A protest that organizers are describing as the single biggest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history choked the streets of downtown Montreal. "By 3:30 p.m., a little more than 90 minutes after the marches began to snake their way through downtown Montreal, CLASSE, which would later estimate the crowd at about 250,000, described the march as "the single biggest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Montreal police, refuse publicly to estimate crowd size."
Yes, the whole blog pales when compared to the brilliance you've both displayed here today. Well done!
ReplyDeleteI think this should be our standard reply to trolls.
DeleteClearly, Melvin Rox/Rascally Footjob got a D in TRL 220 - Introduction to Trolling and Sockpuppet Creation. Every entry-level troll knows that one shouldn't introduce their sockpuppet until they've had at least one 10-comment scuffle.
ReplyDeleteIf he'd bothered to take TRL 335, they would also have learned that a good sockpuppet should have at least a month's worth of posts and community history before being deployed. They, like fine wines or political scandals, take a bit of aging before they are mature to their full potential.
Perhaps they are both giving each other a footjob .
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, copied or not, people need to see what's happening in the world. If you want to continue being in denial about the fact things are going to batshit hell in a handbasket, be our guests and always feel free to request posting rights and post something better!
P.S. Yes, I know I just fed the trolls, but they are so loveable! Not!!!
I'd have preferred if there were some economists among those quarter-million people who had better ideas about diagnosing the current economic malaise (at the macro and micro level), thought through some concrete proposals, packaged it thoughfully and endorsed some charismatic individuals from among those quarter-million as political representatives to run for office at whatever level the problem can be solved.
ReplyDeleteAnd then solve them.
Until then, I remain, sincerely unimpressed. It hasn't resolved the European debt crisis, it hasn't reversed falling tax revenue, and it hasn't produced employment for anyone beyond pundits, reporters, streetsweepers and lawyers.
"....those quarter-million people who had better ideas about diagnosing the current economic malaise (at the macro and micro level), thought through some concrete proposals, packaged it thoughfully and endorsed some charismatic individuals from among those quarter-million as political representatives to run for office at whatever level the problem can be solved."
DeleteThe solution is called Marxism, it comes in various forms from democratic to authoritarian, and the money men would rather allow another Hitler to come to power to avoid it.
I can imagine the shitshow I missed in the comments earlier...which is one of the reasons that I haven't posted about this on CM.
ReplyDeleteFor those who can't read French and would like some English translations of documents and news articles associated with the manifencours: http://translatingtheprintempserable.tumblr.com/
Some of the key points of the movement are articulated here: http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/story/ten-points-everyone-should-know-about-quebec-student-movement/10896
Solidarité.
Thanks for the links.
DeleteWow.
DeleteRead the links, and now I have NO sympathy for the student protesters.
To live in a first-world country and have to pay $20,000 for a four-year college education = Oppression?
There are a great number of people in the rest of the world who would love to be so oppressed.
That's not the point. The point is, who benefits from having educated professionals in society? The students alone, or the whole society? Insodar as the students do benefit from their education and shouldntherefore pay for it, should they pay upfront, or later, in the taxes on their increased incomes? And if tuition was originally set with these questions in mind, should there have been some discussion of these questions before the right-wing government currently in power unilaterally decided to change the rules? Finally, if the claim is that the government "can't afford" to maintain low tuition rates, why is that? If it's because of tax cuts for the rich and for businesses over the last decade, once again, shall we at least discuss our priorities before making this unilateral move?
DeleteWhile I suspect it would be impossible to convince Dr. Cubed, this document does a good job of articulating the issues and myths around the state of education in Quebec and elsewhere: http://www.iris-recherche.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Brochure-English-web.pdf
DeleteIt's not that I don't see the arguments, or agree with the sentiments. I won't dissect Merely's argument or parse rhetoric from reason. My point is much simpler:
DeleteEven after the proposed tuition hike, Canadian students will remain one of the most incredibly privileged groups of students in the world; they will be merely somewhat-less privileged than they were before.
Casting this as one of the gravest injustices facing the planet today, and expecting the world to rally to their defense and overthrow the very system that has ensconced them in that position of privilege, is going to sound rather petulant to those who are not so privileged (i.e. virtually the rest of the whole world).
The links provided present primarily partisan rhetoric seeking to secure existing advantage in a provincial squabble about funding priorities; to cast this as a matter of universal oppression and injustice is either an (at best) ignorant or (at worst) cynical exercise of coopting genuine values and ideals for the sake of group advantage.
Read some local newspapers from around the world, readily available on the internet freely provided by your educational institutions, in which you will find detailed situations of actual injustice and oppression, and then tell me whether other people not paying as much of your education as they used to should genuinely merit the name "injustice" or "oppression."
There's genuine oppression and injustice in the world; this is not even in the same ballpark, and to assert it is, well, frankly it's downright offensive.
So no, unfortunately, I'm not going to book a plane-ticket, paint a sign and march in solidarity with the "oppressed" of Montreal, even if 250,000 others genuinely feel oppressed.
The question is not whether other people are MORE oppressed. That is a false argument. A woman whose husband only beats her once a month is not as badly oppressed as one whose husband beats her every other day; but that doesn't mean she is not oppressed at all, or that her husband as a right to beat her at all.
DeleteThe assumption underlying the phrase "other people paying for your education" is that only the student benefits from their education. In fact the entire society benefits from educating as many people as are capable of benefitting from a post-secondary education; and the students will - as they point out - be paying for not only their education, but that of other people, in the taxes they will pay later on.
Quebec students aren't 'privileged', because that implies that they are getting something they haven't really got a right to. In fact they are getting something EVERYONE should have access to - an affordable education. Instead of trying to drag them down to the same state as other college students, in the US and now the UK, for example, we should be trying to give the same access to education to every student, no matter where they are.
The inequity of the post-secondary system is not improved by making even more people suffer.