Police allow vandals to run amok for 2 hours at G20 protests
[Peaceful G20 protest at Queen & Spadina from Meghann Millard on Vimeo.]
There's been a lot of crying about "thugs and anarchists" in Toronto. I live about 4 blocks from where some of the vandalism occurred, though I wasn't there at the time.
As best I can tell, what happened is that for about an hour, the Black Bloc protesters clearly and visibly prepared for action, with both the police and other, non-violent protesters able to see they were doing so. The number of Black Bloc vandals seems to have been between 50 to 100, certainly not more than 200. (The police had 20,000 men.)
The police actually withdrew, leaving behind police cars for the Black Block to torch. Which they then did. The Black Bloc then proceeded up Yonge street (the main north/south street in downtown Toronto), vandalizing as they went, and eventually many headed over to Queen's Park, the Provincial capital. Two hours after the first violence, the police finally take action, ensuring that there are plenty of videos of police cars burning and vandalism that would not have occurred if they had taken action earlier.
According to the police, rather than confront a maximum of 200 protesters, they withdrew behind the barrier around the G20 meetings and let them vandalize downtown Toronto for 2 hours.
At the end of the day the people who matter never even saw any protests and the 1 billion dollar police presence and suspension of civil liberties was "justified" by vandalism and burning police cars.
Simply put, the police decided that they couldn't spare, say, 2,000 out of their 20,000 men to stop 200 vandals. This was a deliberate decision to allow downtown to be vandalized.
I leave it as an exercise for readers to decide if this was a matter of incompetence, or if it was a deliberate strategy. And if it was deliberate strategy, just what they were trying to accomplish with their strategy.
Of course, along the way Canadian Civil Liberties observers were arrested as well, and protesters were not allowed to see lawyers.
I am ashamed to be Canadian today, and I am ashamed of my governments, at all levels.
With the cops beating heavily on their shields instead of heads. On the whole I think they made the right choice for a change.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
borne of incompetence. Something we know a great deal about here in the U.S. I'm sure all the shopkeepers (etc..) in the area are absolutely shocked at what occurred. Forget the insurance companys, the gov'ts now responsible for the loss of property.
Actually, the better idea would have been to save downtown, and let the protesters go unbridled for two hours at the site of the meeting.
the black block at the G20 are no less police-affiliated than they were at the WTO protests in Seattle.
a plan to discredit dissent and pro-green activists
i saw WTO 99 firsthand because i lived nearby and worked 1 block from the meeting
"Do you see creamed corn on that plate?"
>a plan to discredit dissent and pro-green activists
many pro-green activists and anti-globalists are useful idiots who do not have any consequential knowledge of their actions. Although well intentioned to end poverty across the world, they cannot see that ending globalization and forcing developed and developing nations to adopt 'green' reforms will ultimately end up hurting the poor that they were trying to protect, and their selves.
Curbing first-world over-consumption and addressing global economic inequality is definitely going to hurt the poor long term.
They just don't care.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
"Those who vent their moral indignation over low pay for Third World workers employed by multinational companies ignore the plain fact that these workers' employers are usually supplying them with better opportunities than they had before, while those who are morally indignant on their behalf are providing them with nothing." - Thomas Sowell
the police and government want to discredit any protesters and that's outrageous from a Canadian standpoint.
To voice dissent is something most of us Canadians believe is our right. And most of us will fight to keep that as a right.
But not from a Conservative 'The End Justifies the means' Canadian Standpoint.
The Fascists are in the house people. They are making reasons to crack down on us hard. Even in Canada.
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
With many intelligent reasons to protest the 2010 winter Olympics and large, nationwide protests taking place as the Olympic flame crossed Canada, it was expected that large protests would take place at the Vancouver games. The day before the Olympic opening ceremonies, during a downtown Vancouver protest, this same Black Bloc broke windows of the Hudson Bay Company and rioted in the Vancouver Civic Centre.
Result, support for ANY of the protesters was withdrawn, and police were able to keep the protesters ineffective without raising complaints about the protester's civil rights.
It is a deliberate strategy, not incompetence.
is that the new term for agent provacateur? sure is catchy!
note to police-thugs: don't make it so obvious next time, your ploy will work better that way
agent provacateurs used to 'justify' the insane actions of the police state.
.
a politician, can you?! or the police for that matter...
There's a push to make peaceful protest illegal in G20 countries. Look at the recent Gaza flotilla where peaceful people making a public statement were murdered, as armed Israeli soldiers felt "threatened". Same thing in Toronto, the peaceful ones were arrested while the black garbed "anarchists" gave the police and politicians exactly what they wanted... violent action caught on film. To prove to the average citizen that police must crack down on public gatherings of every kind.
Cops on Crack?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
of peaceful protesters in that flotilla and the number who fought the Israeli borders and the ratio of peaceful and violent protesters in Toronto and see if you don't think the police in Toronto handled the situation somewhat better.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
So because they didn't shoot anyone it was ok?
Wasn't it? Or would a few bodies in the streets have made for a more interesting narrative?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
on any level... to think shooting people in the streets somehow excuses the political/police treatment somehow negates that treatment is nuts!
we have gone from "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" down to "well, at least you don't have three bullets in the back of your head so count yourself lucky.
Awesome!
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Hey, it seems to have effectively framed the discussion for some.
... it seems as if some people simply count on ever diminishing standards to bring things down to their level, so they don't have to waste any calories in the process. They make the mythical "good Germans" look downright nihilistic and boisterous in comparison. And this is a supposedly "liberal" blog, I weep.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
What's a good liberal blog without a few CIA spooks?
or at least I hope they have fallen by *that* much, if these are "CIA spooks" LOL
At least I hope so, else it would mean they are desperately scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Not, good...
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
I was being facetious, but it wouldn't altogether surprise me. There are some pretty big slush funds at present.
... given the awful substandard quality of the material.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
great post
Yep. We are happy they let us live. We just want this little bit of peace, but we never get it. They invade our home pouring fear into every facet of our lives.
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
and I totally agree with your comment.
It was with perhaps naive surprise that I read about Windsor constabulary breaking into medical marijuana dispensaries, setting fires, and then calling the local fire departments. The LEOs re-entered the dispensaries on the heels of the firemen, and collected evidence for prosecution in court -- no court-ordered search warrant was required, due to "imminent public danger".
It would appear that the Canadian government and the LE organizations they control have adopted as draconian police-state tactics as have many LEOs south of our border here in the USA. The argument would seem to be "Do whatever it takes to make arrests, never mind whether the methods are legal or not." Increasingly here in the USA, the courts tend to give LEOs all the leeway they need or desire.
You've got the Harper government to contend with up there, for some time yet. Down here in the USA, it doesn't seem to matter whether it's a Democrat or Republican in charge -- it's all the same.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
Wasn't that how Rome fell?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
funny
Temple walls too...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
just had a piece about police storming a sit in at an intersection and arresting everyone they could..."largest police arrest in Cdn history" (around 900?)
...they said a CBC cameraman was swept up and arrested and later released with no charges...
Propaganda has threads that weave into a pattern.....
that it was a deliberate strategy. They left the Blac Blockheads some police cars to play with. The strategy being to avoid a violent confrontation in which innocent people might be hurt. If so it was a wise decision.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Like a controlled fire in a dry forest, the police ARE infiltrating protesters and trying to incite violence; at which point they can swoop in and contain the crowds. Wise? I don’t think so.
This tactic leads to the detainment and arrest of too many innocents. The police are becoming thugs to capture thugs.
It assumes that the "thugs" they allowed to have a 2hr vandalizating-spree are not police agents themselves. Funny how the black block never gets arrested.
I can't comment on this 2hr spree, I don't know enough. I have seen enough video of this G20 and others to know that the intentional incitement is happening. It's not hard to figure out why they are doing it. They want to control the violent protesters on their terms/turf. By the videos, it's clear they are heavy handed.
Certainly the blac block is a target for infiltration. That is also documented. Are they ALL agent provacateurs? That's hard to tell.
Suppose they're not; would you hold a whole village responsible for the actions of one family?
No, I would not. As I said, this is not a wise tactic.
Look at it from a smaller scale. The police hear of a gathering of teenagers in a mall after a graduation party. They know that one of them once threw a rock. So they get a few cops to run through the mall throwing rocks. If any of the teenagers also throws one, they arrest all the teenagers and everyone in the mall.
That’s essentially what’s happening here, only on a larger scale. The better response is to wait for that one teen to throw the rock and arrest him.
a more appropriate strategy. No one got killed. No one got seriously hurt. Some idiots did some damage but they were,as always mixed into crowds of non-violent protestors. What should the police have done? Weighed into the crowds swinging batons and precipitated panic and riot? I think not. I wonder if Mr. Welsh would have preferred that outcome.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
But weighing into the crowds swinging batons is what they have done. No, not in this case that I know of, but recently. The infiltration and inciting is what gave them the provocation. The subsequent round-ups are overreaching.
did you watch the above video? Peaceful protesters weren't given 5 seconds between finishing their national anthem, a ballad expressing our affinity for freedom, and the riot-cops charging in "swinging batons".
How is it that 20,000 police in riot gear are required to attack peaceful protesters in order to prevent violence perpetrated by a distinct group of a hundred? Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters violently dispersed seems more of a security threat than 20k police in riot gear confronting some 100 supposedly violent anarchists.
Vandalism is not violence. The only people I've seen the blac block attack are peaceful protesters and those wielding cameras.
(was trying to respond to peter)
"Vandalism is not violence"
I agree with you that peaceful protesters should never be attacked but vandalism is a cowardly form of violence.
damaging property is not the same thing as assaulting a person except in societies which hold the sanctity of property on par with that of personhood.
you're a shop owner who loses some goods and a couple of days of sales doing repairs to these idiots. It's just their livelihood after all and no concern of yours.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
I didn't condone the vandalism nor did I say that's it's not unfortunate for the small business owners who's property was damaged. I merely stated you have to be one heck of a materialist not to think it's misleading to refer to the black block as violent protesters. Furthermore, they're not even protesters; go ask them to articulate their position and views and you'll see.
than crimes against property.
If you believe otherwise, you're raising that broken window as more valuable than the people who got truncheoned out at Queen's Park.
"Vandalism is not violence".
I never said damaging property is the same thing as assaulting a person.
You on the other hand wrote that vandalism is not violence. Instead of putting me in a position of defending something I did NOT write, try defending your own position without moving the goalposts.
I wasn't even addressing you let alone putting you in a position to defend some straw man. I made the vandalism is not violence remark because I took issue with the reference to the real protesters as non-violent as made by Peter, others and probably even myself, elsewhere. The implication is that the block are violent, which, to my knowledge, they are not. At least not unless you're trying to ask them questions concerning their supposed causes, principles and intentions.
Now who needs to get real? You posted this on C&L's message board. That makes it fair game and you should be accountable to explain what you are talking about. If you were trying to have a private discussion, you are in the wrong place. If you write something that merits a response, you'll get it from multiple sources.
I share the same beliefs as these protesters. I just think committing acts of vandalism discredits the entire effort and puts genuine protesters in unnecessary danger. To boot, those acts of vandalism only end up hurting small shop owners and such, not impacting world leaders or unethical global corporations.
And by the way, it's very lame to say you weren't addressing me when you directly replied to my comment. It's equally lame to say you weren't building a straw-man when it was exactly what you did. Just get a handle on all those posts you've made and read back a bit.
G20 protesters are notoriously disorganized. They fail to obtain permits and even make it a point not to. They can organize buses, tents, and sleeping bags for thousands of people but they can't be made to put forth a reasonable effort to obtain permits. And when they don't have a permit, they can't be reasoned with to relocate to areas of the city that have been set aside for the protest. Then they refuse to disperse when ordered to. This leads to arrests of otherwise peaceful protesters, a vast majority of them being fully ignorant of the fact that their organizers are utterly incompetent.
is itself undemocratic.
Shall I plan one for your living room then?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
... yeah, I see totally how your analogy is not faulty in the least.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Who owns the downtown Toronto city streets?
that private property is irrelevant. Is yours the exception?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
No, let's let protection of it supersede the rights to free protest, expression and association.
that the rights of protest, expression or association requires the destruction of someone's property? Can't have a protest without breaking windows? You cannot be the product of any Canadian school system. You must have been home schooled.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Destruction of personal property is acceptable is it is not an act of violence:)
You're trying to argue with a person who has no concept of accountability. This is a tad ironic since we do wish nations and corporations were more accountable.
"free speech zones" has to be the most orwellian phrase of late
myself.
I am also a big fan of the new spelling for "resistance" as I-N-S-U-R-G-E-N-C-E.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
i agree, that wins
If you block off sections of a commercial business district to stage a protest, it can cost the city millions of dollars and waste thousands of hours of time for people who are stuck in cars.
That's if you have a permit. If you don't have a permit, the city is essentially out of control whether or not the protest itself is peaceful. Masses of people might end up disrupting movement of emergency vehicles to other parts of the city. They can completely prevent workers from being able to plan their commutes in and out of the city and cause gridlock. If firetrucks or ambulances need to get to an area where there is violence, or even if it's a pregnant lady who needs to get to a hospital, a bunch of people having a sit-in can endanger lives. Long story short, don't expect the police to kid around when they tell a crowd to disperse.
where the sun don't shine (>.<)
I don't think you're in your designated area. Should we call the authorities?
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
"They fail to obtain permits and even make it a point not to. "
Fuck off, fascist.
Agreed ;P
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
Did you? Cause what I saw was a bunch of cops charge some protesters while banging aggressively on their shields. Then all the protesters ran away. No one was clubbed. No one was injured at all. In fact I can find no video that shows the police busting heads. If anyone has I'd appreciate a link.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=co...
here's some footage.
thank you sir.
No.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Why don't you just watch the video. You sound willfully ignorant. FTR, my friends in Toronto tell me everyone on transit is being searched without cause indiscriminately. I suppose they're lucky they've not been stripped naked and fire hosed?
One guy sitting down got pushed. No one got clubbed. No one got hurt. My eyes work just fine. How about yours?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
you went and watched the same video and made the same remark. I said to watch the one Samson posted just above. It's a moot point anyways because by the time the summit is over, methinks there will be no shortage of such footage.
good point, i think we'll see a lot more footage in the coming days.
Because they were SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM in the designated protest area. The police aggressively threatened them for that.
edited after watching that video someone posted just above this, and it's clear that many innocent people were manhandled and punched by police. The most absurd police action? Where they arrested a DEAF black guy for not obeying a police command.
I wonder if he will ever recover.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
watch the video Samson posted and stop parroting the same snark.
This was the "Designated Protest Zone" the day before the video at the start of this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYbq484abs&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDY8pE_twY&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYbq484abs&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS46cI_CStg&fe...
also have a deliberate strategy. Groups such as theirs state pretty openly that one of their goals is to lure police away from secured areas by any means necessary in order to allow regular protesters better access to the main event. Looks like they failed.
Are you accusing the government of manipulating events?
Scandalous. I will alert the media at once.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Round up the usual suspects.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
That's an interesting viewpoint, and not one that I necessarily disagree with.
What better way to justify draconian new loses of civil rights than to promulgate the violent destruction of property, public and private, through inaction? Sounds like their plans succeeded, on both sides.
If injustices are allowed to fester in a democratic society, the appearance is gained of very limited avenues of either redress or protest. Such situations tend to spiral out of control, deliberately or otherwise. Increased repression will breed a new more violent response.
Canada is doing the very same thing to the Mohawk Nation, by breaking all covenants and treaties with the First Nations ... [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6578493.stm ]. And it isn't as if the Canadian government, USA government, and even multinational businesses don't engage in staged propaganda for their own uses ... [ http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/may2... ]
[ http://www.propagandamatrix.com ]
No doubt the Harper government sees some possible political advantage in these occurrences.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
"...It was at this time that local television stations, followed by CTV and the CBC—the country’s national news network—broke away from regular programming to breathlessly broadcast for hours on end “live” saturation coverage of events in the streets of the city. Video of the burning patrol car was then looped and re-looped into the country’s living rooms throughout the afternoon and into the night."
"As always, police provocation may well have played a role in isolated acts of vandalism. The patrol car, torched by three or four individuals, was done in full view of a whole phalanx of riot policemen who stood idly by at the intersection. “Backup! Put your batons down”, shouted the attending police captain to the riot squad. No attempt was made to arrest the perpetrators. Fire extinguishers possessed by the police were not deployed. The Toronto Fire Department, which can respond to any downtown emergency within minutes, did not arrive for over an hour as camera teams gathered from all the networks."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/pol...
A burning car is hazardous. Maybe the cops backed away to let it ignite on the vandals?
And of course, if this was the police strategy, the protesers seemed happy enough to go along with it and commit acts of vandalism. Asshattery all the way around.
we have seen that peaceful protests have such a salutary effect on government policies, why would anyone want to get violent? i really see no reason to protest the global elite, they are doing such a wonderful job of preserving human rights around the globe, not to mention the steady economic progress enjoyed by so many planetary citizens; why just last week some factory workers in china got a raise all the way up to $1.03 an hour! really, these protestors should be ashamed of themselves.
Without presenting least a shred of evidence for the agent provocateur claims, your argument boils down to this: you can't believe that the police deliberately allowed protesters to make themselves look like lawless thugs instead of confronting them in a violent clash.
This becomes such a disingenuous argument. Imagine a ruthless army burning down a village full of women and children and saying "We dropped leaflets on the village telling them that we were going to burn it down. Clearly, the women and children were placed in the village by our enemy in order to make our side look bad."
The burden of proof is on you.
so, you believe that agent provocateurs used by ruling class interests is without precedent?
and, i don't know what you're talking about, but these riot-inducing cops LIVE for violent clashes.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=co...
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg
And when somebody suggest "agent provocateurs," notice how the disbelief in the sheer possibility that there could be plants (found in the official response) is a lot like yours, bbk? I wonder why:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20sum...
but when it comes to "plants", nobody beats the protesters themselves in canvassing the internet with their message. I should be more suspicious of the hysterical posters in this thread as perhaps black-bloc operatives than you have reason to be suspicious of me. I have been commenting on C&L since it was founded (save for periods when I had no internet access) and you can easily find out my views and opinions on a wide variety of issues simply by clicking on my moniker and reading for a while. And yet here in this one thread a bunch of protester advocates are making ad hominem attacks on me and others, accusing us of being agent provocateurs for the New World Order police state.
we post some, including admissions by police that they are using counter insurgence in these types of protests, and you deny it all the more vehemently.
I was simply pointing out that you are defending LE and ignoring precedent with the same energy and tenacity that LE denies the use of agent provocateurs. And you may have posted here since the beginning, but that doesn't change the fact that at the moment, when presented with evidence of police going undercover to incite violence, you stick your fingers in your ears and start shouting "la-la-la-la!" like a little kid.
And, fwiw, I have also been around here for a long time too... maybe not the beginning, but at least before we all had to register. My participation is a lot more sporadic, and I never really paid attention to names before (kinda hard to track you though, considering it seems you started all of this in a different thread under a DIFFERENT MONIKER: WarmCanadian), but if I had encountered you back then, what with your apologies for the state and willingness to look past police malfeasance, then I would have made a fuss then too.
I hardly think it is an ad hominem attack to point out that you are denying the likelihood of "agent provocateur" involvement as vehemently as police do. It is just reality, a reality that I don't get and that seems way out of place on a supposedly progressive blog. Seriously, read the denials of LE and then go back through your denials. They are eerily similar.
I am not saying you are LE, I'm not saying you're a stooge. I just think it's sad that a "progressive" puts all the responsibility on demonstrators and automatically places the police in a position of moral superiority. You know, there used to be a time when it was on the POLICE to justify dispersing crowds, using force, intimidating peaceful demonstrators. Now, they just move in for the kill and people like you quip "well, those stupid disorganized protesters should've had their permits in order!" as if it's a foregone conclusion that police acted totally within the boundaries of the law (and, conversely, protesters are automatically in the wrong just because, in your mind, they always fail to get permits and clearly must be at fault here).
I just think you are a apologist for the state and LE based on your unflinching defense of LE and support of the curtailment of the people's right to freely assemble. You are, after all, a person who supports the notion of "free speech zones" and thinks cops have the right to rough up protesters if they don't have permits. I understand that there should be a method to the madness, but at the point that it begins to discourage people from demonstrating, I believe it is wrong and that LE has no grounds to forcibly disperse peaceful crowds (I'm referring to the anthem singers now).
I have an appointment to make and very little time to get ready now, but trust me, I just think it is sad that you accept the actions of police without question and are automatically highly skeptical of the protesters. I think it is a perfectly valid point to make that your loyalties are dubious and that you are an apologist for the state prison industrial complex. If that is an attack ad hominem, so be it. I still side, and forever side, with the people who are raging against the emergence of a global neo-feudal/fascist state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g
http://www.************.com/peaceful-proteste...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S1nHvvkzvA
The chief of the Surete du Quebec was eventually forced to admit that in fact the person holding the rock in that video and encouraging people to throw things at the cops was an SQ officer, along with his two companions.
I'm just a few hours down the 401 from T.dot. I have a lot of friends there. They've all been radicalized by this. The CPC (and the provincial Liberals) can pretty much write off the GTA for a while.
The Toronto police chief in a press conference said he thought the rioting was a diversionary tactic to draw the police away from the summit.
Kinda damned if you do, damned if you don't. I blame Harper for insisting on having this stupid conference to begin with in the center of Toronto.
Add the damage to the streets of Toronto and the local merchants to the already 1 billion dollar butcher's bill.
... and they didn't have a few to spare for actual violence?
Here, the cops would be climbing over each other for the chance to crack some heads.
Real News Network Video (includes video of the police allowing vandalism, then attacking protestors and the journalist himself):
Real News journalist attacked at Toronto G20
RT Video (reporter standing beside abandoned police cars as they are vandalized):
Police abandon cars at G20 protests amid $1 billion security clampdown
G20 Protests Heat Up: Video of police car fire in Toronto
AP Video (scenes of vandalism with no police interference):
Raw Video: Summit Protesters Smash Windows
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
as it typically is summarily dismissed and dissed by the resident state apologists. I make too easy of a target and effectively allow them to divert attention away from the real issues. So, it's easier just to sit back and observe. Self-censorship ftw...
Don't feel too bad, you could be another retarded American. See? There is hope for your country!
One BILLION dollars spent on security.
On Saturday they allow the centre of Toronto to be trashed by thugs they knew were coming. On Sunday, when the protests were non-violent, they went on an arresting spree, cuffing, kicking and hauling away hundreds of peaceful activists.
Was it a deliberate strategy of the police, or incredible incompetence? A strong case could be made for either, but whichever it is, Canadians were failed by their government throughout this whole sorry mess.
. . . the $1Billion (at least, it may have been more) spent on security at the Winter Olympics.
Canada blew $2 Billion on security for these events in a year in which we went into deficit for the first time in 12 years.
Enough. Let's not host any more of these international carnivals for many years to come.
Sarah Palin was just heard claiming that Rush Limpbag says he was there in person and saw Obama start the whole thing. Confirmed by Joe LIEberman and John McLame. Sarah wants a $250,000 appearance fee to tell everyone in an ill-informed talk that Obama sent dempster dumpster divers to Toronto who met up with the POTUS to confirm their plan of destruction. But Sarah refuses to set foot in Toronto and would rather speak from a defunct Oil Rig in the Straits of Hormuz... from where she can see the Gulf of Mexico and determine whether BP ought to pay a larger fine or not.
Both groups are mad at hell and have no clue what they're mad about.
...
is lightyears ahead of any teabagger.
Emotionally, it's a much closer call.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ILDFp5DGA
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
"Ashamed to be Canadian"? That's a little much.
The primary duty of the police was to protect the G20 site and the heads of state. Like it or not, that's the deal.
If the police had adopted a policy of zero tolerance, and started to crack heads all over downtown at the first signs of violence, we would no doubt be hearing complaints of police overkill.
The fact that the roving vandal mob was on the move and not growing may have given the police reason to hang back. The danger of violence spikes when the mob stops and gets bigger.
In the absence of any evidence, the 'agent provocateur' thing is a conspiracy theory.
the "police" are using violence on peaceful protestors.
so, i guess the lesson that the canadian "police" want people to learn is that if you are a vandal or an asshole (see, black bloc) you will be left alone? but, if you don't engage in vandalism, or violence, then your skull is crack-worthy?
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=co...
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg
---
Oh, but that was 3 whole years ago. It couldn't possibly be happening now, could it?
Absence of evidence is not... well you know.
The perception here is skewed. You are deliberately giving 2 options that make the police look like the bad guys no matter what - incompetent or deliberate "strategy". I am not here to point fingers at all because I (and this goes for everyone here) don't know all the facts. Let's not get all reactionary and automatically blame the police for everything. It is a lot like teenagers having a fit and claiming that it is all their parent's fault.
Look, I don't like to see cops act agressively and I don't like to see idiots smashing windows and burning cars. The real victims or the people that live and work in Toronto (downtown in particular). Peaceful protestors should be furious not at the cops but the so-called protestors that are only there to reek destruction and make the cops look bad. Some spoil for a fight against the cops just so they can go on television and proclaim to the world that the cops and the government are evil and our liberties are being smashed. No, my liberties are being smashed by some jack-ass losers that threaten my neighbourhood and place of business by smashing my shop window.
I wonder if you were a cop facing the "protestors" that were hooded up throwing rocks, burning things, etc. Don't tell me your heart won't be racing with a little fear. Thousands of other cops there too? Doesn't matter when you are right in the front with a nut-case shouting in your face like you are his worst enemy of all time (and you never even met the guys before!). He starts throwing rocks at you or charging you. All you want to do is make sure you will be okay after this bs so you can go home in one piece to see your family.
At what point do cops make the decision and say "let's put down these thugs in front of the eyes of the world", knowing they might get very physical with them? At what point do people say "my right to protest does not give me the right to act like an idiot and burn cars and smash windows".
The focus has to be on those idiots in the first place - the militant protestor (Black Bloc).
If there weren't those kind of idiots, a billion dollars in security would not be necessary. All that money could have been invested in housing, health care, and food for the less fortunate.
"If there weren't those kind of idiots, a billion dollars in security would not be necessary. All that money could have been invested in housing, health care, and food for the less fortunate."
sorry, but that must be the most ridiculous sentence i have read in quite some time.
and....give me a good reason why. I find the most ridiculous sentences are ones claiming other people are ridiculous without providing a reason.
... which is not really ridiculous, but not correct either.
A couple of kids "forcing" the expenditure of a billion dollars in security? LOL
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
that's pretty deserving of ridicule. Samson was right.
... I was agreeing with samson, no love?
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Much love, it was funny. I have just been waiting for a moment to point out that something that has already been ridiculed is by definition ridiculous.
Choosing downtown Toronto to have a pointless meeting who's agenda items were negotiated long before was the reason we wasted a billion bucks.
The meeting never had to take place, least of all in a place as accessible as Toronto. Next time they should have it in Baie James or something at a fraction of the cost.
A couple of kids? Please...
... that makes all the difference.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
i think you have the right intent (i think those investments you mentioned would be a trillion times better than paying skull-cracking), but your assumption that, had the "security" not cost a billion a day, the money might go to such noble causes is pure fantasy--and, as ixnay said, misplaces the blame.
Such a waste didn't have to happen at all. Not the money, not the smashed windows, not the burning cars, or the people thrown in jail. Can we not find a better way? Really?
well, the good thing is that the smashed windows, the destroyed property, the security money will help drive up "GDP" (ha... hmm, i guess its not really funny). yay!!
the thing is, speaking only for myself, the G20 is an anti-democratic organization that is stridently opposed to economic equality and works to foster imbalances in order to appease financial markets.
and the G8-G20 organizers KNOW the amount of contempt people across the globe have for them. after all, so many lives are bought and sold like a bag of oranges based on these unelected technocrats decisions, which are generally harmful to the mass of humanity. but, instead of opening up the talks to outside groups the turn meeting sites into mini-police states in order to prevent democracy. again, my opinion.
I don't disagree with you at all. In fact, I am with you 100%. But the premise of my original post was "guys, is there not a better way to express ourselves". I see that this was not obvious in how I wrote it.
I find it frustrating that small business owners and individual private property was vandalized in protest of "Globalization".
Local businesses are the first victims of the global economy and apparently protests against it.
any asshole--provocateur or not--who decided that it would be a good time to destroy small biz property deserves contempt.
"If there weren't those kind of idiots, a billion dollars in security would not be necessary. All that money could have been invested in housing, health care, and food for the less fortunate."
How much money would be available for housing, health care and food if it weren't for "those kinds of idiots" in the conference rooms who have robbed the middle class and are all lining their pockets (as well as the pockets of their crooked corporate buddies)??? You are bitching about a billion... well, we're talking TRILLIONS when you look at the corporate collusion and financial game-rigging that's found throughout the developed world. The bank bailouts and all the rest cost waaaaay more than your piddly $1.3billion.
I am not making any comment on the "TRILLIONS" in corporate collusion. I am speaking the money wasted on security would not have been necessary in the first place if people would grow up. Bitching about billions - you bet!
if criminals and corporations weren't in control of everything and turning the world into a neo-feudal state. Seriously, people are out-of-control frustrated because they are being ROBBED by entrenched power and they have no outlet for their anger or viable means to change things.
Again, you are crying about billions when, in truth, these people who "need to grow up" are raging about TRILLIONS. Still, this is going the same way yesterday did, so I need to stop and just walk away. Have fun apologizing for the plutocrats. I hope they drop a few crumbs and scraps close to you to express their gratitude for your diligent support...
so whenever someone says "I wish people can take a page out of Martin Luther King's book and stop the mindless destruction. Look for better ways" that person must be in support of plutocrats and the corporation. Ohhh boy....
and it's not what you said. You bitched that money was wasted because people need to grow up. I pointed out that even more money has been wasted by higher ups who ALSO need to grow up. I am pointing out that if you are going to bitch and moan, why don't you assign the blame where it is most deserved?
Whatever, l8er. Cleaning up around the house calls and that is far more productive than arguing with corporate shills, state apologists, morons, and worthless fucking spooks.
you were walking away? Yeah, you should be mad
you need to learn to read
You're attempting to apply logic and understanding to a situation that calls for passionate breast beating. It won't do to point out that no one got seriously hurt and no one got killed and that the police behaved with unusual restraint. They key complaint against them being that they didn't go charging after vandals with batons and bullets. The fact that you are absolutely correct is more to be censured than anything else. You are disturbing the narrative of the disturbed.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
try to inform yourself, eh?
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=co...
Learn to read.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
wtf are you talking about?
you, peter g, write: "the police behaved with unusual restraint"
but, not surprisingly, you refuse to watch video of them not being so restrained--why is that?
keep linking to a report of a journalist who was attacked by protesters don't you?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
just watch the video
or--if you did--maybe i can be of help.
the guys in uniforms, with the bikes and helmets and knight sticks are the cops.
A heated debate over vicious Canadian cops being so polite it hurts.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
"Black Bloc" = Cops.
Say "black bloc" = cops, they don't hear you.
Show them the clips of Montebello, they don't see it.
And don't even start hoping that they will ever say anything like LE is duplicitous and out of line...
They are masters at obfuscation, deflection and selective ignorance:
http://mschaut.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/se...
You can blame the police all you like but for far too long our side has coddled bad actors associating themselves with us out of a blind group loyalty.
Instead of bitching about the police we should be condemning the violence and insisting to the public that they don't represent liberalism.
But that might help us politically so naturally we won't do it. It's much more effective to attack the police and play victim. That way when people don't trust us we can whine about how we're victims of a right-wing smear campaign.
You seriously need to get a clue. What a patsy.
leaving the black bloc provocateurs aside, i would surmise that a lot of the protestors would be first to say "that they don't represent liberalism"
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