G8/G20 Communiqué: Protesters will throw skinny vegans and trees at the police!
June 19, 2010 - 12:25pm
G8/G20 Communiqué: Protesters will throw skinny vegans and trees at the police!
June 19, 2010 | By statica | Imagine a burly union dude grabbing a young sapling with one hand, ripping it out of the ground with a great cry towards Odin and hurling it at the police.
I LOVE THIS! Great post.
And just so people know: these are your tax dollars at work. $1.1 billion of them.
Imagine, these idiots pulling up all the saplings around the area in case protesters pulled them up and threw them at police. I loved the Council of Canadians' response too:
Mr. Calzavara from the Council of Canadians says the thought that a sapling could be turned into a weapon is "outrageous."
"I would challenge the police to get a couple of burly officers and try to pull one of these trees out of the ground," he said. "You'd need an axe to cut the thing down. And if you've already got an axe, you wouldn't need a tree."
What a bunch of morons.
Vegan tossing (skinny or otherwise)? I could so get behind that.
Ya, it was so hillarious in the hysteria of it all....i had to write something about it! cheers,
Thanks for the feedback! krystalline
Now that's diversity of tactics!
Mark Calvazara is the best! And that quote proves it...
And besides, don't they know that prepared anarchists are just gonna bring their own trees anyways???
Heh, bagkitty. It's probably a good thing she qualified it with "skinny". When I was a vegan it would've taken "two burly police officers" at least to toss me around! :D
By the way, I love the visual with the article:
Maybe it is a good thing they are pulling out the saplings... otherwise the wood could be employed to construct a catapult or a trebuchet... can't you just picture the distance that could be achieved in "vegan tossing" if the crafty anarchists were able to construct one of those?
Of course it is just a matter of time till the security mindset comes up with the requirement that protestors in sanctioned protest zones must wear weighted diving boots to prevent them being easily turned into projectiles.
Very fashionable, don't you think?
Another example of the absurdity of the 'security' involved. How much does it cost to dig up and replant several hundred trees? I'm guessing a couple of hundred apiece, so I'd ballpark this little exercise at a cool quarter of a million, minimum.
It’s not just the Potemkin Muskoka built for the world media; it’s that visiting reporters won’t experience, and perhaps promote, the real thing. It’s not just that rebuilding a steamer is a summit head-scratcher; it’s that the boat won’t float until long after leaders leave. It’s not just that $200,000 is a lot for a rock; it’s that the lump of granite is kilometres away from the Huntsville resort where the G8 is to meet.
Canada’s summits are not alone in suffering from soaring costs and pedestrian results. Global governance is stumbling through a transition made even more difficult by financial meltdowns and amorphous security threats that are hard to identify and expensive to counter.
Conditions as extreme as the global community now faces demand a response more sophisticated than a boondoggle rooted in pork-barrel politics and the astonishing loss of parsimony that Harper, as part of the Reform movement, once proselytized. Instead, the Prime Minister is delivering excess at a time when deficits require restraint and a vacuous final communiqué just when the elixir of confidence-inspiring leadership is needed.
Waste and sloth are now the looming result of summits that should be championing prudence and courage.Maybe it's the trees they're afraid of.
I mean, the likelihood of a protester ripping a sapling from the ground and using it as a weapon is about as probable as the trees themselves becoming sentient, and ripping themselves from the ground, and attacking Stephen Harper on his environmental policies, like the ents from Lord of the Rings.
Imagine a burly union dude grabbing a young sapling with one hand, ripping it out of the ground with a great cry towards Odin and hurling it at the police.
Yes, please! Thanks for that.
More seriously though, did anyone have a good source for finding out what's happening when during the summit?
One of the best thread titles ever!
Last night, I moderated an event at Beit Zatoun (on Markham Street - gorgeous space, btw, you should check it out if you're in Toronto) about the challenges alternative media and independent journalists face when reporting on Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan. Here's the event announcement. It was a lovely event, although Beit Zatoun's a/c was on the fritz, so the place was sweltering. So occasionally, people attending would step out for a moment to cool off.
Anyhow, apparently six bicycle cops showed up and asked a few of the people sitting outside on the step whether there were any "protesters" inside.
Such a weird question. What did they mean by "protesters"? I mean, it wasn't a protest! It was an event where people came and listened to journalists speak about their experiences reporting in and about Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan. Did they mean anyone who had ever BEEN to a protest?
Yeah, we're a real security threat, all sitting quietly listening to the speakers, wilting in the heat, drinking lemon-and-mint infused water and dipping bits of bread into fair trade Palestinian extra-virgin olive oil. Pretty scary stuff!
What a terrific site, and the discussion sounds wonderful.
The cops, though: memories of the San Francisco FBI, who hatched a plan a few years ago to track sales of the ingredients for making falafels. I mean, Michelle, you have to admit: mint? fair-trade Palestinian olive oil? You guys were just asking for it, eh?
Yes, it was lovely there. And whoops, I think I linked to their old website in that first link. Here's their new website.
If you go there, I think you can buy the products right there, and I have to say, that Zatoun extra virgin olive oil is lovely. It's a combination store, gallery, and meeting space that you can rent for a reasonable price.
Right now in the gallery, they have a bunch of quilts on display done by Palestinians. They're beautiful.
This morning on CBC local, some police state representative was talking about arms caches found in the security zone. He refused to be specific about one cache - just that it was populated with objects that had been clearly been altered to act as weapons. The first example, he talked about in detail. Broken! Concrete! In! An! Alley!
Must be something set up by violent hoodlums. Because, in this big tidy city, stuff like that is never around otherwise. Couldn't just happen to be there.
Meanwhile, a gunshot went off just outside the fence last night. The shooter got away. Mr. Representative was very sad that no amount of clampdown will ensure this sort of thing won't happen.
Sineed...AWESOME!!!!!!11!!!1one
Saturday Night Fever Update! Start time and location announced. Stay tuned....
Beat the Heat! Reclaim The Streets! Party for your right to fight!
I'm sure I've seen Mike McCormack's attack on Sid Ryan mentioned somewhere (Ryan warned the police against using agents provocateurs; McCormack, head of police union, whined back) but I can't find it now, so I raise this question here.
McCormack is brother of this McCormack, ret'd Det-Const William McCormack, who interestingly had corruption charges against him stayed last December after the Crown had taken too long to proceed. They are both the sons of former police chief William McCormack Sr. You'll also see mentioned there the former head of the police union, Rick McIntosh, charges also stayed, and many will remember what a charmer he is.
Anyway, that was in the back of my mind when I read Mike McC's attack on Sid, so I thought I'd look it up, and I figured people might be, y'know, entertained.
Here's the article about Sid and McCormack.
I posted it on FB a few days ago, commenting that it was refreshing to see Sid not backing down on his statement about provocateurs. A certain political party could take some lessons from him about standing by solid, progressive statements made by principled leaders, not mentioning any names, of course.