It's heartening to see people finally standing up against the unlimited greed and power of corporations. This is especially so since it seemed initially that, in the wake of the recent Credit Crunch and Bailout Bonanza, the public was just going to roll over — with only some minor grumbling — and take it in the ass again.

But what I find most exciting about the 'Occupy' movement is not the message. It is large groups of people figuring how to make decisions and live together — not just protest, let me assert that again, but live together — in genuinely democratic, consensual, and egalitarian ways. The challenge to activits and radicals, I think, is to prove it is possible to construct communities and ways of life that are actually of free of hierarchy, coercion, exploitation. Otherwise, how can our criticism that society and its institutions are riddled and dependent on these things be valid?

And there's the 'Occupy' folks doing it, right there in public. And having fun doing it too!

(Zombie walks, acrobatics, occupy. Who says you can't have it all? The Occupy Ottawa folks are sure doing something right — and enduring even as the weather keeps getting colder).