I want peacefully protest that kid. in the face. with my fists.

Like, it started out ok and I love the sentiment and all, but it just went ON and then the post rock whale singing or whatever was really too much and I vomited all over my keyboard.

g8/g20 summits are fucking sham/show. the real decisions have already been made else were. waste of money as far as i'm concerned and an ironic one at that seeing as how the stated purpose of this summit was deficit reduction.

i'm all for black blocs and the destruction of property, but there are standards. you don't cause physical harm to anyone, and you don't destroy personal property (there's a difference between private property and personal property... like, it's great to throw bricks at banks but you don't spray paint an innocent civilians house).

i am totally unconcerned with the "destructive minority" "ruining it" for "peaceful protesters". you're "right" to protest is bullshit, "you can say whatever you like as long as you don't disrupt business as usual", if you don't disrupt business as usual then what is the point??? there is a time for direct action and i'm pretty sure now is as urgent a time as any.

as far as agent provocateur's are concerned, SOAR and infoshop are saying no evidence of agent provocateur's this time around as far as they see.
here is the statement from SOAR.
there's more articles about it from the anarchists but i'm too lazy and hurty right now, you can find some on infoshop.org if you care to search.

oh i'd like to see the g8/g20 focus on fucking itself.

i'd go about solving the worlds problems by eliminating the "state" and posing an alternative to rampant capitalism and rejecting authoritarianism and oppression in all forms.

In reply to this comment by Shepppard:
@enoch

I respect your opinion, I'm not defending the police for what they did, I'm defending them in the sense of "Until we know what provoked them, I'm not judging them."

I dislike videos that have been edited together in this sense, very quick scene change from peaceful protesters, to who knows what or how long the camera's been off.

i totally agree and i stated as much.
i was just pointing out the history and the abuse of power.
when we consider that when it comes to video..and editing (which i agree with you) we may never get a full or complete story concerning events of abuse that transpire.
my take is to always be on the side of caution,which i think you would agree evidenced by your comment but i have a healthy distrust of authority and those who wield power.so i tend to side with the people with the broken bones and bloody noses.what can i say?i am an anarchist.

seems we agree on the major points and i thank you for your response.
you have always been a voice of reason here on the sift.
i admire that.
till next time.
namaste.

@enoch

I respect your opinion, I'm not defending the police for what they did, I'm defending them in the sense of "Until we know what provoked them, I'm not judging them."

I dislike videos that have been edited together in this sense, very quick scene change from peaceful protesters, to who knows what or how long the camera's been off.

sheppard.
while i agree with many of your points concerning these videos i.e:editing and such.you really need to research the peaceful protests from the civil rights movement to vietnam.
historically in times of protests the police become the element of disruption and infiltration and hide behind laws specifically engineered to not only discredit the protest (by way of sabatoge,violent acts etc) but also to empower the state.

while i may admire your respect for authority i do not share it in this context.
this is when police become the true arm of the state and work at its behest at the expense of the common man.
this betrayal of their oath is what i find most abhorrent.
i am curious to find out how the police who participate may have rationalized what they have agreed to do to their neighbor and fellow citizen.
now that would be an interview!

>> ^Shepppard:

>> ^Bruti79:
There were three people pulled from the crowd on Sunday, due to warrants they had from Saturday. The girl in particular was wanted on Arson and endangering the public. Also plain clothes cops have special rules in TO, they have to wear an armband that says they're a cop, unless they have a special court order saying they can go undercover. You can see the arm bands galore from the queens park protests.

Bwaat?
you.. you mean.. the police were actually doing something like getting a woman who had a warrent for her arrest but was trying to hide in a place with peaceful protesters so she wouldn't get caught?
And they weren't just kidnapping for the sake of fearmongering? they had a reason? and the people of the sift are yet again going to take this out of context and we'll soon see another batch of "Fuck the police" comments even though this has been explained?
Well, i'll be damned then.


Well said, Shep. Watching people get shoved into vans that then sped off tugged at my ragestrings. Any links would be appreciated.

We need an *awesome tag for this.

So the summary I get is this:
1. No blame at all is to be laid on any of the peaceful by-standers and protesters who, like this guy, just stood around and watched or took pictures of the black bloc criminals as they burnt, trashed and looted the area.
2. The police are at fault for not trying to engage the black bloc.
3. The police are at fault for trying to engage the black bloc.
4. The black bloc were probably connected to the government somehow.

That is some kind of crazy.

I see a radically different picture.
1. The 'peaceful' protesters lose the defensive claim to peaceful assembly when the buildings and property immediately adjacent to them gets destroyed, looted, or is set on fire. They are then part of an active crime scene, and the police DO have the right to remove them from the vicinity, whether they came to protest peacefully or not.
2. The police did not engage the black bloc when they were far from their lines, because they were ordered to hold a line. The police did engage the bloc when they came in close among the peaceful protesters.
3. The black bloc's goal is incite anger and hostility against the police and government. Blending into a peaceful crowd to hide from the police accomplishes the goal. The police are damned if they go after the bloc, and damned if they don't.
4. Some police officers get tired of seeing this crap and use the furthest extents available to them against these tactics.

>> ^Bruti79:

There were three people pulled from the crowd on Sunday, due to warrants they had from Saturday. The girl in particular was wanted on Arson and endangering the public. Also plain clothes cops have special rules in TO, they have to wear an armband that says they're a cop, unless they have a special court order saying they can go undercover. You can see the arm bands galore from the queens park protests.


Bwaat?

you.. you mean.. the police were actually doing something like getting a woman who had a warrent for her arrest but was trying to hide in a place with peaceful protesters so she wouldn't get caught?

And they weren't just kidnapping for the sake of fearmongering? they had a reason? and the people of the sift are yet again going to take this out of context and we'll soon see another batch of "Fuck the police" comments even though this has been explained?

Well, i'll be damned then.

I vote this a *quality topic for discussion, despite the video spelling. Try to count the number of plainclothes cops involved in the snatch and grab and you'll run out of fingers.

Without additional evidence, in presence of what appears to be a peaceful assembly, can we not begin to reason from this video that the police are openly waging war on our will to conduct peaceful protests? If so, it's time to start conducting protests as though in war. No more megaphones, or enough distributed through the crowd to make it impossible to grab every 'leader'. No more cameras swirling around certain individuals, thus revealing their rank. Anonymity. Manpower. Strength. I don't know nor care what the protest is about anymore - this behavior cannot stand.

I'm not so sure these folks can afford to do that. I've never heard of this duo before, and I probably never will again. If they did manage to travel to Toronto from elsewhere, chances are they had to scrape and save to do so. Native political rappers are not celebrities up here, and often make little to no income from their music.>> ^Kreegath:

I have a hard time sympathizing with these tourist rioters who seem to do nothing else but fly around the world to these meetings to torch cars, smash windows and throw rocks at the police. They're the reason peaceful protesters have such a hard time in these situations, no the police.

These jackasses join and infect every peaceful protest that gets media coverage. I wish the "legit" peaceful protesters would just take 5 minutes or so and mass gank the SOB's. Maybe they would think twice about pulling this shit if they knew the price was an ass-kicking.

This guy did a better job than the police! He actually protected property and stopped a thief! The police just beat their shields and snatch peaceful protesters while letting property damage happen in front of them.

That was awesome.

Ever since I saw videos of idiots breaking stuff I wondered why the peaceful protesters didn't get in there and kick the #!$* out of the idiots making them look bad.

Maybe because their peaceful, but I like to think that if I was trying to have a peaceful protest I wouldn't have a problem being violent to someone trying to make me look bad.

I have a hard time sympathizing with these tourist rioters who seem to do nothing else but fly around the world to these meetings to torch cars, smash windows and throw rocks at the police. They're the reason peaceful protesters have such a hard time in these situations, no the police.

What makes you think that the Vandalism was done by someone who wasn't on the payroll?

What if the vandals are on the payroll, and the cops ordered to arrest said vandals don't know that there are Agent Provocateurs?

What if, the cops are arresting an Agent Provocateur to protect said Agent's cover?

What if the cops are really doing a righteous and just job by arresting a real vandal?

The evidence is circumstantial. Video footage is not enough to make a decision for, or against something.

>> ^Sarzy:

>> ^Krupo:
The burning was at King and Queen, in the financial district, south-mid end of downtown.
This was in an unrelated protest area on the north end of downtown - which was designated as the safe "free speech" area.
Toronto has a very large core, we're not talking neighbouring protests here, but an area 4+ subway stops away.

Do you honestly think that the cops would have just picked someone out at random from a peaceful protest and arrested them for no reason just because they're mad? I mean, that could be what happened -- we don't know -- and if it was then this was inexcusable. But just because this happened in another area of the city from the vandalism, doesn't automatically make this unrelated. It is possible for someone to commit a crime in one part of the city and then walk to another.