Tag Archives: protests

Teachers’ Union Must Remember Our Children Aren’t Bargaining Chips

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By Jason Menard

My daughter is not a bargaining chip.

I admire teachers. I think they have one of the toughest, most-thankless jobs in the world. I think that most of them are good people, trying to do their best while their hands are tied in red tape.

I also know that if teachers decide to withhold extracurricular services to students as part of their protest of Tuesday’s provincial legislative manoeuvers, then they’ll lose any and all sympathy and support that they might have received from me — and, likely, from many other parents just like me.

This is your fight, not my daughter’s. Continue reading →

Pride Comes in Many Forms

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By Jason Menard

“Why are they here, Daddy?”

It may seem like a simple question and it would have been easy to give a simple answer: “Because they hate.”

But although that would have been the quickest and easiest answer, it wouldn’t have been fair: not to my 10-year-old daughter and her friends; and not to the people standing on the corner with signs in their hands who prompted this question. Continue reading →

Tired Tactics Find Public Used as Pawns, Again, in SOPA/PIPA Fight

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By Jason Menard,

It would be nice if someone, somewhere could make their point without having to use that point to stab John and Jill Q. Public in the back.

Choose whichever term you like best: pawn, cannon fodder, expendable red-shirt-wearing guy in Star Trek/cop drama guy just ‘days away from retirement.’ No matter which term you choose, it all adds up to the same thing: despite whatever rhetoric you may hear, you really don’t matter. Continue reading →

How Occupy London Can Go About Occupying Londoners’ Hearts

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By Jason Menard

Earlier this week, the Occupy London movement sent out a Tweet requesting help from more experienced volunteers to help them craft a message – which is a fantastic showing of self-awareness from this group as too much of their message is being defined by outside interests.

Occupy London is a polarizing group – and that polarization comes from their lack of anything tangible to which the average person can relate. You either agree that everything needs to change, or you see this as rudderless, aimless, misplaced, self-serving behaviour. Continue reading →

Anonymous Wasting Potential, Power Through Collateral Damage of Innocents

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By Jason Menard

For an organization whose name reflects its desire to remain unidentified by the masses, Anonymous certainly seems to have no problem compromising the anonymity of the very people whose support it should be coveting. It’s not just the image of Guy Fawkes that Anonymous has assumed to represent itself — it’s also Fawkes’ disregard for the value of innocent bystanders.

Through their behaviour, Anonymous that it is far from the altruistic defenders of the Internet they’d like you to believe. Instead, they’re little more than extremely smart cyber bullies who think nothing of the collateral damage caused by their hacktivism. Continue reading →