That is true here as well, the downtown of the city of Toronto has been actually booming and its mostly due to a influx of young people downtown and professionals from other countries. Also the finance sector is growing very strong and powerful as well attracting a lot of other companies.

Many office, condo, luxury hotels and many new museums and art galleries have been constructed or are under construction or proposed and it has been going since 2004 and it has not stooped.

The thing in Canada, is that a lot of inner suburban areas and smaller towns used to rely on manufacturing jobs which have pretty much ceased to exist.

These are the areas hurting badly here.


Things are not going to get better for Obama. Many people do not know but the current unemployment rate is much lower then it actually is. Many able bodied people have just given up, even if jobs get created the unemployment could not move much or infact go higher. Another thing is corporate profits this quarter are the worst since the recession, so I am doubting the rate will go down much. If profits are down, then the chances that companies will start rehiring will go down even more.

Does this movement still have strong support?

From the right? No

After the chaos in Oakland, I'm kind of fearing a 1970s-Italy-style thing. But at the very least, the narrative has shifted leftwards for a while. The message does have resonance.

Message is good however the Protestors are had to sympathize with.
Not enough normal people, I always laugh when those crazy rich white people who have money but pretend to act poor.

The main problem with nascent movements is that most protesters are weird people.

Yeah when they show the protestors they show the crazy ones. The ones that are dancing (and in a really dumb way lol) or are saying really stupid things.

Also it does not help seeing a bunch of people holding signs condemning capitalism while wearing nice clothes and drinking a $5 latte.

They're not condemning capitalism! Geez.

Fine, they just favor a form of capitalism where everyone is equal and we all have fully funded retirements and health care plans and college is free and property rights are hugely diminished. You know, all the normal hallmarks of a capitalistic economic system. The only pro-capitalistic principle I can think of that they espouse is a hatred for corporate bailouts (although individual bailouts, like debt relief for student loans, is perfectly fine).

There are some good points, like Occupy Whitehorse, which is funny http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/11/08/north-occupy-whitehorse-winter.html and same with Occupy Denver's new leader http://gawker.com/5857715/pressured-to-name-leader-occupy-denver-elects-dog

Everyone is equal? That's bullshit and you know it.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

movement is really facing a ton of govt back lash in Canada.

Many city govts see them as squatters rather then protestors.
Many of the camp sites have seen assaults, violence, drug use and a lot of disturbing of the peace.

Frankly the issue is not the message but a lot of the campers are really weird strange people.

No organization either. But the movement has been a narrative-shifter, at least.

No, that's just the news stream over the last two weeks. It's now a lot harder to justify and resonate with other people with talking points like "Pointing out we have income inequality on par with Ecuador is class warfare" or "If you're poor, it's your fault". And that's pretty major.

Duh. Where was the left before this though?

Magnus has a point, but I'd argue that the left feels more moralized come next voting session if anything.

The use of the term "narrative shifter" is usually a strategy used to silence dissent in my experience.

Anyways, Rolling Stone has quite a level-headed take on OWS in this week's article: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests.

I encourage anyone sick of the partisan rhetoric to spend a couple minutes reading this fairly short article.

Problem is the OWS have set up these camp sites and they never do any protesting. These campsites attract people with problems (drugs and such) and frankly they are nothing more then squatters in most cities.

I think that is why many cities have acted in such a heavy handed way.

I think here in Canada, many cities are just waiting for winter.

I don't know about OWS, but OLA did not protest too much exactly to keep the movement peaceable while preventing retaliations by Los Angeles government. Instead, OLA held nightly General Assemblies while the encampments were all about maintaining a peaceable vigil.

I don't think 'squatters' raise issues.

The whole UCDavis thing really was a boon for the movement.

^^^ well I am not sure about America.


However I watch the mainstream media and it has not been mentioned for 2 weeks...

Roger Ebert writes a thoughtful (as always) essay on OWS:

Where I Stand on the Occupy Movement