Bearing witness, creating hope: rabble.ca's 10th Anniversary

A lot of names on the waybackmachine are names I recognize, some of whom still post, or have posted somewhat recently: Michelle, rasmus, Doug, jrootham, skdadl, clersal, DrConway, writer, and a few others who I remember still posting only a couple years or so ago. It's amazing, considering how much rabble has changed, how its connection to its early days is still visible.

I kind of prefer this.

Here is a taste of what to expect:

A pirate walks into a bar and he's got a sterring wheel shoved down the front of his pants. He ambles up to the bar and says: "Arrgh, gie us a whisky." The bartender, a bit taken aback, says: "Buddy! You've got a steering wheel shoved down the fornt of your pants!" The grizzled seaman nods and answers, "Yarrr! It's drivin' me nuts!"

One week? Better bump it up. I'm wearing my rabble overalls (the uniform of the party) all week in anticipation.

ETA. Oh Fidel, I'm so sorry about Smokey. He must be watching the Stanley Cup playoffs in the sky.

I am going to get on a plane now. So, Torontonians, if you notice your city suddenly got cooler, that's why.

Hoping to see some of you Monday!

rabble turns 10! Our story: launching during the Quebec City FTAA protests

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Highlight: rabble's launch during the Quebec City FTAA protests

"We went from zero to 40,000 unique visitors in one day by launching rabble.ca in the middle of the Quebec City protests against the FTAA. I was reporting from the streets calling my reports into our editor Jude MacDonald who wrote them up. It was rough on the staff getting rabble off the ground that quickly but it was worth it."

- Judy Rebick, founding publisher

Against the backdrop of the third Summit of the Americas meeting and protests in Quebec City on April 18, 2001, rabble launched with unprecedented considerable immediate success. Kim Elliott, rabble's current publisher, but at the time, an activist attending the FTAA protests, clearly remembers the context of the launch. "I met Judy Rebick at a demo at the Quebec City Summit of the Americas. She was passing out rabble.ca cards announcing rabble's launch. There was no better coverage of the activist responses to the Summit than on rabble." 

As protesters brought down a section of the three metre high concrete and wire fence that surrounded the site of the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations, the infamous teddy bear catapult made an appearance. Krystalline Krauss, then intern and current feature writer and Activist Communique blogger, was also there and recalls the FTAA catapult well. "[It] ‘shot' teddy bears at the FTAA security fence in Quebec City during the FTAA summit in April, 2001. I saw it first hand, and it was the saddest thing because teddy bears don't weigh anything so they didn't really have much impact. But, it was a beautiful thing to watch."

Bourgeois? Moi?

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At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.

I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. 

—Emma Goldman, Living My Life