We're fighting for our freedom

What a week! What a couple of weeks! I never thought I'd ever see people getting behind teachers like they have this month. I guess people just needed an issue to rally around and teachers getting fucked repeatedly in the ass is that issue.

I've been on the picket lines. Have you? There's really no other place where you can learn so much about basically everything. If you want to learn what this is all about, go down to the line. If you want to learn about solidarity, go down to the line. And if you want to know what it's like to really be a worker, then go down to the line. And bring some sandwiches why don't you.

Alternatively, go to a rally. Walk off your job. We haven't been this close to a general strike in a long time. Last year didn't even come close compared to now. Why is this important? Look. Whether your workplace is organized or not the teachers' strike is a precedent case. If a government can take away one union's right to fair and unfettered collective bargaining then you better believe they'll try it again. And when you want to start up a union drive in your place of work and your boss goes to the government and whines and says it's making him sad you know what side they're coming down on. None of us have any delusions that the cards are institutionally stacked against us (the non-bosses), but that doesn't mean we sit down and die. It means we fight every chance we get, and we fight alongside other people when they get the chance because these are the people that are gonna be fighting beside us. This is what solidarity looks like.

It's hard for any of us to pick up and head out to Alberta on a whim, but I think we should all know what's going on there. UFCW 401 (I think, it could be 407) are on strike at a meat packing plant/slaughterhouse. The first few days their employer (the American corporation Tyson Foods) tried to force busloads of scab workers through the picket line (a major no-no), but were unable to get through because of the rather pissed off people who were standing there. The employer (after or before running the union president off the road and nearly killing him) went whinning to the government who deemed that meat-packing is an essential service and legislated the company's right to continue opperations with scab labour. We're going backwards, we really are.

They make the rules up as they go along, to protect their class interests to the bitter end. I see no problem in breaking these arbitrary rules in order to protect our class interests. We're in this together. An injury to one is an injury to all.

On Friday, October 21st a whole bunch of us work-skippers will be out in full force at the PNE fairgrounds at 11:00am. Bring your megaphone.

It's a mad, mad world

I met a crazy lady today. A very pissed off crazy lady. Well, she was either a crazy lady, or one of those unfortunate individuals who, after just being released from a lifetime of captivity in a closet, find themselves completely incapable of properly interacting with fellow human beings. But I digress.

I was sitting down infront of the magazine rack at my local Superstore (yes, sitting ... You try browsing through magazines standing up with a bum foot). Anyway, I was flipping through my very secret, guilty-pleasure magazine that I only read alone, and if you ask what magazine it was I will not tell you, as it is a secret. This woman comes by in a crazylike way, and asks in a voice just brimming over with crazyosity, "Is that your basket?" Being a completely sane person, I reply in a distinctly friendly and non-crazy voice that yes it is my basket. And before I have time to blink or sneeze or do anything that doesn't require much time she crazily says, "Well move it out of my way I can't see the magazines", and she kicks my basket, kicks it mind you, out of the way.

It's my personal policy in these matters to ignore the crazy person or persons involved for my own health and safety. I could have said what was on the tip of my tongue, "Excuse me. I'm sorry you probably hear this all the time, but you are the biggest bitch I have ever met", but it wouldn't have taken much to wind this tightly wound woman up, and she seem the type that would be capable of clawing my eyes out. So I said nothing. After all, maybe I just imagined the hostility in her voice. I'm a sensitive person. I tend to do that. But then she said in that "under the breath" voice people use when they want to be heard loud and clear, "Sitting on the ground for fuck sakes. Why doesn't she just by the fucking magazine". (Again, I'm not going to tell you the title of the secret, guilty-pleasure magazine, so you might as well stop asking).

I was having one of those moments that the people on those French gag shows must get just before the camera is revealed. It's not everyday that you have someone in a Superstore lash out with such tabooed public hostility. I mean, I think this kind of stuff everyday, but it takes a certain breed of social retards to say it out loud. Two seconds later she snaps, "You're still in my way. Move or I'll get staff to remove you. That's it," she raved, not bothering to pause to take a breath. "I'm gonna get someone to move you. Fucking idiot. Just buy the magazine." And she stomped away like some stomping thing. Like I said, she was pretty wound. Like a clock you could say. Part of me wanted to stick around, and push her buttons, and smile sweetly at the worker, and say, "I was just browsing like these good people, but a grave ankle injury forces me to sit where others would stand". There isn't a jury in the country that would convict me, but I know from experience a customer service worker will do almost anything to accommodate a hysterical and deranged customer, and I wouldn't want her to think she'd won. I also I was a little afraid that if I sat around winding her up for too long she'd slap me, or die (I'm a nice person; I don't want that on my conscience. She I got up and carried on with my shopping, leaving the secret, guilty-pleasure magazine behind, which I couldn't buy anyway because of its secretness. Maybe I should have explained that to her.