The Voice of Youth: Stories from Idle No More

It was a Friday afternoon. I listened to the video above the morning of my phone interview with Rob Stewart. I had read that Idle No More was quickly becoming a global movement to follow Occupy with equal weight. It was time to dispel my own pipe dreams. I needed to see what may be the greatest current change movement for myself. 

It happened to be one of the coldest days yet in the brutal Calgary winter season when I began to ride my rickety bike south from the downtown core. Not only was it especially cold, but there was record snowfall the day prior. I tread forward, over the blinding snow, into the untended parkland trails ahead. Three hours later, I made it to my previously unknown destination: Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Calgary constituency. As soon as I saw the demonstrators, I was immediately shocked with disappointment. I stared, from my bike, over to the sparse crowd, filled with boredom and teeming with weakness. There were only a handful of people. The only time I attended  a demonstration previously, was when George W. Bush came to Calgary after his term as president. That was an incredible showing, one of the most emotionally exuberant and lively demonstrations I have known in Canada. I left, curiously pondering with a comic bent, "Do Canadians only protest in numbers when the issue is to oppose the States?" 

In the United States, where I'm from, I was a frontline demonstrator in anti-war marches to the Pentagon, "No War" rallies in Boston, and magnificent protests in support of Latin American resistance in New York City. A public demonstration is a place where the old and the young meet, to exchange hearts on a platform of free speech and free assembly with the naked flesh of human freedom. I stayed outside Harper's constituency only for a few moments, to place myself in the crowd, and continue on my way to a Metis friend's house to buy him coffee. The next day, my wife attended the more crucial demonstration. I've posted her brilliant story on Media Co-op.  

My Media Co-op Post: The Yellow Nation Represents At Idle No More

_________

The true war is now officially being fought in our backyard.

Things are lookin' up by (Kjarvik)

Before it is dark a light will shine through the clouds (Kjarvik)

May All Youth Live Free on Earth (Kjarvik)

There's nothing in your way (Kjarvik)

Heaven on Earth (Kjarvik)

__________

"Matter disguised as her unfolding paradise,
A genital incision, without

Brewed spawn all quaking and facing heart failure
With thick-rimmed glasses and a paranoiac daze,
A thin glimmer of repose
...

Useless triviality
In the maze of Puritanical property and stubborn consensual heavens
Drowned in blue time
...

Oceanward,
Where the thumb and nose meet at the spun wheeling whys,
Whose greed lurched from above the lily swamp and naked,
Pressed their white head to the diamond name"

excerpts from "Pulp Massage"