The People's Mic was used to communicate St. James Park as the destination for Saturday's Occupy Toronto march

by Kaitlyn Riordan

At the General Assembly for “Occupy Toronto” Saturday evening in St James Park, there were no loudspeakers, no microphones, no mass produced signage for people to hold or even a coherent message for people to tweet.  The General Assembly was communicated by one person standing centre stage and slowly delivering their message.

The speaker would yell: “Mic check” and the crowd would respond in turn, a quick way of announcing their intention to say something. They’d continue: “I’m Kevin, a volunteer facilitator.” And those closest would repeat his words, sending the message about 10 feet away where the message was picked up and re-delivered by the next group that heard it and so on.

It took time, but worked effectively and you could feel the raw power of the crowd, unaided by technology. Guidelines were laid out about how keeping things positive was key and about what kind of talk would not be tolerated, ie nothing racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. The organizers admitted that they were still learning and that the process was still evolving.

The People's Mic works better if everyone who can sit down, sits down.

The people I heard speak asked for volunteers and donations, and by 6pm they announced that a generator had been donated that would allow them to run a live stream 24/7. The crowd gathered was a mixed bag of generations and interest groups.

“Just a bunch of hippies standing around, smoking weed and waiting for something to happen.” Was how it was described to me by a journalist who had been there as they day began on Bay and King at 10am this morning.

Now the hippies are in their tents in St James’ Park, having dined on a donated vegetarian meal and hunkering down for the night. The day began with little planned out, but with a willingness to see what would happen.

The day ended with various committees formed, a commitment to continue the protest, to learn how to do it better and to maintain solidarity; with the Occupy Wall Street Protesters, with  Air Canada flight attendants denied the hard-won right to collectively bargain, and with the rest of the 99%.

Watch the video below of the The People’s Mic in effect at Occupy Wall St. when thousands of New Yorkers flooded Zuccotti Park on October 14th to turn back the movement’s potential eviction:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9D33hr4CW0

Statement from Occupy Wall Street – this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

• They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
• They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
• They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
• They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
• They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
• They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
• They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
• They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
• They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
• They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
• They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
• They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
• They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
• They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
• They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
• They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
• They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
• They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
• They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
• They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
• They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
• They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
• They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

www.occupyto.ca

*Eds note – The Globe and Mail reports Canadian occupations are being planned in most major Canadian cities through a website called Occupy Together. The Toronto occupation is being planned by Occupy Toronto Market Exchange beginning on October 15th.

From the Facebook Page:

“NON-VIOLENTLY sending a message to the financial sector worldwide. Canada too is under the same bind of freedom because of monetary policy. Show your support for Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Toronto Market Exchange”

You can find the Occupy Together Facebook Page here, Twitter Feed here, and Occupy TO Facebook Page here.

The dominant Twitter hashtag seems to have settled as #OccupyWallSt. Is #OccupyBaySt about to start trending?