G8/G20/Anarchy on Queen St thread?

So, not being in Toronto myself, why was a $1B security operation unable to keep a relatively small number of anarchists from torching two police cars and smashing storefronts? Is there any justification for the new powers that were granted to the police for this event? Would anarchists' time be better spent trying to set up a modern-day Catalonia in an empty part of Northern Ontario? etc

I don't know how reliable this is but it at least makes an attempt at answering the first question: http://transformingpower.ca/en/blog/toronto-burning-or-it

As far as the actual content of the meetings goes, I'm curious what people who may have more of a background with some of these issues think about whether this new G8 maternal health plan is going to be effective, given G8 leaders' track record with past commitments?

Bank taxes: classic or dud? (My inclination is to say classic but I don't actually know enough about it.)

1.2 Billion is idiotic. there was no need for it. 10x more expensive than the next most expensive one. the conservatives have no right to say anything about the cost of the gun registry when they've tossed this kind of money into the wind.

But most of the money spent on security doubles as money spent on pr/propaganda so it's all cool right

and what's not even calculated is the huge hit businesses in the area are going to take. everything from the stores forced to shut down for 4 days, that have been vandalized to the J's being forced to play a "home series" in Philly - loosing out on a guaranteed 50k attendance game to the friggin hotdog vendors forced out of the spots they paid good money to be at without compensation.

xpost

i have a feeling the conservatives just enjoyed fucking up Toronto. it's no secret they hate our town. fuck them.

seriously fuck those pricks.

Harper has the gall to lecture world leaders on spending while he can't even hold the conference without a pricetag 10x higher than any before it - and with nothing to show for it. just as much chaos and destruction as other summits.

from a very bright friend of mine:
"If you leave a bike unlocked on Queen, it'll get stolen. If you leave two cruisers with their windows down during a protest, they're going to get vandalized. Why were they left there? To justify the enormous amount spent on security. It's nothing to do with public safety. I was at a protest this afternoon where a tiny 20-year-old-girl was set upon... See more by four large police in front of a line of 30 or more for doing nothing more than sitting down in front of the police line. The only violence was perpetrated by the police. and the victim: a girl. The only violence done by or to any of our 500-odd was perpetrated by the police. It was brutal, it was unwarranted, and it makes me sick."

it never even occurred to me that they might've left their cars out there intentionally, hoping they'd get destroyed.

My fb is full of video and pro journalist accounts of hoards of police corralling and taking down people who are just walking along w their friends, chanting peaceful (verging on benign) things like 'we're people just like you', no one w bandanas over their faces or wearing all black or being agro in any way. grrr :(

Yeah, those are basically the arguments that were made in the article I linked. It's actually the only explanation that makes sense to me.

To justify the enormous amount spent on security.

I think it might go beyond this though. It could also be an attempt at discrediting the whole labour movement and the many justifiable causes that the more peaceful protesters are trying to promote.

Yeah that too.

I think one of the reasons they didn't just hold the whole fucking thing in muskoka is that riots are a great distraction from the actual decisions being made behind the security lines, a way of overshadowing the problems that poses, while at the same time delegitimizing criticism of it and of what global capitalism stands for by reducing it to carefully selected representations of "anarchist thugs"

And on the other hand, the worst of naive teenage-esque rebellion does take precedence over protest, turning things into an "us-vs-them" type scenario where protesters and police bash heads together repeatedly, while so many getting the brunt of it are peaceful protesters, local businesses, etc.

As for police force, I don't know, but it seems like they've already started lying about things.

Not actual precedence, really, I mean to say as it appears in media representations (though I don't know what news coverage outside of Canada is like for this). I haven't actually been in any protest areas at any point, I should mention.

To hold these in cities, and the entailed money, vandalism, pointless arrests, exercising of force (physical otherwise), etc. strikes me as being profoundly irresponsible and unjust.

And if you're tired of watching the same 5 clips of burning police cars and that starbucks window being smashed being played ad nauseum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heb9BXjYcII

jesus shit.

Another thing that is absurd is the way that people are talking about "The Black Bloc" as if that was a legitimate institution, whereas what "black bloc" actually signifies is a style of tactics used in riots where people conceal themselves. In the midst of it people have more or less invented a fictitious anarcho-terrorist faction that's to blame (and of course it's anything goes when it comes to attributing things to this 'group')

All in all this whole experience has been satisfactorily disillusioning, and I hope I'll be able to go downtown normally tomorrow.

Holy shit, that video is terrifying.

(Also EDB OTM re 'Black bloc'.)

Seriously, I feel a bit ashamed of my country right now.

is there a good/accurate overview of the police/demonstrator activity this weekend?

This may help?: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/27/g20-toronto-protest.html

There is info here as well: http://ccla.org/

(From the CBC page, you'll want to look at the articles and videos that are linked on the right-hand side.)

i don't think there's any one source for a complete and accurate overview, such is the nature of the issue

this is good - read the comments section too (haha and i *never* say that) - http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/judes/2010/06/toronto-burning-or-it

good alt-media coverage - http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/

interesting re: propaganda tactics
http://www.thestar.com/article/828876--porter-when-police-stick-to-phony-script

oh and the boring ol' peaceful protest of 25,000+ people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mL46t8H4oU

I wonder what debate we'll see about this in Parliament. Some of these videos suggest that this might be worth questioning our confidence in this minority govt.

I have to wonder at this juncture, why anyone bothers with these G8/20 protests anymore, because they always go pearshaped with rioting. Same thing's happened here several times in Melbourne. What does it achieve? Apart from, as EDB said, distracting from whats actually going on in the meetings which seems counter productive!

Also someone on my FB posted a link saying the "Black Bloc" are all planted cops! (rrobyn maybe?)

Rrobyn's a planted cop???

Also, I can't speak for the present day, but an acquaintance of mine was a window-smashing "black bloc" anarchist at the Seattle WTO demonstrations back in 99. He was definitely just a good-hearted kid with a dumb idealist us vs. them mentality. They're out there. They exist.

Fair enough :) But yeah there's some suggestion that there are plants, which tbh always crops up in riot commentary, and I dont know how much truth there is to it, but it has an element of (possibly slightly tinfoil) logic.

The Police were being accused of this here before the summit even began.

I was in the thick of it during Seattle and was pretty involved, I really doubt the theory that all the black hoodie windowsmashers are police plants. I do not doubt for one second, however, that those cruisers in Toronto were left there on purpose.

to Sundar's 1st paragraph: The operation needed to let people run wild to justify itself. There's no justification for the increased powers, just a power grab as normal. In my opinion anarchists are indeed better off creating self-sufficient and relatively autonomous communites, I don't really buy Hakim Bey's line in Millenium about how there's nowhere left to run.

nb I speak here as someone familiar with several of these events, not Toronto itself.

At least Amnesty is taking a stand on this. Why has the NDP not even raised these issues on their web page, beyond just condemning the vandalism? I mean, Trudeau was responding to the ACTUAL KIDNAPPING of MAJOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS following YEARS of terrorism when he invoked the War Measures Act to give the police extended powers of arrest.

But yeah, I totally believe that the anarchists were real anarchists, especially considering the recent RBC bombing in Ottawa and subsequent video where they threatened to return for the G20.

(And, ha, Canada's got to have the most empty space available for the taking.)

(To be clear, I wasn't trying to precisely equate the extended police powers for the G20 summit with the War Measures Act per se. I think the point still stands though.)

During the Olympics, sat beside several local anarchists on the bus on night who were speaking surprisingly openly about concerns that they were being surveilled, perhaps even on public transit. When we all got off at the same stop, I worried I was going to be stomped, but they didn't seem to notice me. Most of their conversation though was defending 'diversity of tactics' which is doublespeak for breaking shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r-6cnGkp3Y

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/839199--security-operation-or-political-theatre

does that newspaper have a big voice in Canada? excuse my ignorance. glad they're printing things like this:

Video evidence shows a “demonstrator” trashing two Toronto police cars. He is wearing the same thick-soled boots as those of the police riot squads standing down, and watching, a block away. All the boots bear the same yellow logo. We unmasked three police agents provocateurs at Montebello by noticing that the trio were wearing the exact same military-issue boots as uniformed police. The old saw is: If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. This “demonstrator” looks like a cop, right up to his buzz cut. He has everything but an earpiece.

In another graphic scene in Toronto, police undercover operatives, wearing all manner of disguise, converge on their rallying point. They have obviously been ordered to disband. While several of their number, waving nightsticks and screaming, “Get back! Get back!” threaten a video journalist taping the scene, their comrades dash for the police line. The police line opens and a uniformed officer, scanning their clothes for some sort of ID, waves them through. At least one is dressed in the Black Bloc uniform. The police line, using bicycles as a fence, closes up and the undercover officers make good their escape.

It was not widely reported, but the RCMP confirmed to the Star’s Tonda McCharles that it would be employing “crowd infiltrators.” Was the car-smasher one of those “infiltrators”?

Its the biggest newspaper in Canada, but its also pretty regional. Hardly read in the western provinces, unlike the Globe and Mail which is also based in Toronto, but is far more read. At least that is my observation.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/24/g20-rubber-bullets.html

Provincial inquiry to take place:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/07/22/oiprd-g20.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/07/ombudsman-g20-security-rule-report856.html
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/12/08/g20-summit-law-toews.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/08/mcguinty-g20-ombudsman-report652.html

This will make it hard to vote for the provincial Liberals a third time.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2010-2011/youshouldhavestayedathome/