong." So we will have to wait a bit longer to see what becomes of the Occupy movement.

From Vancouver to London to Halifax, police have been closing in on Canadian Occupiers. It's been a few days since authorities took down the tents in Halifax. Some of the tent owners were away when it happened. One Occupy organizer, during a radio interview, said he felt very sorry for a homeless person who would find all his belongings gone when he returned to his tent site. The organizer said he saw a police officer making fun of the tent before he took it away.

The methods used in Halifax were similar to those used in London's Victoria Park: solid cooperation between city hall and the police department; communications prior to the raid letting Occupiers know that they were violating their welcome; a late night action; plenty of police officers and police vehicles; and afterwards public statements by the mayor defending the action (while lawyers muse about the constitutionality of the police actions).

As we wait to see what will happen to the movement, some people are taking sides. I overheard one person comment to a friend that he is glad to see the police take away the tents and disperse the people. Protesting students and homeless people as well as Occupy supporters have a different take. Some are phoning into radio stations denouncing the evictions as trickery.

What will become of the movement, no one knows. At the same time, it's important to understand the concerns the movement is trying to raise. There are too many people getting extremely rich in their sleep while many millions of others toil away in the factories that create wealth for the "one percent." Health care is not what it should be, especially for the poor. Trillions of dollars are spent each year to bolster the institution of war. The managers of our global economy are forcing everyone to compete with everyone, creating never-ending cycles of stress, dislocation and pollution. The world's population appears to be dangerously high. Leaders of industry claim that the only way forward is to engage in practices such as oil extraction (in Alberta) and the construction of massive dams (in China) that seem to be extended — and far more lethal — versions of the "slash and burn" practices of aboriginal peoples.

About a month ago, David Suzuki posted an article called "Occupy Wall Street reflects increasing frustration." He noted that most of the problems of our modern world are the result of fairly recent innovations. It has only been in the last 100 years, for example, that we have seen the rise of cars and planes. At the beginning of the 1900s, no one drove and even fewer flew.

Suzuki's point in the article was that humans are capable of innovation and this can be a source of hope. Who knows what technologies, what social movements, what political shifts may yet emerge that will get us through these times to a place where there are fewer threats to a good life for all people?

The article ends with a few lines that are worth noting. "The course of human history is constantly changing. It's up to all of us to join the conversation to help steer it to a better path than the one we are on. Maybe our one demand should be of ourselves: care enough to do something" (emphasis added).

What can you and I do in the coming weeks and years to show that we care? It can be something as simple as picking up a piece of trash someone else threw on the sidewalk. It can be saving before we spend. It can be buying a car that's far smaller than we want. It can be planning a small home or giving an existing one a new life rather than buying the biggest you can handle. It can be praying for our communities and for the planet. It can be vacationing locally instead of boarding a plane. It can be supporting local employers and enterprise rather than investing in far-away companies that we don't understand.

The Occupy movement may vanish. But you and I won't. And there is some hope in that. Absolutely.

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