Read this excellent summary of the growing "Occupy Wall Street" in the Globe and Mail - a sign that the mainstream media is beginning to pay attention to this citizen movement.

"Occupy Wall Street has grown exponentially since its inception on Sept. 17. And now that the story has belatedly exploded in the news media, everyone is paying attention. Inspired in part by the Arab Spring, the movement is defined by leaderless, participatory democratic action and nonviolent civil disobedience...Canadians should welcome this collective protest against concentrated corporate power when the occupation comes to Canada on Oct. 15. As long as the protests remain peaceful, we all have much to gain from an open, democratic dialogue about the ways that our government privileges corporate profits over the public good." (October 12, 2011)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/this-is-what-democracy-looks-like-occupying-wall-street-and-bay-street/article2198405/page1/

One year later, and still the question stands. What answers we have offer an incomplete image of an event that spanned the largest city in Canada, and directly affected the businesses, homes, and lives of thousands of people in and around Toronto at that time.

The constructed space between those 'for' and those 'against' the g20 summit left little room for understanding; and the violence, looting, vandalism, and indiscriminate arrests that ultimately occurred only increased the anger and strong emotions on all sides.

In response Ouboum is publishing a collection of articles and artwork from passers-by, politicians, police, protesters -- people, whose experiences will paint a more accurate picture of the summit.

This publication responds to the concern that only a handful of perspectives on the g20 have been given due consideration in public discourse, and that these few were presented only in opposition to one another. The narrative that remains is one of protestors and proponents - suggesting that anyone else would have remained quietly at home, away from the site of the event.

But the site of the event was downtown Toronto - home to some 2.5 million people whose experiences may not conform to the language of the media. The purpose of this publication is to document the wide range of perspectives held by participants on all sides of the g20 by providing a space where people can tell their own stories on their own terms and in their own language.

Ouboum is a Toronto-based collective of independent writers, artists and publishers inviting individuals, groups and organizations to share their experience of the g20 for publication in a forthcoming journal of social discourse. They are now accepting for publication any form of written, photographic or artistic representation of the individual’s experience of the 2010 g20 summit in Toronto.

For more information please visit www.ouboum.ca

Story from CBC News. "All of those people had their charges dropped Thursday because of a lack of evidence." Read article

Posting on Murray Dobbin's Blog. Betty Krawczyk: “The Attorney General has accomplished two things; first, equated my repeated infractions of the law in defence of the environment for future generations to the diseased minds of pedophiles who rape their very young children …and invited the Court to consider because I am a repeat offender that I should also be declared a dangerous offender and possibly be put away for life.” Read article

She's been called a hero, a troublemaker, and the grandmother of BC's environmental movement - but now a new label is being applied to 82-year old Betty Krawczyk by Provincial Crown Counsel: dangerous criminal.

What Betty Krawczyk has done is show this government for what it is – arrogant and utterly dishonest. Her courage is a prism through which ordinary citizens can see the reality of the Campbell crowd.

Blog posting by Murray Dobbin. "Each time some new outrage happens we should see it as another test by the corporate state of what we will put up with – what the new parameters of normal will be down the road. Each time we acquiesce, we lose a little more." Read article

Article by Jennifer Yang in The Star. Ontario "has secretly passed an unprecedented regulation that empowers police to arrest anyone near the G20 security zone who refuses to identify themselves or agree to a police search." Read article

It seems fitting with the launch of The Common Sense Canadian that we ponder Tom Paine and the Current State of Canadian Civil Liberties. What he man who used the term Common Sense as the title of his revolutionary pamphlet on freedom and revolution might make out of the current state of Canadian “civil rights”.