The young woman had been camped out in front of City Hall for over a month. Her hair was straggly, but she had a smile on her face and she was holding a donut.
“Can you tell us why you’re still here?” the local news interviewer asked.
“I’m here because of my deep commitment to equity and fighting the oppression of marginalized communities,” the woman said. Granted, she looked like she wouldn’t recognize a marginalized community if she tripped over it on her way to her local co-op vegan cafe, but I loved her anyway.
I was obsessed with the protests. Every afternoon, as soon as I got home from work, I dropped onto my couch, slipped off my shoes and watched the latest. The campers were opposed to the Mayor’s harsh treatment of the homeless. Their encampment was supposed to be a reminder to him of how those without a home were forced to live. It sprawled out from City Hall into the nearby park, littering it with insulting signs, red flags and communal kitchen pots.
They weren’t going to accomplish anything in the end. And there was no way that I could go sit there with them, not with my job and my mortgage. Despite all of that, I fantasized about the protesters. I fantasized about ordering pizza for them, going to bring them homemade soup. Maybe I could knit scarves for them. I would hand out a scarf to each of them, give them a hug and tell them how special they were. I would be like the Mother Theresa of the City Hall camp. It was the least I could do.
I turned off the TV and went to pour myself a glass of wine. The rice was already cooking. I switched on the radio. The local leftie community station was broadcasting from the camp. I listened and the little butterfly of excitement started fluttering around my belly again.
I could feel a shift in my body and suddenly, another voice drowned out the activist on the radio. The voice was calm and logical, sounding very confident even though it was offering public testimony in front of the city council.
It’s not that we don’t want this development to be built at all. It’s just that it’s too big. It’s going to change the character of the neighborhood…
I shook my head and stared down into the sink. No matter how much I wanted it to turn off, the voice continued.
And is the building going to have sufficient parking? Where are the residents going to park? I’m betting the cars will end up on our street…
I turned off the radio. Mother Theresa. What was I thinking? I walked back to the living room with my wine glass, but the voice followed me.
We all agree that affordable housing is so important, but…
The shift had already happened to me a long time ago. I had turned into the person who testifies against affordable housing projects if they’re being planned for her neighborhood. I could indulge in rebellious nostalgia all I wanted to, but I was not who these anarchist hippie kids wanted to see at their protest, not any more than I wanted to have an actual conversation with someone who was homeless. Not any more than I would have liked to see the City Hall camp in my backyard, if I was going to be honest.
I had shifted far past what I had once believed in, floating off on the stream of comfortable daily habit until I no longer knew where I was. Was I even a progressive? I had no idea.
Well, sitting here and feeling bad for myself certainly wasn’t going to help anyone. I wiped my eyes and turned on the Lifestyle Channel. They always had the best decorating tips.
eurobrat 
07/22/2018 at 11:16 pm
Probably just a tear-jerky story, but really, isn’t that the size of it for those who have half a conscience, and a choice of lifestyle?
07/23/2018 at 5:28 pm
What’s truly scary is when you discover you’re the one with half a conscience and trying to find the rest of it…it can happen more quickly than one expects.
07/24/2018 at 11:55 am
Not sure how fictional/non-fictional this one is, but at least you feel a bit guilty about it. Most people refuse to even acknowledge such uncomfortable inconsistencies and deny them when pointed out to them by others. That’s probably why most people hate protesters. Actually, the vast majority of the public honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck about homelessness..even people who are one missed paycheck from being homeless themselves. As long as their stupid-phone’s battery is charged, they wouldn’t even notice homeless people if they actually tripped over them. Living downtown, this is something I’ve actually seen happen a couple times this year already. Relax. No harm done. It didn’t impede their incessant texting one bit. It was like nothing happened.
From where I type this, I can actually see a former homeless encampment that was -er- “decamped”. I don’t know whether or not they were forcibly ejected the way the local Occupy Wall Streeters were (3AM following a still-secret vote at City Hall.) But the corporation owning the out-of-the-way land chopped down all the trees on the property that were providing shelter. Because, as we all know, this is all the damn trees fault!!! Now, if they set up shop there again, they’ll be clearly visible to all passersby.
Problem solved, right?
07/26/2018 at 5:16 pm
Ugh, so sad and pointless about the trees. Yes, most people don’t want to acknowledge the inconsistencies in their lives. Most people also don’t want to acknowledge that life is complicated. Much easier to say that “I would always stand up for what is right!” and “I would never do that!” Sure, until your self-interest is affected, and then you would.
07/27/2018 at 10:34 am
And that’s how they get us! Because we all want to believe our shit don’t stink, all they have to do is throw us that one little bone (I’m sure the mind control industry has a catchier term for it.), find the button they can push to get us to cave. Convenience, ego appeal and “muddying the moral waters” are tried & true methods.
An example of muddy waters; In Canuckistan a while back, China-Mart had a month long ad campaign about donating money to foodbanks. Aw, it’s almost worth un-employing people by shopping there this month. When I pressed the pause button on my VCR, I read the fine print to discover they were only donating money customers spent on specific items…to a maximum of $500,000. Undoubtedly, this was far less than what the ad campaign cost and probably less than what Canucks spent on those items that month. It was pure manipulation.
Amazon is a great example of “self interest”. One of the most profitable companies, run by one of the richest men in the world. They essentially hold auctions where governments compete with bribes to get them to locate in their city. Now it seems they treat their employees not much better than slaves. Will this knowledge even result in a tiny slip in sales? FUCK NO! Lazy, mindless-consumers want their cheap shit delivered to their door as cheaply as possible. Jeff Bejesus can behead his employees for all people care.
We are natural born suckers for the con men & Mad Men.That’s why the permanent connection of mobile devices and the constant on-line surveillance is so insidious. They learn our group/individual weaknesses and know exactly what button to press to turn each of us into good little buy-bots who will never rock their
boatluxury yacht.07/27/2018 at 8:57 pm
And if only it was that one little bone or convenience…frequently, it’s the skeleton that holds our lives together…our home, our job, etc etc. I guess that is how social systems remain in place. It’s less of a headache to go along and get along, rather than turn your entire life upside down. I know I’m not willing to do that at this point, even if I’d like to imagine that I would.
07/24/2018 at 12:20 pm
You speak to a whole bunch of people. Great piece.
07/26/2018 at 5:13 pm
Thank you so much 🙂 I have to say I’m kind of proud of myself for writing and posting this one while on my honeymoon!!
07/26/2018 at 5:14 pm
Congratulations!
07/26/2018 at 5:16 pm
Thank you. It was wonderful!
07/26/2018 at 5:20 pm
Where’d you go?
07/27/2018 at 8:58 pm
We went on a train trip through Canada, up to Jasper in the Rockies. I would highly recommend it if you ever feel like going that far up North. The train was called the Rocky Mountaineer, and the trip came complete with great food and drinks, and entertaining stories about the places we passed through.
07/28/2018 at 4:48 am
Oooh! That sounds great!
07/28/2018 at 8:56 am
I’ve lived all of my life (after immigrating from France that is, at age 5) between northern Alberta and southern BC, that is, on both sides of the Canadian Rockies and driven through Jasper and Banff many times. I didn’t know they had such a train here, but yes, that is very beautiful country though better if you’re just a tourist and don’t have to try to make a life in it. Did someone write “if you want to go that far north” regarding Jasper? Made me smile, that. North, for us, is the Arctic circle… permafrost, land of the midnight sun… where the seals and the polar bears roam…!
07/28/2018 at 8:57 am
Too cold for me!
07/28/2018 at 4:44 pm
I agree that while the Jasper area was beautiful, the town was clearly very tourist-oriented, and I got the sense that it would be quite difficult to survive there if you were not a visiting tourist. Low paying service jobs, expensive housing etc.
The “that far up North” comment was for the benefit of nananoyz, who lives in Florida….which to me is “that far down South” 🙂
08/01/2018 at 10:24 am
While I’m very glad you’re continuing to produce content…you should actually be ashamed of writing & especially posting this while on vacation…a honeymoon in particular. (Insert “wifely duties” comment here.) While jotting down a few ideas on paper for later is perfectly fine, the LAST thing anybody should give a fuck about while on vacation are the lifeless losers on the Interwebs. “Getting away from it all” is the entire point of a vacation. Otherwise, save the money & stay home.
Anyway….I took the exact same (Vancouver to Jasper) trip on the Rocky Mountaineer 10-ish years ago. Fantastic! Taking the train is WAAAAYYY better than white-knuckling it on the Trans-Canada highway full of transport trucks and lunatic tourists trying to kill you. Oddly enough, this tourist train is/was the only way to get from Vancouver to Calgary by train. Or to Calgary (one of Canada’s largest cities) from anywhere, actually. The Rocky Mountaineer’s Economy Class is great, but First Class was even better. Great views. Great food. Great (and more effective at altitude) booze. Entertainment, lodgings…all good. Exhausting though…especially if you’re “with somebody”. 😉
My train almost got caught in a forest fire, but the bigger surprise was the friggin’ desert. I knew there was a desert there. But I thought it was just technically a desert; as in “under X cm of annual rain”. No, this was like fucking Arizona! (But with far fewer gun-nuts & racists) Cactus, tumbleweeds, rusted out 1940’s pickups. I think I even saw a vulture munching on something. (The corpse of democracy?)
I’ve been in The Parks at least a dozen times. Jasper is definitely the park to pick. A much quieter, “great out-doorsy”, experience than Banff. About 20 something years ago, Banff turned to shit. It used to be a small town seemingly stuck in the 50’s that shared itself with tourists. It had quaint motels, diners, quirky museums and actual locals owning stores & living actual lives beside the tourists. Now, the town is an overcrowded, Disney-esque, theme park with minimal authenticity. Most of the buildings have been replaced with oversized & over modern ones. Chain stores/eateries dominate the town and sell shit for 10X the prices in nearby Calgary. While the nature outside of town thankfully remained the same (other than the grotesque highway expansion), the town itself is all about shopping. Sure, the background scenery is way better than the shit-hole they came from. However, most people barely notice because they’re on their fucking phones the whole. And the actual locals are much harder to find. They were getting replaced by people who plonk down a couple million on a place they spend one drunken weekend a year at. Banff is why I rarely say anything to anyone about Jasper, lest this paradise get ruined too.
For the more budgetary minded, “Canada’s Amtrack”, VIA Rail, also offers the same train trip for probably less than half the price and at twice the speed. With sleeper units, you can take it all the way to Toronto if you want (and switch trains to get to Montreal & Halifax). Or, you can break it up with overnight stays in the fantastic old “Railway hotels”, usually located across the street from the station. (Note: avoid being outside in Winnipeg in the Winter…or in mosquito season. Decades later, my blood levels are still replenishing.)
08/01/2018 at 8:51 pm
Ha! You probably have a good point there about vacation. But I can’t help myself…I especially love writing when I’m traveling. There’s something about the change of scenery which is stimulating. No worries, there was plenty of downtime for just plain slacking and, ahem, other activities.
Agreed that I would much rather take the train. That being said, we took the VIA on our return trip and happened to have an awful experience. The train was around 15 hours late. We learned that apparently the problem was due to the fact that the freight lines own the tracks, so freight trains take priority over passengers. If so, that’s a pretty lousy system (not that the VIA can do much about that).
08/03/2018 at 10:36 am
Sorry to hear about the delay. Sadly, (like fucking everything now) VIA Rail ain’t what it used to be. Former Canuckistan PM, Steven Herpes, savaged VIA Rail’s budget. I think over half the trains running that route were axed and numerous routes & stations were scaled/shut down altogether. Any further cuts and VIA will have to replace their engines with donkeys. The fact VIA somehow still exists and several millions of people a year still ride it underlines a big need/demand for it. But The Powers That Be just aren’t interested.
The modern Conservative Party despises ALL public services. They savage VIA, Canada Post and the CBC (public broadcaster) every time voters make the colossal error of electing them. Unfortunately, unless we have a huge budget surplus (Yes, Canada has free healthcare, but still occasionally gets budget surpluses!) and there’s also a surplus of Liberal bag-men to “employ”…the Liberals rarely do much to undo the damage. So every political cycle leaves all these services worse off than before. Depressing.
And YES, Canadian Pacific (created, built & paid for by the Canadian government) and Canadian National (government owned until 76-77) own practically ALL tracks in Canada. When these companies decided to stop offering passenger service, VIA Rail was created as a “booby prize”. And in recent decades, these companies have shut down a LOT of still-profitable lines that just weren’t making enough money to please greedy shareholders. But instead of just letting unused tracks sit there, they actually paid to pull them up and “gift” the property to adjoining property owners & municipalities just so that nobody else could ever use them. Nor did they “gift” them to VIA. As you say, a LOUSY transportation policy. Yet, all of this stupidity was perfectly cool with bought-&-paid-for politicos.
But there’s something else drastically multiplying delay times in that region…the exportation of all our jobs to China. We export more & more natural resources to Chinese factories which make the products we used to make. Then those products are shipped back to us to buy with…er..Canadian Tire money??? As a result, that particular stretch of railway (Vancouver through the Rockies) is the busiest in all of Canada, possibly all of North America, because it’s really the only Canadian route to & from China. Since the Globalist Economy’s profits trump people, the private railway duopoly can order a VIA train to “clear the tracks” anytime they want. So if there’s one delay on the route, it’s much longer than it used to be and it creates a domino effect. (Although the longest I’ve heard of is an 1.5 hrs, not 15. Sorry eh?)
I LOVE the train. I take it over the car EVERY chance I get. Hell, I live in a house once occupied by railway men and within sight of a defunct passenger station. But you’re 100% right. Our entire transportation system is TOTAL madness! It’s the classic battle between “People & Public Services vs Corporate Profit & their Political Hand Puppets”. Madness & greed wins every time and the people pay for it.
This sure as shit ain’t Germany. Last time I was in Germany, I was at a train station that was under repair. Every single line for 10-15km was being replaced. We switched tracks over a dozen track switches onto slower temporary tracks. Yet an embarrassed announcer apologized over the station loudspeaker because my outgoing train was arriving 2 whole minutes late! Ya know… I’m begging to think the wrong side won the war.
Now get back to your “wifely duties”, or your marriage won’t last a year!
08/04/2018 at 1:05 pm
Beginning to think? I’ve been under the impression you’ve thought this all along. That being said, I don’t think punctual trains would have been worth it in this case.
And yes, we were victims of said unfortunate domino effect. Freight train after freight train came into the station while we waited. I still love trains, though.
08/25/2018 at 8:25 pm
Reblogged this on lovehappinessandpeace and commented:
*******
If Progress is just building More buildings…
True Everywhere, especially for India!
In the US, parking lots,
In India, parking butts.
“And is the building going to have sufficient parking? Where are the residents going to park? I’m betting the cars will end up on our street…
We all agree that affordable housing is so important, but…”
Et al.
*******
08/27/2018 at 7:57 pm
Hah! I like the “parking butts” comment 🙂 Thank you for reblogging!
08/27/2018 at 8:18 pm
Thank You. You have written Well.
08/27/2018 at 8:34 pm
Aww, thanks!