A Meeting With @OccupyBayStreet…

I am deeply disillusioned right after a meeting I had on Wednesday with two of the people who run the @OccupyBayStreet Twitter account. First, it was obviously a setup- that said, I figured that before I got there. Next, these people were so far to the left that they actually touch the right! (assuming the world is round that is, lol.) Now that, in itself, is perfectly okay- but, from our meeting, it felt strongly like they wish to impose their views on others…

It all began with an invitation:

They had told me a mutual friend (who doesn’t believe I’m a bad person) had requested that they hear my side of the story. It sounded hopeful- so, I accepted a meeting with them for this Wednesday, and went there with high hopes.

But, once I arrived, it quickly became apparent that something was not good. They both appeared friendly, but as we discussed things, I learned we had very different world views. Regardless, I explained my part of the story- how I was setup for that letter by Harsha Walia’s friends (of which most of the people whose names on it have never met me), how Krystalline Kraus’ accusations against me were totally made-up, and how I had filed a complaint with the police to help clear my name.

Their reaction floored me- they actually said that it wasn’t at all violent for Krystalline to make false accusations against me, and then reversed things to say I was being violent by registering a complaint with the police! Say what?

Regardless, in hope there was an opportunity to make peace, I sent them a message after hoping for some peace:

(Read from bottom-to-top)

The next thing I did was to set up a poll for my readers- asking if they believe it was violent or not to have filed my police complaint:

 

After three days, and 124 responses, only 5.6% of respondents believed that it was a violent act for me to have filed police complaint. I must admit, however, that this poll is skewed- because they did their best to torpedo it:

Regardless, it appears that the majority of people disagree with them. When I shared that today they said that was to be expected with “the types who read your blog”. Really? I wish I had such details about my readers! There are 10’s of thousands of you and I have no idea who most are. (BTW, thanks for reading readers, I love you all!)

One of the things that disturbed me most about our conversation was how they labelled three men as “sexists” without any quantification. When I asked them to explain, they said “many women left the movement about them.” That they said this, without any real evidence, is not only unethical- but it is a crime! One of the two people I met with said he was a Christian- has he not read the bible? Did he miss the part about throwing stones?

I discussed this with them today- expressing my dissatisfaction they had made unfounded statements about such a sensitive topic and that I would be telling these men about their statement. Here’s their response:

Wow! First, my complaint was not if, or if not, these men did something wrong- it was about how deeply unethical it was to make accusations where they hadn’t seen/heard CONCLUSIVE evidence. This is just plain wrong, and not at all acceptable to most Canadians. Equally, it puts them in a shaky position legally…

To be fair, and to make sure there was no misunderstanding, I asked them about this again today:

Here they expanded on part of our conversation we had yesterday- the tab I have on my blog entitled Harsha Walia Gone Wild! I was prepared for this, as Alex Hundert mentioned it in his attack-blog against me. Here’s my response:

Watch the video, tell me what you think- but, the majority of people (those without an agenda or blind loyalty) agreed with me- Harsha did go wild in that video, she also went racist & sexist. I gave them a few examples of how “gone wild” is no longer an example of sexism:

Next, they fell into what I call a “Sacred Provocation”, a concept I started using and writing about after Harsha Walia brought some of her friends to Occupy Vancouver to start a provocative “sacred” fire. I also used this tactic quite successfully in the past with David Eby. A couple of days ago I made this posting on the Occupy Is An Inside Job page on Facebook:

I even labelled it as a provocation! And, of course, our friend Darius Mirshahi, purveyor of sacred landfill, had to have his say. But, I am taking your advice dear readers and not taking him seriously (thanks for participating in the poll!) Anyhow, here’s their response:

I sometimes wonder if I’m unfair, after all, the radical left (I’m a moderate) are so entirely predictable! Because, by making this their main point of contention, they exposed the fact they have zero other evidence behind their claims!

Anyhow, back to those men who they accused of sexually harassing women (without evidence.) Here’s my response to them:

And their response:

That’s funny, when I asked them to quantify their accusations all they said was “several women have left the movement!” Do they now have evidence they didn’t have then? Because, it is serious! And, as I said about the video- most reasonable people find it abhorrent! So, here’s my response to them:

There are a couple of other issues that came up during our conversation I’d like to mention. First, they called the Occupy Movement “A movement of the left.” I nearly burst an artery when I heard that- we are a movement of the 99%, and not everyone is from the left!

The next issue was equally contentious, and goes to show the deep levels of arrogance and ‘ownership’ many Occupiers have seen from people who are ‘established’ activists. It was on the issue of Black Bloc tactics- they told me that “We agreed long ago with the Black Bloc to respect Diversity of Tactics (DoT).” DoT is an ambiguous term used to say that “anything goes” from marching down the street, to painting signs, or even violence with police or breaking windows.

Say What? Who agreed with this?

First, not everyone in the established activist community agrees. For Example, Greenpeace has a thing or two to say differently. More important, who is ‘we’? I’ve never seen anything in Occupy Toronto documentation that accepts this- quite the opposite! The good people of OT have been resisting this concept from the start!

Our conversation ended on Wednesday with a finely veiled threat. They basically said that they disagree with my decision to involve the police (despite the fact that Krystalline Kraus refuses to acknowledge her lies), and they said if I didn’t withdraw my police complaint that they would be writing a blog entry about me, and would not cooperate, and would label me as “promoting violence”. They reiterated this threat tonight:

Is that not illegal? It is definitely immoral, and most certainly not according to the ethical standards of a Christian (of which this man claims to be).

So, there you have it, another adventure with the far-left. And you wonder why people are reluctant to join the Occupy movement. They are insistent that their values ‘rule the roost’, and are entirely intolerant of those of others. And, when one disagrees with them, they attack as hard as they can.

Fellow occupiers, what should we do about these pitbulls? I’d like to hear your opinions. I so desperately want to make peace, but so many people can’t see past their politics to do so…

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