{"id":2793,"date":"2010-06-28T22:41:22","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T06:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=2793"},"modified":"2010-06-28T22:41:22","modified_gmt":"2010-06-29T06:41:22","slug":"shocking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/shocking\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocking!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Pollard has posted an item on his blog entitled \u00a0G20: A Corporatist Show of Force and Power in Toronto<\/a>. \u00a0It is a compendium of a number of videos showing what happened in Toronto last week. \u00a0I have spent the last two hours watching these videos, and many more. \u00a0I challenge you to do the same. \u00a0Because frankly what I am seeing is terrifying and shocking, and I don’t mean the vandals. \u00a0I mean the actions of the police.<\/p>\n

None of these videos are the whole story, but they leave me futilely hoping for an explanation from the powers that be. \u00a0The police are the people’s force, and they are there to enforce the laws of society. \u00a0When they are challenged to cite the law under which they seize a man’s property, they refuse. \u00a0If you have to use force against your own citizens, you better be able to explain why, who gave the orders and what laws you were enforcing. \u00a0What I saw in these videos was a shocking and one-sided use of intimidation and arbitrary arrest against peaceful, non-threatening citizens who were asking for explanations and receiving no help at all. \u00a0I’d love to hear someone in power explain what was going on.<\/p>\n

When I was younger I used to join tens of thousands of people every year marching down University Avenue from Queen’s Park protesting against nuclear weapons. \u00a0We had a massive peaceful march, without needing “free speech zones” and without thousands of police officers dressed in riot gear. \u00a0There was always a little vandalism and garbage strewn around. \u00a0One year in fact, I was working at a building on University Avenue and my job was to clean spray paint off our building. \u00a0No big deal. \u00a0Took four hours and a can or two of paint remover.<\/p>\n

Back then, most of us looked like the young people in these videos: impassioned, aware, concerned about their world and PEACEFUL. \u00a0The videos from Queen’s Park surprise and disturb me. \u00a0I can’t help but think that dozens of those officers clad head to toe in riot gear telling peaceful young people to “GET BACK!” must have been thinking that the whole thing was a stupid charade. \u00a0They were never in any danger. \u00a0The protesters were milling around in the designated free speech zone and they were moved, intimidated, cajoled and randomly wrestled to the ground by heavily armed riot police.<\/p>\n

What the hell is happening? \u00a0What about the group singing Oh Canada in front of Steve’s Music on Queen Street? \u00a0They sing and then are charged by the police. \u00a0That is a frightening image. \u00a0There isn’t a single one of them wearing the uniform of the so-called “Black Bloc.”<\/p>\n

After watching videos of these young people for hours, I turned my attention to a few videos of the windows being smashed and the police cars being torched. \u00a0I was immediately struck by how different the so-called Black Bloc anarchists were. \u00a0They looked strong, powerful and well trained in martial arts. \u00a0They were delivering accurate and well executed kicks to windows and cars, the same kicks that are used by police to knock in doors. \u00a0Police all over the world have used agents provocateurs at all the major summits of world leaders to stir up chaos and violence. \u00a0The Quebec police admitted to it at the Montebello Summit and there are many Toronto videos that show clean cut, muscular men posing as Black Bloc activists who are having nothing to do with the crowd. \u00a0Back in the day on our anti-nuclear protests, it was all about joining the crowd, and even today, anarchists don’t look to be the best fed group of people.<\/p>\n

So what is happening here? \u00a0How is it that a massive police force can intimidate and push around unarmed and generally disorganized young people at Queen’s Park and yet not stop the torching of police cars left inexplicably alone and unguarded in the city centre by men who look very much like police or soldiers.<\/p>\n

And who actually knows anything about “the Black Bloc?” \u00a0Did they release a statement claiming responsibility for the havoc? \u00a0Where is their website? \u00a0I have no doubt that there are \u00a0a few militant activists who undertake these kinds of tactics, and I condemn them. \u00a0They distract from the real work of social change and they are easy to exploit. All it takes is a few bait cars, a couple of cops dressed up as a friendly faction and away they go. \u00a0If they DO exist, they are naive and destructive and easily made tools of the very state and corporate agenda they claim to hate. \u00a0If they don’t exist, then who are they?<\/p>\n

What the hell is happening? \u00a0 Why this show of arbitrary force? \u00a0Why was the limited but wanton destruction allowed to occur, but the free speech zone overrun by riot cops? \u00a0What has become of this country?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Pollard has posted an item on his blog entitled \u00a0G20: A Corporatist Show of Force and Power in Toronto. \u00a0It is a compendium of a number of videos showing what happened in Toronto last week. \u00a0I have spent the last two hours watching these videos, and many more. \u00a0I challenge you to do the same. \u00a0Because frankly what I am seeing is terrifying and shocking, and I don’t mean the vandals. \u00a0I mean the actions of the police. None of these videos are the whole story, but they leave me futilely hoping for an explanation from the powers that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/siBp1-shocking","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2794,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions\/2794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}