Dear Editor:
According to Sylvia Gung, who felt herself qualified to be the next mayor of Burnaby, our society is "indebted" to the occupiers of Vancouver and should "award them for their heroic actions."
She also suggests that said occupiers are "risking their lives." Are there boa constrictors in these tents? I am curious as to how lounging on an inflatable mattress all day is life threatening.
As a taxpaying member of this society, I support meaningful and constructive protest. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing in Vancouver is basically an illegal camping trip.
From beneath a cluster of soggy puptents, these renegade loafers have issued no fewer than 60 "demands," many of which are contradictory, excessively vague and nearly impossible to implement.
Someone needs to remind these folks that societal transformation requires effort. It involves community engagement, political action, lobbying, canvassing, volunteering. In other words, hard work.
I would challenge Ms. Gung to identify a single movement for social change at any point in history that succeeded from a sitting position; that managed to achieve its goals without having to get out of bed.
I am reminded of Susan B. Anthony, who campaigned for women's rights for more than 50 years, only to die before ever seeing women get the vote. That is the kind of champion for whom I feel a genuine debt.
It is the tireless reformer who invests a lifetime of energy and passion in order to improve the human condition who deserves to be called heroic.
The suggestion that this inactive coalition of non-contributing complainers deserves anything more than basic tolerance is beyond senseless.
Adrianne Merlo, Burnaby
