Get Up, Stand Up

I wrote about protesting and demonstrating a short while back, and the loss of a Québec/Canadian spirit has been a pet peeve of mine for the past few Stephen Harper governments, at least. For some reason, despite what the surveys say - and one day, soon, I promise, I'll finish that text about my true feelings about market research in general - I was happy to see some blue flags at today's pro-student demonstration:

If all it takes is seeing one despot destroy 145 of history - well, he's destroying the last 50 and over-hyping the first 25 with his anti-French and pro-monarchy fixation, but you get the point - to open up the eyes of my fellow citizens of what was once known as New France, then it can't be all bad.

Then again, he's had a ton of help ''bring the free market into our daily lives'' from his provincial brother-in-arms Jean Charest, another non-majority leader who lives off dividing the opposition rather than servicing the population.

You may have heard Charest has planned to increase/unfreeze tuition fees, a means for getting more cash that has NEVER solved a budget crisis and always made higher education a means for the elite to remain amongst themselves. But honestly, that's barely the tip of the iceberg. As a people, we've evolved and are far removed from our French ancestors who used to chop off their leaders' heads when dissatisfied, but we're ready for our Maple Spring (works better in French, see below):

But we were 200,000 strong today, marching down the streets of downtown Montréal, telling all levels of government we weren't going to take their shit anymore. And we did it unmasked, so they can't say we're anarchist rioters, niche groups or anything but a Mass Movement. And like the Arab Spring last year, we'll be even more, even bigger if they keep wanting to shut us up. Because they can't.

They must be reminded that they're our mouthpieces, and if they won't do as we say, they can be replaced. We can't. Jail or kill us, and that's tax money coming out of the system, out of their rich friends' pockets, out of free enterprise. Out of their paychecks.

All they have is the police, who are starting to realize that the bigger our numbers, the likelier they are to injure their friends, neighbours, family members, their kids - by turning violent on the crowds.

We flood one street at a time with people, and then another, and another... until we have marched on all the streets, demanding equality, our share. Our society.

It's The Matrix, and we're rebooting it.