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in her own words

Police bring weapons and attitude to anarchist gathering

Image from a video shot by Will Dean, of a police officer attempting to gain entrance to the North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference in Toronto on Jan. 15, carrying a shotgun. He and another officer were denied entry by attendees.

The second annual North American Anarchist Studies Network (NAASN) Conference was held in Toronto at the Steelworkers Hall on January 15 and 16. 

The conference was a chance for anarchists or activists interested in anarchism to meet post-G20, with opportunities for sharing wisdom and education taking place between new and old anarchists, including those radicalized at last June's summit. It was a non-violent, private event.

But the police, riding on a post-G20 high, showed up by the dozen, with some officers not revealing themselves right away, but clearly knowing the event was happening and monitoring it. So goes activism and organizing in a post-G20 world.

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Columnists

The G20's symbolic violence

This week's mass processing inside (and outside) a Toronto courthouse helped clarify June's Jailapalooza festival during the G20, the largest mass arrest in our history. Of 1,100 detained, all but 227 had the charges dropped or were never charged. Most had no links to burning police cars or battered bank machines. They were picked up while protesting peacefully or looking on.

Why? Police say they wanted to prevent recurrences, after the dramatic events. Some intimate they were embarrassed by criticisms of their earlier inaction, and overreacted. Why had police gone missing at the crucial time? There's been no clear answer. One possibility: to justify the vaulting security costs via shocking images of violence.

G20 police let rioters run amok and then struck back hard at all activists

This is what a rubber bullet wound looks like. Photo: Yee Guan Wong.
Police waited over 30 minutes, until major damage had been done to property. I have been in demonstrations in Canada, the U.S., Europe and South America, I have never seen such a dereliction of duty.

Related rabble.ca story:

rabble news

The 'Sacco and Vanzetti' of Ottawa's bank arson case

On Aug. 23rd, 1927, Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Massachusetts. The two were convicted of a double-murder committed during an armed robbery. The trial and media coverage focused on the political ideology of the two men, treating as secondary the material evidence related to the crime itself. The two men were members of the Galleanist Anarchist movement, and the trial was a watershed moment in the campaign to delegitimize the global anarchist movement as a whole.

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Progressive Voices

Workers' rights for fighters: Jeff Monson

February 7, 2012
| On this week's episode of Progressive Voices we speak with MMA fighter Jeff Monson, who's fought in the top tier of the heavyweight division for M-1, Strikeforce, and UFC.

25:02 minutes (22.93 MB)
in his own words

G20: Conspiracy to riot in an Age of Austerity

Monday was the first day of what is scheduled to be an 11-week preliminary inquiry for what the Ontario Crown Attorney's office calls, the "G20 Main Conspiracy Group Prosecution." This prosecution will see myself, along with 16 other community organisers spend almost three months in court every single weekday, watching and listening as the Crown attorneys from the Provincial "Gangs and Guns Initiative" present evidence collected by a series of undercover cops who infiltrated community organisations across the country over a period of nearly two years prior to last year's G20 (an event which saw the city converted into "Fortress Toronto," as the heads of state from the world's 20 richest countries, along with more than 10,000 cops, occupied the city's downtown).

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The mysterious case of the flying anarchist

Aug 3 2011 - 7:30pm
Aug 7 2011 - 3:00pm

Location

Theatre Ste-Catherine
264 Ste-Catherine Est
Montreal, QC H2X 1L4
Canada
Phone: 514-237-2534
45° 30' 44.5032" N, 73° 33' 41.5188" W

The next time the G20 comes to town, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is ready, PM Stephen Harper is ready, Police Chief Bill Blair is ready. So when a bomb goes off downtown, scores of protesters are rounded up right away. Everything is going smoothly until an anarchist organizer falls to his death from a window during interrogation. Police reports say it's an accident. And that it's a suicide. A lone maniac tries to discover the truth. What was the Mayor doing at the police station that night? Based on Dario Fo's classic 1970 clown show, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Matt Jones's adaptation is a pre-emptive attack on Toronto's new political landscape.

Directed by Caroline Fournier and Matt Jones; produced by Matt Jones and Andrea Joy Rideout

s t a r r i n g :

Contact name: 
Matt Jones

Rob Ford and the Mysterious Case of the Flying Anarchist

Jul 6 2011 - 7:00pm
Jul 19 2011 - 1:45pm

Location

St-Vladimir's Theatre
620 Spadina Avenue
Toronto, ON M5S 2H4
Canada
Phone: 416-966-1062
43° 39' 43.686" N, 79° 24' 7.4088" W

The next time the G20 comes to town, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is ready, PM Stephen Harper is ready, Police Chief Bill Blair is ready. So when a bomb goes off downtown, scores of protesters are rounded up right away. Everything is going smoothly until an anarchist organizer falls to his death from a window during interrogation. Police reports say it's an accident. And that it's a suicide. A lone maniac tries to discover the truth. What was the Mayor doing at the police station that night? Based on Dario Fo's classic 1970 clown show, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Matt Jones's adaptation is a pre-emptive attack on Toronto's new political landscape.

Contact name: 
Matt Jones
Krystalline Kraus

Activist Communiqué: Salon du livre anarchiste de Montréal (2011) - Montreal Anarchist Bookfair (2011) This weekend!

| May 21, 2011
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