Anarchy, hockey and the Vancouver riots
This thread is already a bit late, but I thought we could have a discussion not just about the macho, hypermasculine, booze-fuelled rioting in Vancouver post-game seven, but also about the state's attempt (through both the mayor's office and the police force) to link the violence to "anarchists," and the protests against G20 and the Olympics. Not to mention the subsequent enthusiasm for citizens to oust perpetrators on social media, essentially doing the state's surveillance and coercion work for them. Here are few articles to get the discussion started:\
Understanding Vancouver's 'Hockey Riot'What happened after the game was neither in the spirit of people at the arena not the spirit of those who bravely protested the G8. As activist and hockey fan Derrick O’Keefe said to me, “Sometimes a riot is the ‘language of the unheard,’ in the words of Martin Luther King Jr. But sometimes a riot is just an expression of young male stupidity and violence— this was the case last night in Vancouver.”...
I did receive this incisive bit of analysis from Dru Oja Day, an editor at the Media Co-op. “If you ask people to pour all of their emotions and anger into a game, then a major event (Montrealers have rioted after first round game 7 wins!) is going to occasion some outbursts. Hockey commentators like Hockey Nights’ Don Cherry are constantly associating hockey with the troops overseas (he went to Afghanistan and fired a live shell, for chrissakes) and promote fighting and big open ice hits. We shouldn’t be surprised.”
John Ward-Leighton also pointed out on his blog the role that the liquor lobby placed in turned an entire area around the arena into a branded “Entertainment Zone” larded with bars and free-flowing liquor.
“It was clear that a lot of of the participants in last night’s riot and looting were at the very least impaired and looking for trouble,” said Ward-Leighton. “This ‘zone’ has nothing to do with entertainment and much to do with the almost criminal profit taking of the proprietors of the establishments who far from ‘serving it right’ pour drunken idiots into the streets nightly to brawl and drive drunk….The fault for last night's idiocy was not about losing a hockey game or the police response, the bomb had its fuse lit with the myth that the only way you can have fun is to get stinking drunk.”...
As one of those real heroes, Harsha Walia said to me, “There is a sense that people rioted over a ‘stupid apolitical hockey game.’ While I too wish people were motivated by social justice issues, the hockey game is not apolitical by any means. The riots were a fundamentalist defense of a type of nationalism, most evident in the beatings of Bruins fans in Vancouver last night. NHL hockey is not simply a game, it is representative of obedience to consumerism and is part of the state’s attempt to forge a false identity—despite vast differences and inequalities across race, class and gender, through the spectacle of sport.”
The state does reap what the state sows. We should remember that as the hand-wringing by police and government officials commences in the wake of Vancouver’s Great Hockey Riot.
The mayor said there was no advance warning of the strategy, which caught police and city officials off guard, and may force them to take a different approach to security plans for large public gatherings in the future.
“There had been absolutely no signs of this coming,” Robertson said Thursday afternoon. “Both during the G-20 [leaders’ summit in Toronto] and the 2010 Olympics these thugs were well known to be organizing and preparing to take action and criminal activities on the streets. There were no indications of that leading into last night,” he said.
“Definitely there are citizens responsible for inflaming the situation. But there were purposeful vandals who instigated this and very cleverly whipped many others into a frenzy by attacking cars and storefronts and moving throughout the downtown to create more hot spots.”
and Gregor finally shows his true colours....hopefully the lefties in the GVA see him now for what he is.
But interestingly some people, at least around here, are noticing this attempt to paint the drunken Vancouver rioters as a political side, or force. They don't quite get what is wrong with their doing that, they just seem to realize something shadey is going on.
"All goaltending is theft."
P.J. Pronovost
It's also funny that as soon as it is clear that there were lots of privileged louts involved the powers that be put down the pitchforks and start wringing their hands about how sad and painful it is, and - most hilarious of all - ask "who was reponsible" as if that guy's mug wasn't clear enough in the camera.
My guess is it would have been crystal clear who was to blame if it had been someone in a black hood torching that cop car instead of a rich polo player.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/gary_mason...
I think the police presence should have been far greater, earlier. When I was 20 the big event was Bathtub Weekend in Nanaimo. Drinking began early and was very excessive. However when you came out onto the street police were on every corner. If there ever was a good use of police presence it is to discourage young drunk males from doing stupid acts.
Richmond carpenter fired for FB comments
"I didn't do anything. I did nothing wrong. I was just there," he said.
He did, however, post several pro-riot status updates on his Facebook page, including statements like "atta boy vancity!!! show em how we do it!!!" and "vancouver needed remodeling anyway...."
Mcilvenna listed Rite Tech Construction on his profile as his employer, and the morning after the riot, he was called in by the boss and promptly fired.
Geez the comments are interesting on that story. I love the "what about free speech" ones. The company is not saying you cannot say such things, just not and work for them.
A early object lesson on the perils of social networking
David Warren tackles the subject with all the sophistication of a Goofus and Gallant cartoon...
"Laid-back" Vancouver throws a tantrum when their team loses. "Enterprising" Calgary accepts defeat with dignity and class.
While visiting my mom last night I did a dramatic reading of the Globe and Mail's editorial published on Saturday. Please guess where I added sobs of despair.
And yet there is something at stake for Vancouver, beyond its reputation, and for other cities, too. Cities need to create opportunities for good people, law-abiding people, to gather, to express themselves, to claim ownership of public spaces. It is those good people, more than any police force, who ultimately ensure a city is livable and at peace. At the moment, the streets do not belong to them.
It would be risky to try to take them back. It was only by chance that someone wasn’t killed on Wednesday night. There were reportedly at least eight stabbings.
This was elemental, almost Hobbesian – a demonstration that, even in Canada, life can quickly become nasty, brutish and short. Is that what Canada is?
But some men and women stood up to the mob. And the next day, Vancouverites flocked downtown to sweep up, to sign wallboards expressing their horror and sympathy. They need a fighting chance – in a figurative sense only, please – to show that their Vancouver, their Canada, is the real one.
Further to your point, 6079, if the participants in the "mob" had mostly been young Black men, and other men of colour, there would be no hand-wringing about what this "means" about Canada.
Hmm. Most of the violence-causers were young white men. What could that possibly mean? I anxiously await your turgid prose, Globe and Mail.
If I see someone committing a crime, should I just mind my own business? Not be a "rat" or a "snitch" or whatever?
I'm not sure I follow why this is a concern. Because someday it could be me holding a lighter up to the gas tank of a car??
lol. I wouldn't doubt it if certain babblers were listed in the police "snitch" files. Just like those who helped the Stasi in the DDR.
Really, N. Beltov?
I know there is a big grey area when it comes to turning people in, but are you really trying to equate the events in Vancouver with political activists being rounded up? I'm sorry, are they drunken hooligans or freedom fighters?
I have called the cops once or twice in my life, once when I stopped a drunk driver who had run a women over, so you don't need to wonder any more.
Smith, babblers aren't the ones trying to equate the hockey riots with political action, the police and mayor's office are doing that for us. I happen to feel that any further entrenchment of the police surveillance state is a bad thing (certainly that's he West's view when it comes to countries like China or North Korea). And this latest conflation of the riots with activism gives yet another practice run for our brave men and women in uniform. So yes, Snert, you should be concerned, not because you might one day be holding a lighter over a car, but because you might one day be holding a placard at an anti-police brutality march.
I don't disagree, Catchfire. I believe I alluded to that smear tactic myself in my first post, and I know there is a danger when everyone who happened to be there gets turned over with the help of social media.
But as far as I am concerned there is a grey area, and I can think of times when I have come down on one side or the other.
The Stasi comparison? RIdiculous in my opinion. And we have had this conversation before. If I saw shop windows being broken I expect I would have no problem reporting the person who did it, and I wouldn't have nightmares that I had betrayed "the cause" either. I guess that makes me one of the snitches.
Sorry, but I didn't sign up to support that.
(edit)
And frankly, my comment was less directed at opinions about the vandals than a clear slur against those of us who post here.
Uh, 6079, the police have such files in every society. They rely upon snitches to carry out their duties. It's universal. Like the Income Tax Department (CRA I think it's called now), there are more snitches and more ratting out neighbours and so on than such departments have time for. They pick and choose among the "wealth" of information that comes their way. These are, of course, political decisions.
There's no getting away from this. And I think it's starry-eyed to think otherwise. Most of what the police do is to follow up on information already provided to them. Really. They don't do that much despite the piles of crime drama and other misleading crap that fills the TV wasteland.
Anyway, my remarks were certainly not directed at you. I don't know where you formed that opinion.
For those of us who think that fundamental social change is a necessity, questions about the police and their role in society are important. I rather expect that even with photographic evidence there will be remarkably few "vandals" prosecuted. (Certainly many fewer than the 1,000 or so of mostly peaceful protestors rounded up at the G-summit.) I think we both know that.
Anyway, my remarks were certainly not directed at you. I don't know where you formed that opinion.
Then who were they directed at?
I'm willing to read what you might know about this topic, Snert.
Yes, N. Beltov, but the former DDR StaatsSicherheit is not quite the same as the Vancouver police. It is a ridiculous and completely false comparision.
Although I am also alarmed by the police chief's boneheaded accusation that this was the work of "anarchists", and from what I understand their response was flawed, I think it is generally a good thing that the police did something that night, rather than nothing.
And I don't care which of "certain babblers" you were directing it at. If you were hoping to put a chill on by suggesting that any of us here would ever turn anyone into the police then you are talking about me. Sorry but that collaborationist smear is ridiculous, and I am neither ashamed nor intimidated by it.
So was Stasi surveillance just the "wrong kind" of surveillance? What makes our kind superior? Purity of heart?
The problem isn't necessarily seeing someone committing a crime and reporting it, (although I don't share your conviction that private property damage is the kind of menace to our society you and others seem to infer), but that social media and citizens' participation therein as a volunteer arm of the state seems to be growing as a popular pastime. We needn't look far for problems with this model, even if you don't hold, as I do, that surveillance itself is central to the state's coercive power. For example, what if a young man had just wrested a gas can and a rag from a vandal in order to stop him, only to have his photo snapped? (He shouldn't cavort with criminals, comes the eager refrain.) What if an unlucky citizen were misidentified? (Police work is difficult, and every lead needs to be investigated.) What if a facebook user takes down an unrelated photo that another overzealous user claims was riotous proof? (We must first, as good citizens, police above all ourselves.)
You're right. I didn't sign up for that either.
ETA: and Beltov, if you could refrain from accusing "certain babblers" of Stasi-like collaboration, that would be grand.
Catchfire.
I agree with you (strongly, actually) about about the dangers of surveillance, and the pitfalls of people informing on each other based on photographs and other tangential information. I know if we were to go down that road we would wind up with a true stasi state, or at the very least with a McCarthyist nightmare:
From Wikipedia:
At its height, Stasi personnel reached one employee per 166 citizens. When informants were included, the Stasi had one spy per 66 citizens of East Germany. When part-time informer adults were included, the figures reach approximately one spy per 6.5 citizens.
But the fact remains, there is a wide range between public safety and thoughtcrime. And I don't think being opposed to unfair intrusion by the authorities means that means one has to be opposed to the police doing the job they SHOULD be doing, nor that one should refuse to have any dealings with them in supporting public safety.
And yeah, I know I disagree with most here when it comes to vandalism, and I am fine with that.
I happen to feel that any further entrenchment of the police surveillance state is a bad thing (certainly that's he West's view when it comes to countries like China or North Korea). And this latest conflation of the riots with activism gives yet another practice run for our brave men and women in uniform. So yes, Snert, you should be concerned, not because you might one day be holding a lighter over a car, but because you might one day be holding a placard at an anti-police brutality march.
I agree.
I get very uncomfortable with government surveillance of citizens. And, if less surveillance means a few of the hooligans get away with burning some cars, so be it. The more information and power that gets concentrated in the state, the greater the chance that information and power will be abused.
So was Stasi surveillance just the "wrong kind" of surveillance? What makes our kind superior? Purity of heart?
I'm not sure if you're referring to any and all surveillance (by the state, by citizens) or just surveillance in the context of these hockey riots.
But I would hope there's some daylight to be seen between someone identifying an arsonist, based on photographs of the act itself, and someone "identifying" an "enemy of the state" because they keep to themself and don't seem very patriotic when the national anthem is played.
I guess where we, and Stasi, differ is in the definition of a crime. To me, arson is a crime. Destruction of property for the LULZ is a crime. Looting is a crime. Being unpatriotic is not a crime.
There was some fellow on "Q' this morning blaming the riot on postmodernism and South Park. Looks like we're not the only people making hay over this little incident.
What amazes me is that people know how omnipresent video etc is, but still chose to participate in this event. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
Apparently quite a few of these football hooligan wannabes were mugging for the cell phone cameras while carrying out their nefarious deeds, so it wasn't so much a case of cognitive dissonance as it was a case of mass stupidity.
Which I believe speaks to the fact that they've likely never had to concern themselves all that much with unwanted notice from the authorities, whereas for others, a stroll down a sidewalk is enough to attract that sort of attention, let alone posing at a riot.
And as for politicians using the occasion to blame anarchists and activist protestors alike as potential fodder and excuse toward future undemocratic crackdowns; if the excuses weren't handed to them on a platter, they'd invent them. We should be shaking our heads at a naivety which suggests that a few here and there who like to introduce a little more intensity into their protest than say, the movement of ritualized chants and peace sign holders, are ruining things for latter.
my view on this is a bunch of drunken sports fans hyped up by the "win at all costs" mentality started rioting because they were constantly reminded of the last one by our national media who then took the opportunity to blow this whole thing way out of proportion and make this their latest subject of "round the clock continuing coverage"...
it happened, it's over and done with, let's clean up and move on.
The severity of the witch hunt, with people now threatening anyone who they think was even remotely involved, their employers, their parents, their charities, etc. is just as bad as the rioting itself and really shows these folks are just as bad as someone who in a fit of drunken rage and passion broke a window or jumped on a car. Almost worse in hindsight since they're not egged on by alcohol or a thousands strong crowd and group think...
I guess where we, and Stasi, differ is in the definition of a crime. To me, arson is a crime. Destruction of property for the LULZ is a crime. Looting is a crime. Being unpatriotic is not a crime.
Why should we trust the Vancouver, or any other, police to appreciate that difference? Especally when they have shown time and time again that they will from time to time bring their full force to bear on any protesting "social misfit" who steps out of line and fails to show sufficient respect for the state and its institutions? Especially if they're the "wrong" racial and economic demographic.
Notwithstanding 6079's bleatings of outrage over the comparison of the Stasi and the Vancouver police, the difference is merely one of degree. So far.
M. Spector:
If you are going to compare me to a sheep, and talk about matters of degrees (as indeed, I couuld compare an elbow in the side to a knife across the throat) perhaps we should get down to specifics.
Do you think wnat happened in Vancouver was a good thing, and what you think the appropriate response should have been?
When all else fails, change the subject...
I think that years and years of cold war propaganda about middle class kapitalism based on konsumerism and oil is coming home to roost for the two old line parties in Amerika and Bananada.
Young people today have high expectations, and boy are they ever disappointed in the stoogeaucracy. Maybe a little Otpor and a little Gene Fisher would do this northern banana republic some good.
When all else fails, change the subject...
I'm not sure how a question directly related to the OP and the thread title can be considered changing the subject, but if you don't want to answer my question, you only have to say so.
Norms of masculinity at root of riot: Hooligans are a factor, but so is society's expectations of young men to be aggressive and tough
Oh please.
Caveat three: Offering a sociological perspective is not a way of excusing those men who were rioting. They need to be held accountable for their actions. What I'm suggesting is that, in addition to accountability, social pressures on boys and men to be tough and aggressive are also a factor. For instance, consider the power of insults that are slung at boys and men who do not live up to social expectations of masculinity: "pussy," "fag" and "queer" are entirely predictable verbal responses. They are homophobic in nature and endemic in schools, media and broader society.
Yeaah, these bozos wanted to prove their virility by breaking plate glass windows. They thought that by lighting garbage cans on fire they would prove how tough they are.
Mind you, one never hears of riots following poor performances at Broadway shows.
I think they were simply waiting outside for something to be happy about in Liberal B.C. and were disappointed. Again.
So when will Vancouver be hosting a G20 meeting?
Vancouver Media Co-op: Aftermath of Canucks Riot
The composition and sheer size of the crowds involved in rioting were in fact highly political. The vast majority of youth I observed in the rioting were from the most oppressed socio-economic classes, with large numbers of people of colour participating, including Asian, East Indian, Native, and black. This ethnic mix is in fact very indicative of Greater Vancouver in general, representing also the most economically depressed elements of the population overall.
Middle class kids? It's difficult to assess the actual economic status of these youth, but most weren't wearing $200 Canucks jerseys. Looking at the countless photos and video footage, my estimation is that the rioters were predominantly working class kids.
Most of those in the streets were definitely enjoying the euphoria of liberation they were experiencing, and most were clearly hostile to police (the most common chant being “Fuck the Police”). These experiences have political ramifications, as the authorities well know. While there were those who could be described as anti-social elements (i.e., the brawls and fist fights between fans), there were also those participating who clearly saw it as a form of rebellion.
Also, Jim Chu is doing some backpedaling now that his initial claims about "anarchists and criminals" are falling apart.
Vancouver police shift blame for riot
UBC student apologizes for role in Vancouver riot, criticizes social media mob
Since then, the UBC biology student has lost her job, turned herself in to the police, and become the target of racism and harassment online.
Cacnio says she loves Vancouver, never intended to participate in a riot, and found it difficult to foresee the consequences of her actions.
And she argues that people who are using social media to ruin the lives of riot participants—even going as far as shaming their families and the organizations they've been associated with—are going way too far.
Dear Vancouver, I am sorry.
There is another important difference between the Stasi and the Vancouver Police: Stasi informants and spies stayed undercover and they were paid in a climate of economic hardship. In Vancouver, the informants operate in broad daylight and do it for free.
Would that it were. Although the article attempts to conform to a predetermined narrative that I'm not entirely unsympathetic to, I'm afraid the entrenched stasis with respect to political activism in this country runs so deep, as to require the examination of additional instances of wanton disregard for authority and property on a similar or greater scale in order to draw the necessary political correlations. This has all the appearance of a fun night out for most involved, which is not to suggest that there weren't a few among them channeling some fire and haze induced euphoria along the lines suggested in the article. A few doesn't turn Vancouver 2011 into the Paris of 2005 though.
I don't think that stating the rioting "has political meaning" is meant to deny that there were myriad factors at play, or that politics was foremost in people's minds as they smashed, looted, and burned.
I simply do not get how people can be fired for their alleged actions and as for people turning them in, or threatening and other abuse seems pretty fucking hyprocritical, at best. They show themselves to be just another mob benton mob violence itself.
There may be a few wrongful dismissal case when this all sorts itself out.
Vigilante behaviour is probably as old as recorded history and beyond.
I don't doubt that it has SOME meaning, and a loaf of bread (or a stolen TV) can be political in the right circumstances.
It is a different matter to take an event witn myriad factors and spin it as justification for whatever political line you are pushing. And that goes equally for those who are blaming this on "anarchists" as those who are hailing it as disaffected working class people liberating themselves.
(though it seems to me there;s not that much difference between those two extreme positions, the main difference being whether one thinks burning, vandalism and theft are good things or not).
{joke} Or hey, maybe it was drunken rich white guys liberating themselves from their social constraints. That's a good thing too, right? {/joke}
Dear Vancouver, I am sorry.
I went to that link and that quoted text isn't there. Did you intend to link to a different site?
The second halt-hour of CBC The Current (9 am) has a piece on the riot, and includes an interview with two people who have set up sites dedicated to identifying people who were in the crowd that night.
Whoops. babble's state-of-the-art posting technology put the link in the wrong place. The quoted text is from the first article (where I also got the link to her apology).
I went to that link and that quoted text isn't there. Did you intend to link to a different site?
That same quote also appeared in the first link of post #36.
In her blog, Camille references her "original apology", so it sounds like she felt compelled to issue another apology that didn't include any reference to the bullying behaviour of the social media vigilantes.
Whoops. babble's state-of-the-art posting technology put the link in the wrong place. The quoted text is from the first article (where I also got the link to her apology).
Ah, okay. It would have helped if I had looked at the first link as well!
I thought what she wrote was quite good.
Speaking of apologies, I heard that polo player doing his weepy, gag-inducing mea culpa on CBC this morning. Awww.... poor him. It was a perfect Jerry Springer moment.
One of the dark sides of vigilante justice and public shaming that hasn't been mentioned is that I think some of these self-centered buffoons actually get off on the embarrassment and the attention.
After all, the people who drop their drawers on those reality TV shows come from somewhere, don't they?
Television has been cultivating a couple of things lately in a big way:
1) getting "free" services from fools willing to work for practically nothing on the off chance (none really) that it will lead to better things, and
2) larding on heaping doses of programs intended to evoke the strongest schadenfreude (pleasure from the misfortune of others) possible.
Some days, turn on the idiot box and the majority of what you see falls into category 2.
On my way home from the NDP Convention I drove by an Anarchist protected area, cool!
CBC link
The hatred of workers trumps any realistic assessment of what might have happened, given the events of 1994, and begs the question: why don't more workers hate the boss? Why?!
Vancouver police say they plan to serve warrants on local media outlets to collect video footage from the Stanley Cup riot earlier this year.
The warrants - also known as production orders - include the CBC, The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Globe and Mail, Global TV and CTV.
"This is an important step in the investigation to ensure all images are collected and rioters held accountable," said Insp. Les Yeo in a statement released on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, police say they continue to make progress analysing more than 1,600 hours of video evidence collected since the June 15 riot.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/09/28/bc-vanco...There are only so many resources to go around. In BC it is becoming almost routine to have criminal cases thrown out because of lengthy delays. To bad about all the missing women. But then there was the 6 year investigation into the BC Rail affair. Priorities, priorities.
What a stupid circus act.