Behind The Numbers  Behind The Numbers's picture  Canada's Mean
Test: Myths behind neo-con madness  | June 29, 2012 General
Strike posters, Montreal. Photo: Rob Caballero/Flickr   It's
difficult to overstate the significance of the Quebec student
strike (the longest in North American history) and resultant
public backlash against the provincial government's Orwellian
response.  Not that you'd know it. According to mainstream
(predominantly) English media, Montreal is being held hostage by
a handful of scruffy, possibly naked, hooky-playing slack-
tivists who got distracted on the way to a door-crasher sale at
the Apple store and decided to stop traffic while demanding
their constitutional right to free lattes. Or something.  The
negative stereotyping of those who resist (or are an
inconvenience to) the current neo-conservative model doesn't
begin and end with students, of course -- public servants are
also a favourite target, what with their middle-class wages and
secure-ish retirement. And let's not forget si