... One of the people who stuck out most in the room was a tall well-dressed (with impeccable posture) man named Derek Soberal, a highly-visible Toronto protester who I would later learn has the reputation for being one of the city’s most unabashed cop-baiters. Almost every sentence of Soberal’s excited outbursts included the word “Harper”, a few times calling for the government to be immediately disbanded.I tried to point out to him (and a couple of others in the room) that it was much too early to make such demands, there hadn’t even been an investigation. Jon appeared to understand that and helped bring back our focus- we agreed that what we were calling for was an investigation, not a revolution.At the end I’d found myself volunteering to set up a website and a Twitter account. Jon told us that he had a volunteer from the ‘Palestinian community’ who would be providing a truck, a sound system, and expert knowledge on how to organize a parade......Shortly after I setup the website, I got a curious message from Ari Pottens at Avvaz.org; the petition website where LeadNow posted their call for an investigation into the Robocalls. Ari offered to bring us some speakers, “an MP or 2 from the NDP/Liberals”. I politely declined, telling him that we had agreed (as part of our effort to be non-partisan) not to allow politicians on our stage.Avaaz was founded by people from MoveOn.org, an American activist group that was the model behind LeadNow. Both MoveOn and Avaaz are tightly connected with the Democratic Party (as many say LeadNow is with the NDP). It felt rather creepy to have someone from an American organization (connected to a foreign political party) offering to serve up “an MP or 2″...
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