I try not to do the whole rah-rah look-at-me I’m-an-activist blogging thing. There are those far better cut out to such work than me, so why crash their party, right?

But on the subject of Burma, no one should remain quiet.

It is despicable, heinous, and a crime against all of humanity what the government of Myanmar is doing to its people as it struggles to suppress their largest-ever movement for democracy and basic human rights lodged by not only the good citizens, but the incredibly revered monks of that land.

If you’re not pissed off about it, I dunno if you belong on Planet Earth. If you think I’m painting that a little thick, think again.

I’ve seen photos of brains on sidewalks since all this began. No military needs to do THAT to its people. Now there’s news of them rounding up some several thousand monks (who started the whole thing… and they’re peace-loving Buddhists who relocate flies rather than swatting ‘em, so how much trouble could it really have been, eh?), disrobing them, shackling them, and moving them in convoys to imprison them in the north of the country. Fuckin’ oppression.

This weekend there is a global movement happening at noon around the world. You can show up, shout angry things at a government that might never hear you, but there’s a good chance your own might, and perhaps they’ll throw some pressure in the direction of the bastards in charge over there.

Maybe you’re not the protest type. Maybe you think that’s for dreamers and people who don’t have cars to park, since those little protester types always block the streets and all. Maybe you have something cooler to do. I don’t know.

I do know, though, that if ever there was a time for the planet to really gel and say “THAT is too much” to a power that be, then this is probably that time. We’re 20 years too late for Tiananmen Square, but here’s our chance.

It’s only by way of bloggers, really, that the world is seeing what’s going on in Burma. God knows they’ve shut down all the television stations’ news coverage, but it’s the guy on the street literally risking his life to send a cellphone image of a guard bashing a citizen who’s getting this message out there to all of us. It’s just some dude or chick who would’ve been otherwise going about their daily lives who are instead being violently suppressed, and they’re putting lives on the line just to email a photo to someone somewhere to post.

It boggles the mind. We all owe it to them to get out there and stand in some rainy square on an October Saturday, if for no other reason than to say “Yeah, we see what’s going on, and we think it’s wrong too”.

We all owe it to them.

The Facebook page for the event is here, so you can see where your city’s event is, and if you don’t see one, well, now you have the means to organize your own. Here in Vancouver, it’s at the usual civic protest gathering point, the Vancouver Art Gallery, like I said, at noon.

Vive le resistance.