there's battle lines being drawn

We are in wild times. I spent this day listening, reading, writing and occupying and I nearly lost my mind. I cried in public, snapped at a stranger, ate half a jar of peanut butter and considered taking up smoking. I think I'm about done for the week.


To set the stage and hopefully make a point about Occupy Wall Street, my crazed mood is a conflation of the following variables. I woke up to Michele Bachmann's voice blaring out of my alarm clock. She was slamming Obama for putting the United States "in Libya" and now "in Africa." Holy geography blunder. She went on to demand that the United States hold countries like Iraq and Libya accountable for paying back what has been donated to them in foreign aid. Whaaa?


Following the morning news, I listened to a panel of the "1%" discuss the Occupy movement on the Current. Tremonti, try as she may, couldn't tame two of the men from spewing harmful neoliberal crap about how banks get a bad rap and activists had "better be careful" because "redistribution of wealth is bad for the economy." This threatening language went utterly unchecked. Terry Campbell, President of the Canadian Bankers Association, called the occupy protests a "random," "amusing," "naively misdirected" "waste of time." Campbell defended Jimmy Pattison for building his empire "from scratch" because he "made choices" and therefore shouldn't be "punished" for being rich. 


I expected a better takedown from Canadian media. The show ended with no critical stance, having only quoted one poorly constructed sentence from one protester. It made occupiers look like bored children, "straight out of Sherwood forest." I was disgusted.


After some work, I went to read at Ottawa's Tent City. I happened to be approached by a very misogynist occupier who is not representative of the 99%. He explicitly harassed me and several other women passersby. I tried not to become emotionally invested in his comments, but when he called out "you're just a woman with a small brain," I walked away in tears. What to do about this? Does an inclusive movement exile people?


I am trying to do some writing endorsing the Occupy movement and reflecting on what I perceive to be its major challenges (like true social engagement, as so far in Ottawa, it's a white man's class war, and the group needs to become more representative to be legitimated as the 99%). I'll save that for another day. What I argue here is that the aforementioned issues - reflective of colonialism, racism, classism, ableism and sexism - are collectively what "we" are fighting against, whoever "we" may be. Yeah, there's something happening here.