Occupy Toronto is not a home

While we can applaud the moral integrity of Occupy Toronto, the number of homeless hippies and drug addicts attracted to the Occupy camp site (St James Park at King and Church Streets) distracts from their real cause.

The Occupy movement across North America has been focused on protesting against big business... bankers, greedy oil executives... and to a lesser extent anyone who makes money off free-trade coffee (as opposed to fair trade) and encouraging people to get a mortgage via a Toronto mortgage broker working at a credit union instead of a mortgage broker at a bank.

The foundations of the movement is to organize people towards a more fair economy where people still make a profit, but the rich have to work harder to earn it (or if they do earn it, they must earn it fairly on the principles of good business practices instead of monopolization and extortion).

We will admit its about time someone took a reed switch to the backsides of bankers and oil executives, but the hippies banging communal drums, singing and smoking up isn't going to change the production planning or inventory management of oil executives or their bottom line.

No, the only real answer for these hippies is build homes and communities... and obviously not on Church property.

There is land all over Canada which is cheap and arable. They can grow plants for food, fish and hunt if they so desire. A home for hippies. But protesting isn't going to change the mind of the rich or the middle class. Or even the poor for that matter.

The rich will keep on doing what they do best, getting richer. The middle class don't really care so long as they have a TV screen, lots of food in their fridge and gasoline in their cars. And the poor don't have much choice except to scramble for money and food, just trying to get by.

Its really only the philosophical few who choose to decide to go without oil products (plastics included), to buy only locally grown food or to do all their banking via a credit union.

(Note: Not all hippies are philosophers, and not all philosophers are hippies. Sometimes the two coincide, but not necessarily. Some hippies just 'dig the scene' and want to smoke all the time.)

The end result is eventually these philosophers, hippies, etc. will go home... or try to find a home. Or realize they have the potential to build one, given the right tools and the will to build.

They will probably all go home before Christmas, and the winter is no time to live in a tent.

What happens next year if they get nostalgia and come back for round two? We shall see.