You should go and find some blocks to play with misguided losers. Feel better now that you’ve had your tantrum? Betcha all have rich parents that you’re rebelling against.
Did you make a statement? If so, what was that statement? Ever try doing something constructive? Ever hear of constructive positive change? —Blockheads be-gone
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.
Ummmm…..yeah. The Black Block. I see where this is going. How’s the Square?
nothing that a good 30.06 won’t cure o.p.
With all the technology available today it must be quite eassy to identify these morons?
Once identified they should be hung in public, or flogged or boiled in oil or have their heads chopped off, made to listen to a whole years worth of HRM city council.
or basil, the ultimate horror, listening to 24 hours of celine dion, oh fuck no.
LS, now that is just plain evil. Show a little compassion, start with Barbra Streisand or Barry Manilow.
shudders uncontrolably from the thought of either of them.
Yer Right Lifey; they don’t even do that at Gitmo
Black BLOC is not a group. Before you post anything, you might want to do a little fact checking.
So is Halifax organising a rally in sol with the 900 people arrested in Toronto last weekendor are you all too busy thinking about the queen and Fleet Week.
The big problem I have with the violent and destructive actions taken by these people who identify themselves as anarchists (without really understanding the meaning of the term) is that it just plain turns people off. You gotta strategize, people. Lobbing a few bricks at bank windows and burning a cop car or two achieves little more than pissing people off. If you want to affect radical social change you’re going to need support from the general population and the general population isn’t impressed by your tactics. Sure it’s fun to cause a little mayhem now and then but real change takes patient commitment, maturity, and the kind of wisdom that comes with experience, none of which was visible in your little performance in Toronto.
I’m thinking Fleet Week. But I would consider donating to a trust fund to send those arrested to Somalia where they could live out their childhood dream to be pirates.
“So with a yo-ho-ho and with a ye-he-ye
We’ll take to the African sea.
We face the squalls and bust yer balls,
Spoiled, educated, suburban, middle-class, angsty Toronto pirates, we.”
that was beautiful admiral and it’s not even talk like a pirate day…aaargh
Painey, I never met a South Park reference I didn’t like. Rawk Rawk
The shit festering in your harbour must be making your thinking a little cloudy, huh? I find it amusing that you post your bitches on this “alternative” website, most of you pretend to be against the grain, yet you get sucked in by the propaganda you see on TV. Obviously you didn’t bother to take a good look at the innocent bystanders being arrested or beaten by the police. Shame on you, Halifax. I’ll be watching when the next summit is held in Halifax and cheering you on, dear folks, as you get pushed off the gangplank by the cops.
Oh, and just to be clear… I do not condone violence, and unfortunately the message of the peaceful rally was hijacked by the people who decided to trash Toronto. Even so, there is no excuse for innocent people (including senior citizens) to get put in a detention cell for hours with no access to a lawyer and proper food simply because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The expansion of police power via secret meetings held overnight sets a dangerous precedent. You folks should be speaking up about what happened rather than taking your talking points from South Park.
And Ivan, you strike me as a royal idiot. I hope I’m wrong with my first impressions.
I support the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s call for an independent inquiry into police actions during the G20. You can too:
http://ccla.org/2010/06/30/sign-the-cclas-…
I had to laugh when I saw the “weapons” that Toronto Police claimed to have seized from protesters. Turns out that when items that even the police finally admitted had nothing to do with G20 protests were excluded, the police were left with a table full of bicycle helmets and knee pads. Not a bad haul for $1.3 billion worth of security.
oh oh I pity the fool who calls the one who commands an idiot; be prepared to curl into a fetal position there emma-lou 🙂
The majority of those black-clad people seemed to be skinny and gangly. Maybe they are not eating well. They didn’t seem to be able to break those shop windows easily, probably due to malnutrition and muscle degeneration. Being hungry can make you irritable and perhaps violent too. Happy Canada Day everyone.
First impressions are usually correct Auntie Em, although I do take umbrage at the royal part cuz I’m no Monarchist. You can shovel great steaming piles of Chomsky until the sun goes down but try not to menstruate all over your 2nd hand copy of Manufacturing Consent when I call horseshit. Your propaganda is far less convincing than the government’s ( that is damning with faint praise indeed) and the victim/messiah act is really wearing thin. The performing monkeys that I saw capering and skylarking for the media this weekend couldn’t organize a circle jerk with a map and a handheld GPS unit so I really don’t have a lot of faith in their ability to make the world a better place by chanting “HEY HEY, HO HO. And as for those so-called peaceful protestors caught up in the dragnet, my sympathy is non-existent.
“I was just listening to the Raging Grannies sing an amusing little ditty about Harper’s teeny tiny weenie set to the tune of Camptown Races when the fascist stormtroopers pepper sprayed me and dragged me off to a plywood and chicken wire cage with a porta-loo THAT HAD NO DOOR! Oh, the humanity”
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is usually one of the first signs of insanity. And cheapshit manipulation tactics show as much contempt for the general public when they are foisted on us by “A loose coalition of Leftist, Socialist, Fymynyst, Green, Queer,Homeless, Trotskyite, Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, Chavezite, Social Justice, Antipoverty Activists” as when the Government resorts to them.
So try to remember, squalling about serious issues doesn’t automatically confer upon you the right to be taken seriously.
hey admiral that was a beaut and so early…rawk heehaw snort to all my bitches
Thanks Painey. Just to prove the great spaghetti monster has a healthy dose of schadenfreude I regret to report that a loosely based coalition of grass-roots cold viruses and/or allergens have decided to disrupt my vacation by storming and occupying my nasal membranes and sinus cavities. And while most of the demonstrators are peaceful there is a small core element of troublemakers calling themselves the Black Snot who are determined to spoil an otherwise fun time for all. Regrettably, my reaction is going to be provocative, heavy handed and indiscriminate by dosing the protestors with plenty of Dristan and Nyquil and then forcibly confining them in Kleenex without recourse to legal represenation.
No doubt I’ll spend the next three months testifying before the Canadian Civil Liberties Ass. Commission of “Independent” (har har) Inquiry, justifying my overreaction.
Hey, Skid Rock canceled. Was it something we said?
For those of you who are interested in the political ramifications of what happened, rabble.ca (alternative news) has covered the G20 quite well.
And Ivan, I would reply to your posts, but I found them juvenile, and frankly, I got bored by the second sentence. Have some compassion for the Coast readers, and desist from trying to be a comedian–you are simply not funny.
As for the Coast journalists… someone should have written a story about what happened (is happening) in Toronto in terms of civil liberties. Especially seeing there were also people from Halifax who got arrested. Tim Bousquet comes to mind–he’s an excellent writer and rigorous with his research. But that’s a pipe dream…
Keep your head buried in the sand, Ivan.
Happy Canada Day!
Would that be fair trade sand or nasty old globalized, made in Chinese prison camps, high lead content sand?
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association acts only upon principal, not upon any sort of rational thought. That’s the problem with those organizations, they lack any sort of pragmatism, and yet they criticize similar, yet more conservative (although, interestingly enough, these organizations are populated by so-called liberals, they’re conservative in nature) organizations, for similar actions.
Secondly, if I am to take a news source like Rabble seriously, they would need to drop tag line “News for the rest of us”. If we are ever to take “alternative” (read: liberal/left-wing) news seriously, they need to lose that elitist attitude, otherwise, they’re just as bad as the National Post.
It would be like taking EAC or PETA seriously.
hey em have some compassion for us regulars and fuck off asshole! ps: Do you have an even more annoying friend/relative that goes by the moniker montreal man? 🙂
C’mon Fellers. Cut Erica Em some slack. Anyone who invokes rabble.ca and considers Tim Bousquet a journalist is either 15 years old or taking the piss.
Martym, I’m afraid I don’t have a friend/relative who goes by the name of montreal man, but I do have a friend of a friend who has an idiot friend by the name of martym who posts on the Coast.
As for Dr. Fever, everyone acts on principle. And pray tell, what exactly is rational thought? Why don’t you also give me a lesson on how to act pragmatically in the capacity of an organization that defends civil liberties? I’m very eager to learn from your wisdom.
wow… Em’s going all six degrees of kevin bacon over here…
I also sense some sarcasm… Please Mr guinea pig… enlighten her.
Em– You’re sounding like a first-year poli-sci student who just read Chomsky for the first time.
How to act pragmatically about civil liberties? Pretty easy. These people were allowed to congregate and protest. The minute that things got uneasy, people started getting arrested. Why, you ask? Well, the police have every expectation to ensure that people and businesses are protected. The protesters have rights, but the people that would be hurt by those who would take liberties or create “civil disobedience” (which we will call criminal behaviour from this point further) have equal rights to have their property protected. Often, what happens is that these people who feel persecuted by the police have either done something, or decided to be aggressive inappropriately. I’ve experienced this myself, when faced by an aggressive police element at a large protest, one must be diplomatic. Rights were tread upon, but there’s times when we give up rights to maintain order. When Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, we were worried that we’d devolve into a totalitarian, Stalinist Russia. Did that happen? No. We’re just as free now as we were then.
Let’s keep in mind that the police were struggling to maintain order, for something that should have remained orderly, but thanks to an anarchistic element, everyone’s rights were tread upon. The CCLA should be focusing on how elements like the Black Bloc have lead us to employ tactics that would work best in Taiwan, instead of focusing upon what hand the government had in all of this. Could it have been handled better? Sure. But given the situation, would have I made any better decision? Probably not, and neither would anyone in the CCLA.
As it was, the government wouldn’t have won in either case. They crush the Black Bloc, they’re infringing on the people’s right to congregate. If they did nothing, they infringe on the rights of the people to have their property protected. Given that, it’s clear that your compatriots in the CCLA lack wisdom or even common sense, as it fails to take into account that everyone has rights, not just the protesters.
After the events over the past few weeks, and the pointless bickering that has gone on over the summit from both sides, I’m ashamed to be Canadian.
Taiwan? What happened in Taiwan? Did you mean Thailand?
Noam Chomsky ain’t nuthin’ but a lousy anti-Semite!!!!!
The Taiwanese government can be extremely rigorous in cracking down on public demonstrations. So can the Thais as we’ve seen in recent months. South Korea in the 80’s had the one fo the worst reputations of Asian countries (check out P.J. O’Rourke’s “Holidays In Hell”) at least until the Chinese let the tanks roll into Tianenmen Square.
Ah I see. But I’d worry more about those we never hear about. Who knows what’s happening in places where journalists aren’t allowed in in the first place.
Ivan, do you enjoy watching clips of Korean protests on those Spike TV shows that are on almost every weekend? Just once I’d like to see Canadians fight back against police the way the Koreans do.
THen again I’m told the Koreans are bigger drinkers than Canucks and can play better hockey.
I believe O’Rourke’ described them as “hard-headed, hard-drinking, tough little bastards. The Irish of Asia”
NGF, I wanted to see the Korean protests you speak of on Spike TV, and found this instead:
http://www.spike.com/video/mexican-ass-pro…
NTH— I meant Taiwan, specifically in it’s treatment of pro-China demonstrations. Although you can take many SE Asian countries and use them in an example of what a government really does when they want to crack down on demonstrations.
A good example of a protest that significant impact, but employed a level of “civil disobedience” were the Sri Lankan/Tamil Tiger protests that happened over a little over a year ago.
Thanks Dr. Fever for the explanation.
But isn’t Civil Disobedience like Jumbo Shrimp?
no you done hurt my feelings there emma – lou call’n my cousin an idgit and all ooowee 🙂
You do have a point. But maybe our enlightened friend Em could give us an example.
ps: PJ O’Rourke used to write some of the funniest shit for National Lampoon I’ve ever read; damn I used to love that magazine 🙂
Evil Clown Comics Marty. >: ) and “The Churchill Wit”
Lady Astor – “Winston, If you were my husband I’d poison your coffee.”
Churchill – “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d beat the shit out of you”
O’Rourke’s ” Foreigners Around The World” – fookin’ mint that was.
The Toronto Police were given the wrong briefing. They were so intent on using intimidation tactics on the peaceful marchers (the riot police equivalent of “shock and awe”) that they entirely forgot about protecting property from a few energetic types bent on destruction. But I suppose advancing en masse in a line behind a shield wall (reminiscent of the tactics of a Roman legion) gets the testosterone levels up much higher than passively lining the sidewalks to keep a few protesters from hurling trash cans through windows. No doubt some of those pounding their shields with their clubs also experienced “combat woodies” as the excitement of the moment took over. We’ll never know for sure.
But it is clear in the aftermath that the police overreacted. It is also clear that many people had their legitimate rights of free speech and free assembly trampled by the security forces. Most of those detained were guilty of nothing more than standing in a peaceful assembly. The police make frequent “charges” into these kinds of crowds to haul random people away mainly as an intimidation tactic. It has nothing to do with collaring “trouble makers” as evidenced by the fact that most are released without facing any charges at all.
The same folks who squawk all the time about how foreign troop deployments are meant to “protect our freedoms” are the same folks who rail against citizens exercising their rights to free speech and free assembly and seem to applaud the use of billy club justice on innocent marchers.
Maybe they were told that they were invited to play a life-size whack-a-mole.
omg the issue about gay lifestyle with the gerbil ranch cowboys so not PC; wouldn’t fly these days no eff’n way! 🙂
the thing is you get caught in a shit storm and you’ll probably get some shit on you 🙂
@Em
I’ve heard this from other sources. There was almost no attempt to protect property (even their own squad cars). It allows the state security apparatus to point to the destruction, after the fact, and say “See! We told you so!” thereby bolstering their claim that building a $1.3 billion “Fortress” in downtown Toronto was an absolute necessity.
It brings to mind the recent news conference where tables full of seized “weapons” were on display, with the police claiming evidence of a violent conspiracy, only to have this theory fall apart when some investigation revealed that the so-called “flaming arrows” were actually padded arrows taken from a guy on his way to a role playing game, who was also relieved of his chain mail, a chainsaw on display was seized in a separate incident unconnected to the G20 protest, etc, etc, etc.
Unfortunately for the authorities, the advent of digital video and internet technology has made it much more difficult for them to control the message.
Em— So the mainstream media is not to be trusted, wherein YouTube is to be trusted? The place where America’s Home Videos rejects congregate to spew racial epithets and call people fukkin gay? You have the gall to call people idiots. You do realize YouTube is just as much a tool of propaganda as the national media is? But then again, your truth is much different than my truth. You keep that healthy distrust of normal media outlets, I’m sure that those who read your blog will care. The rest of the world doesn’t, because, again, as I said, nobody’s rights were eroded. I’m sure those who were “arrested” were let out shortly after, and given the option to legal council. But let’s not talk about anything like that shall we? We’ve got to worry about other things! Don’t be so fucking ridiculous.
None of this addresses my questions towards you about the CCLA, but let’s leave to them their own devices, that is criticizing for the sake of criticizing, right or wrong.
UFB— You intersperse sane ideas with some silly ones. I don’t know whether to take you seriously or not.
NTH: that video has a lot of “manty” in it!
UFB— “Unfortunately for the authorities, the advent of digital video and internet technology has made it much more difficult for them to control the message.”
This message was brought to you by the good folks at Globalization Inc.!
I’d also like to add that the people that post these videos are controlling the message as much as the “authorities” are.
Pretty Kitty, if you ever find a link to the video, I’d love to see it. Cuz I keep coming up with the naked butt video. I am doomed.
Dr. Fever, you forgot to mention the fact that many videos get taken down soon after they are posted. But then, many are becoming smarter and starting to learn that if some video is taken down consistently, maybe there is something in there that’s important for people to see. Internet does make it more difficult to control information compared to things like TV.
Good points NTH, but information control is endemic to anything filmed. The person filming the scene controls what you see, and therefore the message. Raw footage is rarely raw.
Nobody’s rights were eroded, Dr. F? Really? Innocent people who weren’t even part of a protest were tackled to the ground by police, arrested on false charges, not read their rights, denied phone calls or access to legal council, and denied food, water, and medical attention while being held in overcrowded cages with dozens of other people in cold and unsanitary conditions for up to 36 hours. Women were strip searched by male officers. Journalists were not only prevented from reporting, they were roughed up and imprisoned along with everyone else. How can you possibly insist that there was no misconduct by police and no violation of citizens’ rights?
As for YouTube, obviously, a great many videos come with their own particular bias. However, I believe it’s important to get a variety of perspectives when attempting to formulate a viewpoint, and it is possible to watch a biased video from an unbiased viewpoint and gain some insight. As well, many videos are just raw, unedited footage and therefore can be a great deal more valuable in understanding what happened than a slickly edited news story with an obvious slant.
Me0w— I’m not questioning the overreaction of the police force. Indeed, there was an overreaction, but after a time, people’s rights were upheld. “False charges” are a matter of opinion, and whether you like it or not, if the police have a suspicion that you have been involved in a criminal act, they have a right to detain you. Too bad. Yes, people were wrongfully arrested, but that happens every single fucking day in Canada. THIS IS NOT NEW. Why is a national emergency whenever a bunch of middle class white kids get arrested on false charges, but a poor kid who gets arrested on a bad drug charge gets overlooked?
I’d buy the argument if the people weren’t let go. People on trumped up charges are let go, because we have a functioning legal system, that upholds your rights. Therefore, there was no erosion of rights! Wow, what a crazy concept. But let’s ignore that, because that would render most these arguments invalid.
The system that protects the rights of these people also can prosecute those who have overstepped their bounds, and I will suspect that this will happen in spades. But as with the WTO riots, we wont take away what we can learn from it, and when it happens again, we’ll have the same argument.
Finally, to your point of YouTube: “As well, many videos are just raw, unedited footage and therefore can be a great deal more valuable in understanding what happened than a slickly edited news story with an obvious slant.” That ruined your entire argument for it. Just because a news story has an obvious slant, it doesn’t render it useless, as you imply. I’ll take YouTube as a legitimate news source when a majority of the videos shot in it are actually not shot by some over-privileged punk with a $1000 camera and posted on the net using his $2500 Mac, all the while using the internet that the concept of globalization (which many of them were protesting against, and clearly don’t fully understand) has brought to them. These people can make it just as slick as any news crew, but they don’t, because people wouldn’t blindly follow them and RSS their blog.
And the cops are not going to fall for a diversion and break ranks.
@Dr. Fever,
“None of this addresses my questions towards you about the CCLA, but let’s leave to them their own devices, that is criticizing for the sake of criticizing, right or wrong.”
I did say I had a couple of minutes and that I would be brief. Further, I’m not clear on what questions I was supposed to be addressing. Also, I don’t have a blog. In fact, I try to avoid computers as much as I can. I have nothing to gain by posting this stuff–I’m doing it because I think that what happened in Toronto was morally objectionable.
And Fever, you’re putting words into my mouth. I did not say that the mainstream media is not to be trusted. In fact, there are many mainstream media sites that have been sympathetic to what has occurred. I did say that what was on much of the news re G20 was propaganda. Feedback loops of burning cop cars tend to be edited in that fashion for visceral impact. Please explain how you understand propaganda because if you are conflating raw youtube footage from people who were at the protest and mainstream media footage then there is a problem.
And yes, my truth is different to your truth probably because I was there and I saw what happened first hand, whereas you did not. UFB and meow are much closer to the “truth” than what you are espousing.
I agree that some of the kids at the protest did not fully understand the concept of globalization, but they did understand that globalization is not necessarily compatible with social justice. There were many university profs, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, and all sorts of people who fully understand the consequences of globalization. They marched, and some were arrested.
FYI, at the last count, there were over 1000 arrests made and some are still being detained. People did not have access to lawyers, and some were detained for over 24 hours with no explanation for why they were detained. Would you believe me if I told you that gays and lesbians were put in separate cages to heterosexuals?
The thing is, Doc, is that it wasn’t a bunch of white middle class kids getting arrested for no reason. It was people of all ages, all ethnicities, all classes being arrested indiscriminately for merely happening to be in a public place when the police decided that everyone they encountered was a suspicious person and started making up charges on the spot. A prime example is the TTC worker who was on his way to work, in uniform, with employee ID, who was arrested and detained even after his supervisor vouched for him. One of our fundamental rights states that we have the right to not be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. From what I’ve seen, most of these arrests were entirely arbitrary. Another right we have is to retain council without delay. Most of those arrested were denied access to council for the entire time they were detained. And I don’t think I need to point out that one is entitled to have their rights read to them when arrested, or that it violates a woman’s rights to be strip searched by a male officer.
C’mon, Doc, I read some of your earlier posts in this thread, where you even state that people’s rights “were tread upon”. I don’t think anyone is trying to say that some kid arrested on a bad drug charge isn’t unjust, but when 1000 people are arrested on trumped up charges and held like human cattle for 36 hrs, I would say that’s cause for alarm, wouldn’t you? I’ve heard and read numerous personal accounts by people who weren’t even protesting, who just happened to be walking down the street when the cops started rounding people up, and the details of their ordeals are absolutely appalling. When allegations that those who are supposed to be protecting the citizenry are abusing people and threatening women with gang rape, it’s more than a little unsettling for a lot of people. I don’t think one needs to be a Chomsky-reading hippy anarchist to be disturbed and upset by these recent events.
On the YouTube thing, at what point did I say that news stories are useless? I was simply trying to say that a news story represents only one very carefully crafted point of view. While I agree that any ‘privileged punk’ can achieve the same result, as you said, most don’t, and so we’re left with a wide multitude of unchopped, unnarrated footage to include in our interpretation of events. I don’t disagree that social media can be hugely problematic as a reliable news source, but I consider myself a pretty rational person who is not easily swayed by propaganda from either mainstream or outsider sources, and I’ve often found amateur video to be invaluable in gaining a different perspective on major events that have transpired.
This is only going to devolve into a circular argument, so I’ll try to keep it brief, and it’ll be my final comment on the matter.
Regarding rights, the rights are initially tread upon in the strictest sense thanks to an overzealous police force, however, when legal council is provided, rights are upheld. I’d like to add here that after the dust settles, the Toronto Police are going to have an uphill battle, as well as the provincial and federal governments for their poor handling of the situation. People’s rights are going to be upheld, but in a more constructive manner.
To me, the individual that has been wrongfully arrested is far more important than 1000 people that were arrested (and I’m sure not all of them were angels). We, as a society, let that person slip though because we lacked vigilance. We let the government do it. Give them an inch, they take a mile. It’s as simple as that. Can we take that back? Maybe, but it’s a hard, long road, and it requires us to be vigilant to what our government is doing and being involved (i.e.: voting, talking to your MP) and it will take maturity. That’s real social justice, not this inciting riots over white people problems bullshit.
Finally, people posting so-called raw footage on YouTube have plenty to gain, strictly because they have a story to tell too. That story will have their own bias (that is, what they film, using their context) and can be considered propaganda, and is often propagandized by groups like the Black Bloc. To simply discount mainstream media, as you both have done, means you have not given the public the benefit of the doubt. Do you really think the average person doesn’t see the burning car on an endless loop and think about it critically? The public should do the same for “raw” video that’s been posted on any number of video sharing sites.
I bring up the Tamil Tiger rallies a year ago. Why is it that a group with the history that the Tamil Tigers have, can march down the 401, disrupting traffic all the while, have their voices heard in a constructive manner, with little to no police intervention?
@Dr.Fever
I don’t find your assurances very comforting. Hundreds of people rounded up and detained, under powers of arrest and seizure that, in many cases (such as the bogus five metre rule outside the barrier) the police were forced to admit they didn’t even possess. The trampling of rights continued, for many of these folks were held without due process. Your attitude seems to be that, since most of those people were eventually released and not charged their rights prevailed and no harm was done. I don’t think you’d be singing the same tune if you had been plucked off the street and placed in a holding cage for 36 hours for no good reason.
What good is the right of free speech or the right of free assembly if the police can arbitrarily decide to lock you up for a few days for exercising those rights? I don’t think you understand why these rights are held so dear in a democracy.
The police engage in their own form of street theatre. The riot gear, the ranked lines of storm troopers, the shield pounding and the sudden dashes into the crowd to haul off random detainees are all part of the intimidation tactic that has become the norm at these gatherings. The message they are sending is that any group marching in protest is to be interpreted and redefined as a group of lawbreakers. It’s a powerful message that is intended to discourage people from voicing any protest in the first place. “Just stay home and mind your own business and you won’t get hurt”.
I’m tired of people pointing out to me how lucky I am to live in a free country.
Luck has nothing to do with it. Past generations fought hard for the rights and freedoms we enjoy, and most of those battles were fought in communities and courtrooms right here at home, not on far off battle fields. If we don’t exercise those rights we will surely lose them. I believe we have already started down that road.
I can name all sorts of countries where I can be subject to arbitrary arrest and detention for speaking my mind. I wouldn’t want to have to add Canada to that list. I didn’t think Canada was that kind of country.
WHat I see about this so called ‘free’ country. Is I have to PAY for it.
THat’s how I see it.
I don’t have any say in how the money collected from me is spent.
I have no say about how much is wasted & have no one who I can go to in an attempt to get re-dressed.
Any of that sound “Free” to the rest of you ?
We are not free. we are told .
We will do as we are told or we face the consequenses, with loss of liberty & confiscation of property…that sound free to any of you ?
We are basicly in prison, it has a very large walking yard & most of us are expected to feed,cloth ,house ourselves & keep those regualr payments going to our masters.
That’s how i see it, because that is exactly what it is.
As long as you follow the law, no matter how ridiculous some of those laws may be, as long as you follow the law, you will be able to continue paying.
Your so called ‘rights’ can & are suspended at any time any ‘police’ agency member decides to do so. You have no recourse within a certain amount of time (arbitrarily decided on by those same police agencies) They can hold you & when a certain amount of time has passed they can charge, or release you…only to pick you up again if they so choose & everything repeats .
Depressing isn’t it .
beats the alternative…the big dirt sleep^^^
@Dr. Fever, you have made many good points. You said that the last post will be your final comment on the matter, but I have a couple of questions to ask you, and I’m looking forward to your answer. Anyone else can jump in because this is something that I am having a hard time understanding…
On Saturday (the day of the main rally), I got home at about 6:30-7pm. I remember sitting down thoroughly exhausted and watching the news. One thing caught my attention. Up to that point, approx. 12 arrests had been made. Let me take a moment to remind you that Saturday was the day when cars got torched, shops got trashed, and the police looked on as the media filmed it all.
By Sunday afternoon the arrests had jumped to 700+ people. By Sunday, the police had also become disturbingly brutal, whereas the day before, they had shown restraint. Why were so many arrests made on a day where people were peacefully protesting by singing and dancing in the streets, praying in healing circles in the park, and so forth?
Also, it is on record that the police were told to “stand back” as the havoc erupted in the streets on Saturday. Why? And, even more importantly, who gave the order to do so?
On a final note Fever, I was reading a couple of your earlier posts, and I want to address two things:
“How to act pragmatically about civil liberties? Pretty easy. These people were allowed to congregate and protest. The minute that things got uneasy, people started getting arrested.”
No, the minute that things got uneasy, the police stood back and watched it happen.
“[t]he police have every expectation to ensure that people and businesses are protected. The protesters have rights, but the people that would be hurt by those who would take liberties or create “civil disobedience” (which we will call criminal behaviour from this point further) have equal rights to have their property protected.”
Really? The police did nothing to protect the businesses–as I said before, they watched it happen.
Thanks for listening. I had to get this stuff off my chest.
This is a quick break to all who are reading these long, successive rants….
take a breather…. for a sec….
There… feel better?
eyes uncrossing?
Em and all you other critics, please tell us how you would have handed the security and what your orders would be.
BRO TIM.
Simple, I would have held the meetings in a secure area.
Like the Large military base in Borden.
It is 100 kms North of Toronto. It’s in the heart of one of the major tourism areas of Ontario.
IT is a military base, where armed security is an ongoing 24/7 exercise. We wouldn’t have had to ‘build’ a secure area…it IS A SECURE AREA.
Simple, unfortunately anything that is easy, simple or makes sense is the one sure way for those in charge to discard it in an instant. IF the G-20 people had to have luxury hotels, fine have one picked out in downtown Toronto & turn that one hotel into a fortress & helicopter the delegates to meetings at the military base…also very simple & something Borden is already set up to do.
But that wouldn’t allow the police to get their jollies pounding away on niave Canadians who think they have a right to protest.
Anyone else notice the police didn’t try to ‘check’ the so called black block…I wonder how many of them were actually associated if not outright members of our policing service. We already know that the Quebec police tried these tactics a couple of years back in Montecello Quebec…they (3 members that they have admitted to) disguised themselves as protestors & were trying to incite the crowd to violence.
Nice ‘eh, our so called police agencies trying to start trouble, only for the reason IMO so they can stand up & tell the rest of Canada…LOOK SEE ! ! ! WE TOLD YOU VIOLENT HOLIGANS…YOU NEED US ! ! ! !
Pathetic actually & anyone who believes for a second our wonderful policing agencies had nothing to do with that should contact me …I’ve got 2 beautiful bridges for sale in Halifax/Dartmouth, they are cheap to maintain & are a constant source on never ending money !
Oh, yes…& before you call me on how these Quebec police officers were only there to ‘protect our interests’ & look out for violent protesters (which is the ‘official’ story)…why were they masked ?
Why was at least on of them seen with a large rock in hand ?
Why were they inciting the crown to attack ? As was reported by other actual protesters .
More that was not the question. What would you do in the same circumstances? But thanks for playing the game. Next.
No summit —> no security, no protest, no vandals, no arrest —> everyone happy, except the state that wanted to show that it could turn into a police state and trample upon civil liberty and freedom any time and any where they wanted.
The question isn’t how anyone should have handed the security, the question is why the summit had to be held in the middle of the busiest district of the biggest city of this country in the first place, requiring $1.6 billion in security efforts alone, not to mention the damages to the businesses from loss of revenue, damaged properties, and bad rep as a “violent city”. The media and Youtube videos of “civil disobedience” and “police brutality” were overly successful at diverting people’s attention from thinking about that simple question, to debate like this thread has turned into.
I think the explanation is simple; everything was done so they could justify the expense and show of their power over people. After all, the protest and all the destruction had no impact on what happened behind the closed doors. Some people (the Black Bloc or whatever you call them) were stupid enough that they helped the state make its case stronger. If the Youtube videos are not being taken down, that means the state wants us to see them. Even if the people who uploaded those videos had different intention, the end result is that we are still learning the same message. They can screw us harder than we can screw them.
Haha I guess I repeated much of what More has already said.
According to Buddha, it isn’t having the right answer that is important, it is to ask the right question. Besides, that’s too juvenile to pull the “that wasn’t the question”, as that kind of thinking prevents learning.
“What good is the right of free speech or the right of free assembly if the police can arbitrarily decide to lock you up for a few days for exercising those rights? I don’t think you understand why these rights are held so dear in a democracy.”
I don’t think he really understands much at all.
I see it as over a billion dollars spent in exercising guilty until proven innocent. Maybe some of these people ( http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/201… ) will successfully sue. But chances are they’ll see a wall of blue, with no break in rank.
Anyway, that clip of the assault after the singing of O’Canada, reminded me of this add. It doesn’t seem so farfetched anymore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B5cZRULfqc
Good to see the CCLA petition posted.
@Bro Tim: “Em and all you other critics, please tell us how you would have handed the security and what your orders would be.”
I can only try to answer that question from the perspective of a citizen who was affected by what happened, and not from a position that can claim any authority on how security is generally carried out.
Duties of the Toronto Police include, but are not limited to:
1. Protecting life and preventing injury
2. Preventing crimes and other offences and providing assistance and encouragement to other persons in their prevention
3.Protect property
4. Apprehending criminals and other offenders and others who may lawfully be taken into custody. (http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/whenstopped…)
It follows, then, that the police ought to have ordered the crowd around the burning cars to disperse just in case someone got hurt. They ought to have stepped in when the shopfronts were being smashed to protect these businesses. And they ought to have immediately arrested the kids who were vandalizing shop windows instead of watching them do it. There were about 20,000 police around. I don’t buy the “not breaking ranks” argument. There were enough of them around to perform their duties, rather than standing back and allowing the spectacle to occur.
Bro Tim…Your question specifically asked… “how would you have handled the security”
& I told you how I would have handled the security.
My way wouldn’t have needed to secure the downtown..because it would have been business as usual downtown.
While there is a chance the black goons may have gone to the military base…I’m certain the military could handle them.
Bro Tim “What would you do in the same circumstances”
Is a different question entirely…& Its one I’d never have to answer, because IMO my previous solution was a much more intelligent solution than the one the so called experts with 1.6 Billion dollars came up with.
Thanks for attempting to ‘change the rules’ in the middle of the game. You sure you are actually a reporter & not a politician ?
Why would they offer legal councel? The people were being held for being disorderly, instigating little pricks and were not charged with an offence ! They wanted as many of the hoodlums off the street as possible and thats what they accomplished. They took preventative measures to prevent a major instance from occuring.. I applaud them !
You applaud people’s right being violated? I applaud you for being a total moron, tomjones.