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Follow the Leader

By James Cummins

December Issue of U Men Magazine--"The Best of the Year" issue.

On November 10, 2011 a group of students entered the James Administration building on the McGill University Campus in order to state a sit-in protest. Montreal has been famous for these ever since John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged a similar event in May of 1969 to protest the Vietnam War. Protest is, in some respects, a way of life in Montreal that it isn’t elsewhere in North America. However the events of November 10 are different than others that have come before it.

Since the beginning of September, the union that represents the support staff of McGill University has been on strike. Students around the campus have complained about a plummeting quality of service from the university ever since. A campus staff already known for being rude, giving mixed advice and then blaming it on the student, and generally regarding student requests as a chore rather than the first and most important job of the institution, was replaced by management that began refusing to answer emails or even the most basic questions.

Some campuses, like the Management Faculty, saw instances of students being dealt with by administration members who would be sitting directly in front of a student and refuse to speak to them, only speaking through a student mediator while rummaging through their desk and exclaiming “I don’t have time for this!” There were others however that were as helpful as they possibly could be, though this was not the norm.

There were some students that supported the striking workers, but many who did not. The majority of students were at worst neutral towards the strike, just wanting the university and the union to come to terms and get back to work. As of the beginning of November this had not yet happened--the strike continued. The university administration began sending out emails to the full student body regarding various tactics they were putting in place, such as legal injunctions to get picketers off campus, appeals to the labour board, and generally pressure on the student body to ‘stay in line’ or else.

At this point the “Occupy Montreal” movement--sprung from the efforts of the New Yorkers who began their Occupation of Wall Street on September 17 of this year--had been rather tame. The occupiers are located in a park that is pretty distant from any 9-5ers or major traffic. November 10, however, was not initially intended to be the grounds of a spreading of the occupy movement in the city. Instead, it was planned by a separate group as a province-wide student strike over plans to double the university tuition rate. Québec’s tuition is more than half that of most other Canadian provinces, including my home province, and I myself am already paying an out-of-province rate similar to what will be asked of those that call Québec home, so generally I am not all that interested in the plight of students I see as getting a pretty good deal.

As for the Occupy movement, I can sympathize but do not necessarily support the general philosophy behind it. I have a book coming out in a few months here detailing the nearly decade long history of a similar movement—the Anti-Naked Shorting Movement—which I have been following since 2003. They too took to Wall Street, but in smaller groups back during the economic boom, but no one listened. They warned that Wall Street was a house of cards and some very bad things were coming, but no one listened. They created a national network of experts and supporters, got on television, and wrote columns--but nobody listened. So I can sympathize with the fact that, when no one will listen, words are often no longer enough. Someone has to do something. I wrote book, and in a different situation, the Occupy movement is staging worldwide sit-ins.

I can also sympathize with the idea that, not only were the banks of the last decade placing profits ahead of the rights of homeowners and families, but they were also placing them ahead of future homeowners and future families. Student debt is a plague in North America. For many decades it has been assumed that if you are not from a rich family, you will be expected to pay back what it cost you to go to school over the first ten to twenty years of your working life--with interest. Students exit university already chained to national lending institutions. And to leave school in a time where there are no jobs to even pay the interest on those loans is more than frustrating--it can be life ending. To that end, for many students, the only ones profiting off their education are the university faculties whose salaries are paid only because there is a student body present, and the lending institutions that skim off the top of the salaries of students once they leave college.

The idea is that this money will be made back by the student over time, but if there is no first job to get that student on their feet, then an immediate bankruptcy looms.

The following is the context I came into November 10, 2011 with--I was pretty much neutral on the whole thing. I believe that banks have the right to make money, and that universities have the responsibility to provide research to future society more so than they do to provide a student with a very lavish education. Individuals in turn have the right and responsibility to take care of their own interests within that system—that is capitalism. I have student debt; I have a plan, and not one reliant on a corporate institution taking my future out of the hands of the educational institution in order for society to continue squeezing me. That is the way of the world.

But on November 10, that changed. The students who came to occupy the building at McGill were there to occupy, specifically, the office of the university President. They entered the floor and successfully entered the offices to which they sought access to. No one was hurt. The protestors claim they had to squeeze in with their bodies through a door that was being slammed in their faces; the administration characterizes it as them pushing past the people inside. Semantics, right?

Another group of students formed outside of the building, creating a human chain to protect those inside. The police had been called, and campus security was becoming pushy. Tensions were on the rise. Those inside the building were approaching the end of their simple act, but after a skirmish between police and protestors outside, the riot police were on their way. Again, as of now, no one was hurt.

After negotiating their exit with the administration, the protestors exited the building to a scene of over a hundred riot police entering the campus. Within minutes the tear gas and pepper spray was in full use. People were beaten. People just passing by trying to get home were attacked by police--not protestors. The protestors were allowed to leave without arrest, but not before a show of substantial force by the authorities. To make matters worse, no emergency broadcast was put forward to the established network to warn the body that police violence was coming.

The following day the President of the university released yet another email, telling the administration’s side of the story. In it the protestors were pretty much described as insolent brats who had no idea what they wanted, whom the university very kindly let leave. She left out the pepper spray, she left out the tear gas, instead merely stating that “the riot squad … dispersed the protesters by its usual means”. She called the presence “shocking”, in my opinion in such a way that it insinuated she was shocked that they had to be called, but what is more shocking is the lack of empathy shown by the shepherd of this flock.

The incident sent the following message: if you step foot in our offices, bad things will happen to you. The administration used communication to attach themselves indirectly to the events through insinuation--perfectly legal, of course. But supporting the riot police through calling their methods “the usual” and then stating they were “entirely directed by the Montreal police service” in the same sentence, insinuates that, while they didn’t technically do anything, it very well could happen again. It was clear that the administration was subtly choosing sides people the students and police.

Students fed up with administration inaction that has led to a weakening of their education, and facing a society that they see as represented by the administration, that will be difficult for them to survive in, have a right to be frustrated. The administration has a right to ignore this frustration. However, in that ignorance, and through the events of November 10, they have proven one thing--if it comes down to you or them, it’s not gonna be them.

Even if the President steps down tomorrow it would not heal those who were there, or even those who simply hear about it that are now concerned about whether or not they have a voice on campus without fear of reprisal. At a university that purports itself to be a leader in human rights, this kind of event requires greater attention that it has received. An official in-house investigation has been launched by a faculty member--not an independent investigator. More insinuating emails have been distributed in warning of any future protests. And life goes on.

I take the view that nobody did anything wrong, they just did what they did poorly. The President had been bad at communicating on behalf of the administration, no doubt she does not intend to intimidate, but she has intimidated hundreds of students in recent months. The police responded not through an intention of hurting people, but because they were not calm and peaceful enough to disperse the students without the crutch of force. And the student body needs to pay more attention, stronger attention, sooner to the issues going on around them.

But being bad at your job is not an excuse. That the financial analysts were bad at their jobs during the 2000s, unequipped to foresee the results of their actions, is not an excuse. That the McGill University administration and Montreal police force are unequipped to handle peaceful protest effectively, is not an excuse. Especially in a city where real, actual riots are not uncommon after something as common as a hockey game. If the authorities do not clean up their act, I fear a meltdown coming. And it will not be the fault of the oppressed. The administration and police are paid to be good at their jobs, the students and taxpayers are paying for the system. They should own the system, not be held down by it.

All this to say: there is no doubt in my mind that this turmoil, and this new conversation happening all across North America, was directly inspired by the events of the Arab Spring. The Middle-East has become a beacon of hope for not just similar regions, but for the superpowers themselves. More than enough has been written about the effects this has had on the region, but in the coming years much more will no doubt be written on the powerful impact of this contemporary philosophy of social activism, a neo-Ghandi-ism if you will, shall have on the world as a whole. As Barack Obama stated before the United Nations:

“[T]his has been a remarkable year. The Qaddafi regime is over. Gbagbo, Ben Ali, Mubarak are no longer in power. Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him. Something is happening in our world. The way things have been is not the way that they will be. The humiliating grip of corruption and tyranny is being pried open. Dictators are on notice. Technology is putting power into the hands of the people. The youth are delivering a powerful rebuke to dictatorship… The promise written down on paper -- “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” -- is closer at hand.”

It should be said that this notice is not exclusive to foreign lands. The “best of the year”, in my opinion, has been this radical shift in power from the authorities to the people—the most radical in over a century. May the philosophy of fairness spread as far and wide as it possibly can. I may not support everything protestors are saying, but I more than support their right to be heard whether it be in Beirut, Montreal, or New York City.

Haiti: The First Domino

Before you put your money where your mouth is, take a moment to think instead of just feeling.

Haiti was a man made disaster. The houses were built with a combination of money invested by predatory foreign businesspeople and money mal-invested in the wrong kinds of infrastructure development by charities, foreign government outreach, and regular people. Every dollar given over the past several decades has been divided up between corrupt community leaders, poorly trained development firms, and people without financial planning skills. We have to keep this new tidal wave of investment from earning the same reputation of inefficiency and waste.

There will be people who challenge you to pay attention to Haiti for years to come, to always keep it in your heart. Yet what of Rwanda, Sierre Leone, Myanmar, and even Afghanistan? Genocides, predatory religious regimes, military juntas run by those who dwell in narco-architecture mansions, and so many other man made events, have caused millions to die. Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions live in poverty and oppression. The real challenge, is for people to come to terms with the fact that almost two decades after the disasters of the 1990s and nearly a decade after the disasters of the 2000s, there has been no rebuilding. There has been no reconstruction. There are still latent fears that history will repeat itself.

Haiti is experiencing a repetition of history. In the 1820s the country was robbed of the equivalent of over 40 billion dollars by France, and the US collected interest on the debt they used to pay that bill for over a hundred years. In the 1860s, the world finally recognized the nation's independence - withheld due to the fact that the country was founded by slaves in an age of slavery - but did nothing as a blood thirsty Emperor slaughtered thousands upon thousands that dared to stand up to him. In the early 1900s, the nation was the only pawn of the First World War that no one talked about, batted back and forth between German and American corporate interests until the US Marines invaded. They brought Jim Crow laws to the land of the free slaves, and killed tens of thousands in the name of national security.

In the 1930s, the leader of the Dominican Republic executed the first attempted genocide in the Western Hemisphere since the 1600s. Some estimate that hundreds of thousands of Haitians were slaughtered. But do you know that? Does anyone? That Haiti was victim of a genocide less than eighty years ago? Soon after, the Duvalier dictatorships stole every dollar to come into the country for almost forty years, right up until 1986. They killed tens of thousands more. Since the fall of Baby Doc, the last Duvalier, who currently lives in France - untouched, never tried, and with billions of stolen money - there has been little reprieve. The Americans invaded in 1994, after a seven month blood letting where thousands were slaughtered - but not until former President Jimmy Carter secured a safe landing for the American troops. Thousands died while they stalled, and since that invasion, billions of dollars of fraud still took place.

2004? Another invasion, UN led. Thousands more dead.

2010? 200,000 dead. But if you really care, fix the problem. Remember Rwanda, the nation that is still in chaos and has nothing to show for itself - how can we say that we support Haiti and remember Haiti, if we tarnish the memory of the 1930s Haitian genocide by ignoring the most recent ones in the final years where we can give something to make things better. It is too late for the 1930s cleansing. How can you say you support Haiti, if you tarnish the memory of the dictatorships and predatory leaders by not putting this same spotlight, today given to Haiti, on Myanmar and Iran and Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Nigeria and North Korea and even Peru, where corrupt governments steal billions and force millions into poverty without the blink of an eye. How can you say you support Haiti, if you tarnish the memory of Haiti by ignoring the extreme poverty in our own backyards, the drug users and narcotics market too many of us tacitly endorse, that fuels many of the predators that likely plan to use this disaster in Haiti to increase their profit margins.

If you care, and give money to Haiti, follow up next month, next year, three years from now - demand to know where that money was spent, and shine a light on the poor construction practices of charity-hired development firms; be a pest, force the money to go in the right place... because it never has before. Never. Never once.

And then give to Rwanda. Give to the Sudan. Give to the Gaza strip. Give to Somalia. Give to the impoverished neighborhoods of Croatia. And the slums of Newark. And the slums of Montreal. And the bad neighborhoods in Edmonton, and London, and Paris, and Kingston, and Rio, and Tokyo, and New York City, and Cleveland. There is only one thing that can prevent another man made disaster. And you know what that is.

Waifs, Runts and Bean Poles

What I am about to say will undoubtedly cause an angry backlash. Understand this before you read on...

When I was in elementary school I used to weigh 65 pounds and was the smallest kid in the class. People didn't make fun of me for it though. I found that my size actually engendered a paternal or maternal instinct in others, who felt that they needed to protect me. Skinny guys don't catch that much flak though, most of the time. Skinny girls however, are the butt of many jokes. Skinny girls are made fun of constantly. Especially the tall ones.

In the schoolyard there are a lot of different reasons that kids get made fun of. It is not unusual, unfortunately as it may be, for bullying and emotional hurt to be thrust about - but skinny girls get more than their fair share of the abuse.

It has been a good fifteen years since I was last on a schoolyard in between classes. The playground is far behind me and my memories of it are fuzzy at best. But still, all around me, skinny girls are encountering the ire of others. This time though, the "reason" is different. Instead of their bodies being put down by their peers, they've become the target of something else. Their bodies, once derided, are now seen as "beautiful". They fill our magazines and our television sets - these amazingly perfect bodies, with no fat in sight and muscular curves throughout.

Something odd happens along the way, on the journey from adolescence to adulthood. These bodies that were once made fun of by so many, are apparently now the cause of much grief. Suddenly, these bodies in the magazines, are making people feel badly about themselves. There are cries that these bodies should be removed from those glossy pages, and be replaced with something more "real".

These bodies become something of a myth. "Those aren't real women," say some. "No one actually looks like that," say others.

But the reality is, that women that look like this - with perfect, slender bodies - do exist. They are real. They work hard for their bodies. They do things that others won't. They are not just 'lucky' and blessed. They eat healthily, they learn enough about their bodies to know how to keep them in the best shape possible, and they stay active well past their days on the schoolyard. It is not easy to be thin. Things are not, as one might say with a tinge of irony, all gravy and no bones.

To say that these women are not real, dehumanizes those body types that cause us to react so strongly. The body is the most personal, intimate thing in each of our lives. We can never get away from our bodies. They are always here with us. It is only natural for us to compare our bodies to other bodies, and this often leads us to feeling bad.

But it is not the fault of beautiful people that others don't like what they see in the mirror. Calling certain women "real women" depersonalizes and dehumanizes those few women that attain a body that others want. It places the blame for how we feel about ourselves on somebody else. It is the same as saying to that photo in the magazine, "It is YOUR FAULT that I don't like myself." The phrase 'unrealistic expectations' comes up a lot when talking about women with perfect bodies. But results like these are not impossible to attain, just very hard to get. It is a constant struggle.

It is true that some magazines airbrush their photos of women before printing them. To say however that no one looks that amazing all the time, is a lie. There are women that look like that walking down the street every day. Many of these women were not always thin. A lot of size zeroes, were once size fourteens. A lot of XS shirts hang in the closets of women who once only fit into an L.

By no means do I think that everyone should look like this. There is an obsession with the shapes of our bodies that haunts us from the cradle to our death beds. Eating disorders are a serious, tragic and far too common occurrence in both men and women these days. But to accuse the hard work of the truly fit for these kinds of evils is nonsense. And this really does matter, because until a person takes responsibility for how they feel without blaming it on others, it will always be difficult for them to feel any better.

I am using the words 'thin' and 'beautiful' interchangeably here, which some may object to. I don't think you have to be thin to be beautiful, but I do think that many thin women are indeed beautiful. I am using the words 'thin' and 'perfect' interchangeably as well. Does a body have to be thin to be perfect? No, not at all. But that is neither here nor there.

Slender women are real women. The extreme reactions these bodies cause, from lust right on through hate, are as childish as the hurtful words that were once hurled upon these women when they were girls. The energy spent on the debate over what kind of women should be photographed would be better spent trying to figure out why we don't feel happy in our own skin. It would be better spent figuring out why we all want our bodies to be different. It would be better spent trying to realize that you can never love your body while spending so much time focusing distaste on the the bodies of others.

So much hatin' goin' on out there in the world!

Well shucks people, can't we all just get along?

Plattsburgh, NY

Just returned from NYC, it was a wonderful trip where we stayed with the most delightful friend of ours. It was my second time and I have to say, people from New York are the friendliest people I have ever met. Really. Lewis Black was just up here in Montreal to do a Just for Laughs festival gala (so funny) and joked about how nice we Canadians are, but...

So we had just crossed the border on a lovely afternoon into northern New York and wanted to take a pitstop. The first city-ish place you come across on the I-87 down to NYC is Plattsburgh - it was the place that shares its PBS station with the Montreal area, so we'd heard of it before. After about five minutes, we finally find a little shop that has everything in it, from red bull to fresh pizza. As my girlfriend and I enter, we see a long line up of guys - construction worker types - waiting to pay for their items. "Okay, here we go..." we both think, used to this kind of situation ending up with the whole store leering at her (she's a stunning girl, I have to say) and everything getting very uncomfortable.

We enter without looking at anybody and head over to refriderator where the drinks were kept cold. We stand there, admiring the much larger selection of custom drinks - something you don't get anywhere else - when a guy comes up and stands beside us... and as we get quiet, he just keeps standing there...

Until after about twenty to thirty seconds, when he very bashfully says 'excuse me'... reaches into the fridge, and picks out his drink... then heads over to the counter.

He was literally waiting for us to make our selection, before he crossed in front of us!

Then, two others, who just wanted past us, began standing there as well... no one would cross in front of us, until we'd made a selection! I had never seen such politeness in my entire life. It was literally flabbergasting. We entered the store thinking the worst, and left amazed at the kind spirits inside. All in about two-three minutes. I've lived in Western Canada, I've lived in Eastern Canada, and I have never even seen this kind of nicety! We talked about it nearly the entire way into Albany.

I wonder what Black would say about Plattsburgh... I'd love to hear it. That guy is hilarious. Someone should give him a lollipop.

Fireworks

We went to the International Fireworks Festival last night at the La Ronde theme park, where you can buy tickets to sit right along the water's edge and have the display go off just a few hundred feet in front of you. We try to go at least four or five times every summer.

Last night however was one of the best experiences I have ever had. Hong Kong was the country competing, and the few thousand of us that had already bought our tickets were sitting through torrential rain - we were soaked in a matter of seconds. But wow, what a show.

Not only did they put on the best performance of the competition so far, but huge cracks of lightning kept ripping across the sky. First it was just off to the side of the magnificent painting of light the fireworks were inscribing upon the sky in front of us - then, the lightning literally started crackling across the sky directly behind the fireworks. The combination of dancing lightning and the exploding lights were incredible - like God took up the paint brush and just started flicking it at the world below.

The picture of lightning streaking through the fifteen huge red and gold fireworks exploding all at once, during a show the creators had claimed was inspired by the four elements, will be forever etched into my memory. Man vs. Nature. Amazing.

Wacky Bravery

RIP Michael Jackson jokes.

Like with every other major celebrity we chide incessantly, apparently this isn't funny anymore. Millions of people around the world will spend today looking back at the masterful music videos he created, which launched almost everything we know about music today. Many will try and forget that they spent the past few years of his career making nothing but jokes about him. Others will try to forget that they made fun of his incurable conditions. Most will try to forget that they refused to let a man, proven innocent in court, live down the false accusations against him.

His art will outlast these cruelties, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for he himself.

I met a woman in a coffee shop last summer that spent a good hour talking about Michael Jackson to me, that was probably the extent of what I ever really talked about him before today. She, in a bit of a paranoid moment, insisted that the US government made Jackson crazy on purpose after 1985 so that he could not become President one day. That, was insane. What isn't insane, is that little by little, we the public contribute to the sadness and loneliness of the figures which - according to our overall reaction today as a society - make us very happy. Either we chide those who just 'seem to be asking for it', or we say nothing when those around us do.

I have laughed at my fair share of Jackson jokes, so I'm no better - at least I think I have, as none were very memorable. Maybe I haven't, but I could have seen myself doing so. I never really listened to his music, so I don't really have that childhood connection to him. But he made a big impact on me, when he was able to sit through all those trials, accused of something he did not do, and remain quiet and polite. To me, he was wacky brave. Braver than most, including myself, who sometimes shrink behind our lesser natures when exposed to something or someone that makes us feel uncomfortable, that seems strange to us, or that gives us an outlet for our own issues.

Let there be less bullies in heaven than you found here on earth, Mr. Jackson.

STOP LYING: Canadian Health Care DOESN'T Suck

I love Canadian health care. It is fantastic. Most nations accept that public defenders, judges and government attorneys/prosecutors are a good thing - that everyone should have a professional to care for their political/social self - and I believe the same philosophy applies to public doctors - that everyone should have top notch professionals to care for their physical selves. In my opinion, public courts with private health care is akin to admitting that social health is a "right", but physical health is not. That, to me, is ridiculous.

The above idea is my philosophy on health care. The ideas below are my politics:

Just a brief note to anyone who needs to hear it: Canadian health care does not suck. Personally, I have no horse in the race for fixing American health care. If the American people want private health care, then it doesn't affect me in anyway. I have Canadian health care - it's free and it keeps my nation extremely healthy.

What bothers me however, are the lies being spread about how Canadians in general feel about health care. Well, all I can do is give one Canadian's personal experiences with health care...

If I get sick, I have a few options. I can go to any of the medical centers located within easy traveling distance (often walking distance) of my home and see a doctor within an hour or so - usually less. If I am really sick, I can go to the emergency room - one of the six emergency rooms located within twenty minutes of my house in Montreal. When I lived in the suburbs of Edmonton, Alberta, I had about the same number of emergency rooms within a twenty minute drive of my home. The wait time at the regular doctor in Alberta was even less. Emergency room wait times, in my experience are usually less than a few hours. On a busy night, or at a particularly busy hospital, these go up to about six hours - but that's rare. In any case, basic medical centers with regular doctors were open until late into the night, so one rarely went to the emergency room.

I don't fill out insurance forms, I just show my health care card. If I've never been to a particular place before, I fill out a medical history, but that's it. My health care covers 80% of all drug costs. As an Alberta resident still, I pay absolutely nothing - no premiums, nothing - for basic health care. Blue cross there, which covers dental, optical and drugs - costs a bit, but as a university student I am covered under the plan my college has.

If I want a second opinion, I just go to see another doctor. In Quebec things are a bit different, as I have to pay 60 dollars each time I see a doctor up front, which gets sent back to me through the mail by the Alberta government. Still though, no insurance forms. The doctors are professional, efficient, and get things right as much as possible. I love my health care in Canada, as much as the Rocky Mountains, Montreal nightlife, or my career. Perhaps not more than my girlfriend though - though she is also Canadian, so whatever.

Nevertheless, any complaints about Canadian health care should be taken within the context of wanting improvements to the current system, not a desire for a different one. Governments here have been thrown out of office, or nearly so, at the mere mention of privatization. Except in Alberta, my home province, where a small amount of privatization has occurred - and where the government just announced that it was getting rid of any kind of premium at all (the first province in Canada to do so). People only go to the private doctor if they want a test done sooner rather than later, which they very rarely do.

I take offense to any mischaracterizations of the Canadian health care system and how the general population feels about it. I feel it is a matter of patriotism to dismiss such a besmirching of our reputation. Americans have their Right to bear arms, we have our Right to health care - both are matters each country should hold dear. American supporters of private health care can battle with supporters of public health care in their country as much as they want to within their own country - but STOP bringing us into it unless you characterize things more honestly!!!

And no, I am not saying "please".