Went to the Rally

About what I expected I guess. About a thousand people. Stupid chants. A couple of good speeches. Some songs.

I really don't know. This bill is going to pass. harper has a majority and, while the harpercons might make some token amendments to dissipate the bill's critics, it will still be a monstrosity of a law.

We have two options:

1. We have to recognize that harper and his financiers and the whole movement that he represents do not care about democracy, or decency or rational arguments. The have their own agenda and they are pretty much insane. Something more extreme than peaceful protests and the ineffectual posturings of opposition parties against a majority government is needed.

This is an evil, destructive piece of legislation and it needs to be faced by people who grasp that the vast majority are wandering around malls or watching television as it is rail-roaded through Parliament. Occupations, ... embarrassment of government MP's, ... something permanent, something sustained, by a hard-core or committed activists is needed to make the word "stop" in the phrase "stop this bill" meaningful.

2. We have to realize we are in the minority and get the majority on board through a long-term campaign speaking to what it is claimed are "basic Canadian values." That's what I proposed in the "Redeeming Canadian Democracy" campaign based on the general concept of respecting our Parliamentary democratic heritage.

This piece of legislation is too small a thing to hang such a campaign on. Contempt for Canadian democracy is a larger, more general issue. But most Canadians don't have a clue about the significance of any of this. "They're all crooks!" "They're all the same!" (I'll leave out the shit-head anarchists who ... well, best not to speak of them at all, they're so marginal and deluded.)

That's the tragedy of the overall failure to "Stop harper." It's not just one piece of legislation. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't just be reacting to the latest outrage.

That's what happens though, when you decide to retreat into self-righteous powerlessness. Somebody else is in the driver's seat by default, and you're always reacting to their agenda, instead of instituting one of your own.