This week I received a nice new black T-shirt from Canada, it reads simply: "Our dreams don't fit on your ballots". Given my last post I think that's a fitting summation of how I feel. I can honestly say I've never voted in my life, except perhaps to select where lunch would be. 37 years on this planet and not a democratic vote to show for it, but I think the T-shirt is the explanation. Ask yourself the question, when you vote are you really feeling like you're voting for your dreams, or just voting against your nightmares?
Anyway, the T-shirt is a promotional item for a new documentary called "The Take". I haven't seen it yet but "The Take" is about workers in Argentina who seized abandoned factories belonging to bankrupt companies. It describes how they started democratic workers collectives to the factories back into production and their subsequent legal battles with the owners who all of a sudden want their factories back. While from a legal perspective you can label the workers as criminals, morally you know you're on their side. They just wanted to be working again and formed companies with the structure that people would work for under the post economic collapse conditions experienced in Argentina. If they had never put the factories back to work can you imagine that the owners would have ever done anything with the derilict buildings? Are the perhaps more interested in seizing on the capital created by pure human spirit?
"The Take" was made by Naomi Klein of No Logo and Ad Busters fame, and Avi Lewis of CBC's "Counter Spin". Watch the trailer in WMV or Quicktime. It will be playing in theaters around North America soon. In the mean time you can buy a T-shirt like me and follow your dreams.
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