Saturday, January 23, 2010

Cobourg's Biggest Political Protest

Deb O'Connor
Anti Proroguement Rally Rocks Downtown Cobourg

Today's rally, held in front of a locked door at MP Rick Norlock's Cobourg constituency office, was an unqualified success, as up to 150 people of all ages, shapes and sizes joined together to express their displeasure at the prorogation of Parliament by Stephen Harper's government. With so many there, at some points the roadway was impassable for cars. ...read more on The Burd Report. (See video of rally at bottom of this posting.)


2 comments:

Deb O'Connor said...

Your pix and video are excellent as always. It excites the hell out of me that with the new technology, people like us can do the important work of chronicling and analysing local events now.

It is significant that your blog, and the Burd Report, had reports posted within a couple of hours of the rally. A day later there are some good pix and a story posted on Northumberland News, but still nothing from Northumberland Today.


A reporter was there from the local radio station too so I assume there has been some air play, although they are famous for downplaying reports of events that challenge the status quo.

But for Net Journalism, this coverage of the rally wins the prize.

Deb O said...

The No Prorogue rally in Cobourg may not have been the town's biggest political protest.

In 1990, at the start of Bush Senior's first Gulf War, some of us in Cobourg were intent on mounting opposition, and began holding weekly Saturday vigils.

The first couple of them were at the MP's office, but as they grew, we moved the location to Victoria Hall, where we would gather and then proceed to the Cenotaph, where a local pastor would say prayers for the dead in that conflict.

Unbelievably we grew to have a crowd of comparable size to the one we saw yesterday, and we continued these weekly vigils until the war ended.

Granted that most of the protests in the area have been much smaller than these, and were attended by the usual suspects.

This one was huge in comparison, and to my long experience with protests, really made a point.

I'm just glad you were there to capture it for us.