photo: Chris Huggins
G20 Protests Allowed to Escalate. Or was it a failure of the billion dollar security forces? The former sounds more feasible, no? I’m sure I’ll lose a lot of you on this one, but the violent demonstrators have been entirely successful. We will now mention the Battle of Seattle in the same breath as the scrimmage that went down in Toronto. And when people say – this is the most common argument I’ve heard – that the protesters are only hurting their cause, I disagree. Their cause is the outright negation of our society, so it’s their job to make members of the society uncomfortable. I don’t know why that’s so surprising to people. Even so, the violence perpetrated by these so-called ‘anarchists’ is only minor property damage. The violence perpetrated by the police, however, is directed against people, often journalists and peaceful activists. It is the responsibility of the police, not the activists, to differentiate.
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what a load of crap. I don;t see for a second how you can justify wanton displays of violence and the destruction of property based a misguided notion that police as an organization are more violent(I’m assuming you are speaking of Canadian police.
Bull shit
Did I justify it? I’m using moral relativism perhaps. I think that storming a group of people sitting down singing the national anthem is much worse than a cop car getting burnt. I am also saying that the cops either failed, let the protesters do it, or did it themselves. Are you justifying spending a billion dollars to have this event?
“On Sunday, police corralled 100+ protesters and pedestrians at a G20 bike rally in Toronto. I was caught in the group while tweeting on behalf of national newspaper The Globe and Mail. We were made to stand in the torrential rain for 4 hours, then arrested — dog walkers, the homeless, the elderly, peaceful protestors and accredited media — every last one of us.”
– Lisan Jutras
The police are supposed to solve crimes, not commit them.
The G20 protestors are not modern day san-culottes, especially in Canada. Social inequality is the United States is a different matter, but on a relative basis, Canadians (other than First Nations) don`t have much to complain about.
If their cause is the outright negation of our society, what would they prefer to take it’s place? Communism? Anarchism? History is full of examples of such attempts on a large scale, all of which produced greater human suffering and inequality than the capitalist alternative.
You’re quick to justify your opinion with moral relativism, but doesn’t that legitimize any uber-capitalist counter-point at the same time?
But on a related note, I do agree that for a billion-friggin-dollars you’d think the security meeting would have been able to protect a police car…the burning image of which is priceless.
…too busy designing that lake I guess…
Mr Orr your left wing liberalism floating about the internet is predictable, stale and unimaginative as are your social liberal rants. Not sure why you are on here, I thought this site was about independent culture, food (why I pop here) but the site has taking on a tiresome political stance.
As stefan points out, the alternatives for society are far less appealing. Much like the National Front in bygone days, those resorting to violence are not the true activists they are lawless yobs, who get a cheap thrill out of destruction of legitimate businesses, resorting to violence and looting.
I do agree that a billion dollars is ludricuos and could have been better spent in many ways, but for you to give a nod to the buring of police cars is troubling on this site.
No doubt you will attack me for me poor grammer – have at her.
Mr Orr, please get a life.
I don’t quite see how or where Sean is supporting the actions of these “yobs”, and I disagree that the website has taken on any sort of political stance. The way I read it (and rudder it as best I can), it’s merely commentary on the dumb. Nevertheless, I’m sorry you’re disappointed. There are plenty of foodie blogs out there to take up our slack. Surf happy, wherever.
Ugh. My point, which i later re-iterated in the comments, is that we live in a violent society. We are at war with Afghanistan. Hockey is violent. The House of Commons is violent. But most importantly, the cops are violent. They’ve been primed and primped for action. They’re the ones who probably burnt the police cars in the first place. The yobs are regular people, and their pretty weak display of violence is a small outpouring of frustration. The question that is now arising, why did the riot police let them rampage for an hour and a half? Then why did they move on peaceful protesters while the so-called black bloc disappeared into the melee?
“If their cause is the outright negation of our society, what would they prefer to take it’s place?”
I don’t know, and I don’t think they know. The point is, they’re job is to upset you and they quite obviously succeeded. Now we are talking about it. They succeeded. Now we are asking questions of the police. We are asking why, especially when the talks themselves, did we have this in downtown Toronto when we could have had it in Huntsville. Why have it at all?
Yawn………