What if you declared a hunger strike and nobody came?

Canadian activist and self-declared progressive blogger, Obert Madondo, started a hunger strike over a month ago, on March 14. I don't know that no-one cares. Surely, he has at least a few friends who can feign worry.

Mr. Madondo says he has lost 21 pounds during his hunger strike -- roughly five pounds a week. He assures his supporters that his life is not in danger.

That's no hunger strike. That's the South Beach diet. If I were him, I'd celebrate some healthy gradual weight loss and call it a day.

Mr. Madondo is not chilling in some brutal prison in some backwater country. No secret police ever knocked on his door. He is quite safe and totally free to come and go as he pleases. That's because he lives in one of the world's great democracies, where his freedoms are absolutely protected.

So, why is Madondo so upset that he felt a politicized need to avoid cheeseburgers and pizza (but perhaps allow himself a moderate amount of whole grains, steamed vegetables and a small portion of lean chicken drizzled in a Thai curry sauce?).

He doesn't like the policies of the current democratically-elected majority government, particularly the Safe Streets and Communities Act (It's unclear whether he's against "safe streets" or "communities"). He also has a number of demands, including the resignation of a sitting Senator, a national inquiry and cessation of a "war on Canadians" by the government that is not happening (If Madondo would like to see what a war on citizenry by a government actually looks like, he's welcome to watch daily coverage of what's been happening in Syria).

He seems genuinely surprised and upset that his demands have not been met.

Hunger strikes are for brutalized and exploited people at the mercy of rogue regimes that are nonetheless still vulnerable to international sanction; imprisoned Bahraini activists, Cuban journalists, Tibetan protesters, that sort of thing. They're not for citizens in healthy democracies to protest fake wars and pretend fascism.

This is only the latest example of the infantilization of the left in the Western democracies, where relativistic idiots literally can't tell the difference between a government that doesn't quite match their pet policy prescription and a tyranny that imposes its will with tanks and hired thugs. If the left wants to be taken seriously, progressives need to understand how they can work within the system, not dictate policy through hunger games.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist