Reflections on Occupy / My experience with Occupy Edmonton

"We Will Lead Every Revolution Against Us" -- Theodor Herzl

It's unfortunate I have to write this post as I have been an avid supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement before it even began in the United States. During the first week there was a media blackout at which point I told many people that "there is an occupation of Wall Street going on right now". "Yea right", they said "I would have heard about it on the news.". Before Occupy Wall Street even started I have been writing about it abstractly. So before you assume I am an Occupy hater, realize that to me this movement isn't a prime time fad.

Sure enough, a few days after this embarrassing act by the NYPD, Occupy gained internet fame:

At this point mainstream media had no choice but to report on the growing protests and in the U.S. a new symbol of hope for America's youth has risen to create a uniting front against corruption and fraud. Most of what you see on TV regarding the movement is heavily doctored to sway your opinion regarding it. Following the original livestreams is the only true way to know you are not being lied to during this trying time.

In the U.S. the media made a fatal mistake, they attempted to ignore the message instead of control it in hopes that the movement would get bored and go home. In the week the media was ignoring the protests, hundreds of thousands found out about it and instantly lost all trust in anything media was telling them. Control is essential in public relations. This failure has ensured the U.S. movement became a success.

In Canada, it seems media and government learned from the mistakes of the U.S. We decided to control the message right away, taking this power away from Occupy itself and giving a heads up to any "activists" who always seem to end up where the cameras are. Articles like this showed up 10 days in advance. In fact on October 2nd I made a note of it on Twitter:

 

 From this point on I decided to be cautious until I could confirm it's legitimacy as it was obvious that parts of this movement were not naturally occurring as they were in the U.S. In the U.S. the people did not need the mainstream media to tell them about the event to make it successful and here they were practically promoting it. This is a red flag.

Sure enough when I discovered that there would be an Occupy Edmonton, Mike Hudema's name (the Greenpeace mouthpiece) showed up as one of the organizers. About a year ago I contacted Mike Hudema about a possible interview regarding his views on peak oil, he never did respond. Suffice to say, I don't think he has any interest in representing this:

It looks more like he's interested in stuff like this. Greenpeace stuff, it looks like. I'd like to direct your attention to this article put out by CSIS. Does that sound like a government that wants to promote Anti-Globalization to you? How much have you heard about Anti-Globalization and banking fraud in relation to Occupy Edmonton? I'm not talking about "Ending Capitalism" here. I'm talking about addressing events like this:

Some of the world’s strongest banks have profited from an emergency credit facility set up by the US Federal Reserve to shore up confidence in the global financial system, according to a Financial Times analysis of data released by the Fed..

Rabobank of the Netherlands and Toronto-Dominion of Canada, two of the only banks in the world with triple A credit ratings, used more than $20 billion in cumulative Taf loans.

Ed Clark, TD chief executive, said that using Taf was logical even though his bank never had a liquidity problem. “That wasn’t how we made a lot of money. But you make a dollar here, you make a dollar there. What’s the spread you make on a billion dollars?” he said.

My bet would be little or none. 

I don't know much about the other two media moguls of Occupy Edmonton. Mike Thomas (who blogs at adhdcanuck.ca) seems to be your run-of-the-mill environment activist. I know even less about Chelsea Taylor. I don't watch TV, so I haven't really been keeping up with interviews.

On Tuesday, I went down during the day, while taking a moment from work (If you don't get it yet, Occupy isn't about hippies who don't want to work contrary to the opinions of the likes of Michael Moore, and the other camera whores that pretend to be "alternative". Hey Michael, if you love socialism so much why are your documentaries *pay only* unlike pressfortruth.ca which is pro-capitalism and puts theirs out for free?) and during my time there some Greenpeace activists were across the street from the Occupy camp. With my megaphone I told them they should come over and join us, in response they smiled but decided to stay across the street. I made a mental note that this was fairly strange considering the Greenpeace spokes-person on oilsands was just across the street. Red flag number 2.

I also happened to witness a certain conversation between Mike Thomas and another participant at Occupy Edmonton. I will not release this persons name on this blog as he is not recognizable via media. Mr. Thomas was worried about some routine security problems and required a "chief of security". He assigned this position to the participant I was having a conversation with and told him he could gather volunteers. I offered to be a volunteer but due to my schedule I never actually ended up participating in any "security services". He went on to mention that it would be confirmed at the general assembly that night and consensus on the new position would be taken, but that in the midterm the position was required until then. I could not remain at Occupy long enough to witness the General Assembly myself, so I cannot say if that happened or not. For the moment I thought nothing of it and continued enjoying the protest until I left.

Throughout history revolutions have happened a lot, and yet they usually end up in tragedy. Take Egypt for instance. Often a desperate population will latch on to anything that even resembles a leader in the hopes it will bring freedom, even if they don't have their best interests at heart. Hitler, the Russian revolution, the list goes on and on. A disenfranchised population combined with demoralization and copious amounts of propaganda can easily be manipulated into following a Napoleon into their own battle of Waterloo, and that is exactly what I feel is happening to Occupy Edmonton.

By the time I got home Tuesday, I had a direct message waiting for me on Twitter from one of my followers asking if I knew what was going on with some incident involving a chief of security banning representatives from kikkiplanet.com. This was the first I had heard of it, and I had only passing familiarity with the Kikki Planet blog. I replied that I would look into it further.

Now one thing Occupy has been doing (for the most part) is taking the moral high ground. It's why they are winning. It's why the LAPD has a twitter account dedicated to supporting Occupy. Truth and honesty always win, and since this movement revolves around corruption it is ever more important. While the system puts out failures, the people stand united and outraged yet courteous and honest. New York avoided eviction by cleaning the park better than the company hired to clean it had. That's how you win against these assholes. That's how you avoid public relations nightmares. While media and big business plays friendly towards Occupy, they are just waiting for that big PR fuck up that will make their day!

I put on my sleuthing hat and away we went. First I had to catch up on the situation, reading Twitter, Facebook, comments on articles. I then decided to contact KikkiPlanet and see if I could get more details. At this point I was simply interested in avoiding a PR disaster. Occupy has enough trouble gaining support in Edmonton it certainly didn't need this. After conversing with Kikkiplanet.com and determining I had enough background on the situation, I decided to write a letter to act as a Proposal for the Occupy Edmonton General Assembly by proxy. I had too much work to do to make it down in person so I left the delivery to someone I felt I could trust regarding the subject matter. Kikkiplanet.com had positively confirmed to me that the "security chief" in question was the participant I met earlier.

Here is the proposal I wrote:

Good Evening Occupy YEG,

  This is a proposal by proxy and thank you to the one reading it.

  It's come to my attention that there has been a somewhat hostile exchange
between Occupy and the blog Kikkiplanet.com. While I was not directly involved
in any of the exchange I decided of my own accord to try and mediate a peace.

Occupy is very important for myself, and all of it's participants. We will
face many struggles and proper representation of what we are, and what our
opinion is very important. I think we can all agree that no one opinion
represents this movement. I think we can also recognize that with no leaders
we all are responsible for the movement's actions.

I therefore propose to the GA that a formal apology is constructed by the
group for the ill-will Kikkiplanet.com has received. I'd ask our participants
to hold no ill-will towards any media, as I am confident that when they see
what we are really about they will be fair.

I believe in our movement, and that the GA can properly address this issue,
and all parties can move on and focus on the important problems in society.

Kikkiplanet.com has requested to me to relay that they wish to publish an
unedited version of tonight's GA baseline minutes. Please oblige.

@RichardFantin

I waited for word of the result.

A few hours later the person I had asked to deliver my proposal returned. They told me that they had delivered my proposal to someone named 'Rob' and he promised it would be read. During their time at Occupy Edmonton they had a chance to talk with Mike Thomas. They asked him about the exchange between Occupy Edmonton and KikkiPlanet. His reply was that the security chief position has never existed and that Occupy is being set up. I then confirmed this response with KikkiPlanet who had been told the same thing by Occupy Edmonton even though she sent them emails from the "security chief" in question which proclaim her to be banned. I have been forwarded all correspondence, it is authentic.

So there is now a cover-up underway. Occupy Edmonton was facing a small bump in terms of PR stemming from a negative blog post from Kikkiplanet.com seemingly based on misunderstanding. They are now facing failure. The person I sent down to Occupy told me they were shocked how many times Mike Thomas said "I'm in charge".

Charging into Waterloo.

*ADDENDUM*

I hope OccupyYeg can work past this issue and truly respect the spirit of Occupy. Here's a hint about what that spirit stands for (we're better than politicians, aren't we?):

Oh and this has nothing to do with my post, but here is a true hero: