Horrified at threats of lateral violence present on babble
Horrified.
Ripping off people's masks, gang attacking people for wearing masks, hitting people wearing masks in the head with marbles, citizen's arresting people for wearing masks. These are all quotes from a thread on this site.
I've been involved in some heated and personal debates on this subject, but this is vile.
So if I'm a single parent on welfare and I don't want my welfare worker to see me at a protest and cut me off for not looking for work that day -but I want to go to the protest so I wear a mask, I'm at risk of getting tackled by a gang of ‘pacifist thugs' and turned over to the police?
If I'm an immigrant worker an I don't want the immigration officer reviewing my case to see me on the news and put a permanent mark on my and all my relatives records, but I want to go to the protest so I wear a mask, I'm at risk of being attacked, having the mask ripped off my face and forcefully paraded in front of every camera around before being handed over to the police.
If I'm a union member and my union didn't sanction this protest or picket, but I wanted to go support anyway, so I wear a mask, I'm at risk of being attacked by my own union brothers and sisters?
So I'm at a protest and I don't wear a mask because I'm terrified of being attacked by peace police, then I get on the nightly news and my boss sees it and the next week I'm fired.
There are lots of reasons to wear masks. This violent anti-mask attitude puts people at risk of serious consequences of political dissent -in addition to actually assaulting people for what amounts to a piece clothing.
Do you see in there what's even more horrifying?
A society so fearful it that its members approve of violating personal liberty and privacy (somebody else's, of course), and even betrayal of allies (possible, probable, sometime, ex- allies?) in the hope of protecting themselves from the same treatments at the hands of even bigger, meaner bullies.
A society so intolerant of political expression that entire categories of citizen feel the need to hide their identities when they participate in public demonstrations - because several other categories of citizens have the right and power to punish people for participating.
Why are we still calling this a democracy?
Hi there - welcome to babble!
With great respect, all your examples (single welfare parents, immigrant workers, union members) are utterly and totally ridiculous, concocted, and never happen in real life.
That's another rather extreme misreading of whatever thread you happen to be talking about. Some people here (including me) have said that we should organize protests in a disciplined, coordinated, consultative manner - and if anyone (masked or otherwise) breaks away and commits actions which jeopardize the protesters, we should deal with them extremely firmly ourselves.
Whether they are masked or not makes no difference. It is their ACTIONS which matter.
So I strongly advise you to either support your exaggerated claims by providing some in-context quotes from babblers, or else sit back and examine why you feel the need to erect such a huge straw man in the defence of the alleged human right to wear masks.
Ya, really. But if it helps, I personally do *not* support "hunting down" anything "like rabbits"...including rabbits. That other heading was, I assume, merely an overly-exuberant expression.
I do support some sign of self discipline, however, and "allies" who have some end in mind beyond venting a spleen on meaningless targets. At some expense to others who aren't wearing masks.
Anonymity is a sound tactical decision on the part of an insurgent. The secret elements of national security services use telescoping camera equipment to capture images and compare them against existing databases such as driver licence photos or other government IDs to determine the identities and addresses of individuals. In the event of a national emergency where wholesale rights are suspended, the information collected and stored from these intelligence collection operations is consulted, to where it becomes a simple matter of having the army drive around in trucks to gather up the malcontents. I believe that anyone who chafes at this very basic measure of self defence plays a little too comfortably into the hands of the corporate security apparatus, providing cover for their operations against citizens who feel their objections are best presented through various levels of intensity on the street.
Anonymity is a sound tactical decision on the part of an insurgent. The secret elements of national security services use telescoping camera equipment to capture images and compare them against existing databases such as driver licence photos or other government IDs to determine the identities and addresses of individuals.
More than the distasteful minions of national security, SlumberJ.
In the late 1980s/early 1990s Alberta Pacific found a stretch of (almost) pristine Athabasca River and decided to do something about it - build a pulp mill. Given their horrid reputation at the mill in BC, environmentalist were shocked. David Schindler campaigned against it, David Suzuki editorialized against it and rallies were held.
At that time some thugs in the town of Athabasca took matters into their own hands would would happily and merrily lay a beating on anyone against the mill. (Special treatment given to the fellow that gave Klein the bird.) When someone complained that the police were being violent they, truthfully, said it was not them - even as they watched it happen. It was these private thugs.
A friend of the town of Athabasca did go to several demonstrations against the mill - wearing a mask so the company thugs (paid or volunteer) could not identify him.
Since then I have had a lot of sympathy for anyone wearing a mask or face covering at any public event.
Sure, especially when you are acting alone and have zero mass support or even acquiescence in your tactics. Or perhaps, when thousands and millions rise up, you would have them all masked as well? Why not? Maybe we should mask our workers on the picket lines - otherwise, horror of horrors, the all-powerful enemy boss may figure out who the ringleaders are!!!???!!! And then we're dead meat!!!
Anonymity, in a demonstration of tens of thousands, is a tactic of desperation. It is a loud statement that you do not enjoy the support of those masses. That you are hiding your face, not from the state, but from the people. That's why immigrant workers, union members, and single parents on welfare don't cover their faces when they take to the streets.
Good points Unionist. There might be cases where wearing a mask while protesting say against your employer is understandable but not when you are participating in a legally authorised rally concerning global politics or wars. It's clear that the agent provocateurs were using masks to start a riot and incite violence. They did not succeed in inciting a riot - a riot never happened, but there were individual incidents of violent vandalism and those involved must be prosecuted. Not only for the material damages they caused but also for tarnishing the reputation of the entire legal march.
I'm not sure if the cheering crowds that were on hand to witness the sight of burnt out cop cars being towed away is indicative of zero support, staged event or not. It may very well be a sign that not every joyous event that stirs the soul can be entirely straightjacketed by those who attempt to appropriate and define what constitutes mass opinion.
When people restrict themselves to rallying against politics and wars, by coming out to events that are legally sanctioned by the very same forces conducting the filthy politics and wars, I'm afraid there's very little that could be said to help those people understand what it is they are actually doing.
@Slumberjack: people are free to limit their participation to legally authorised protests or to not participate in protests at all. Please don't try to impose your values on others.
I find the politics of nothingness and resignation, and the uninterrupted counsel that flows from it, that which coincidentally has the effect of dovetailing seamlessly with power apparatus directives, to be far more problematic and imposing than anything I might comment on.
Who are the "minions" when the only difference between agent provocteurs and vandal "protesters" is that one group get paid for their work and are usually members of a (police) union?
I'm surprised at the support here for scab volunteer labour. After all, with the masks you can't be absolutely sure they are all police union workers.
I'm not surprised actually, to find more opinions being voiced in support of the herd mentality approach as it pertains to social change. The slow scenic passage to oblivion tends to have more appeal for those who prefer the normality of the times over the disruptive inconvienience of insurrection and revolt. Trouble is, you can't expect that everyone will do as they're told, just as you couldn't expect everyone to have the same definition of what constitutes scabbing on behalf of the bosses.
While I share Unionist's principled convictions about mass support, I very much fear giving the authorities any (further) excuse at all to criminalize modes of dress. I'm sure that many of them would be only too happy to do that, and for reasons none of us would agree with.
I think it is not illegal in Ontario to cover your face, yes/no? On those grounds, Blair should be challenged for the way that his officers targeted anyone who was, eg, wearing a bandana or carrying goggles or a gas mask in a backpack. Are bandanas illegal? Are goggles illegal? Are gas masks illegal? If not, it is none of Blair's forking business why people might have them.
The people of Ontario shouldn't have to pass an exam administered by McGuinty and Blair before they walk out their front doors at any time of day.
The OP is a diversion based on distortion of the truth. We should not feed into it. No one on babble ever suggested criminalizing the wearing of masks during demos or anywhere else. There has, however, been a lively debate as to whether bank-bombing, car-burning, window smashing juvenile assholes and/or police provocateurs should be tolerated anywhere near healthy mass movements, and what is the best way to deal with them. The opening poster, however, has morphed this into a slanderous accusation that babblers have advocated violence against masked protesters. That's bullshit, and I would like, once again, to call the opening poster on that bullshit.
Do you really believe that holding to ones principles is going to work in the long run against those who are utterly unprincipled? Can you not understand the context of principles vs what has occurred in the long run of the past 30 years?
First of all, I should point out that most of us here (including me) are posting under handles- not our complete names, so those of us who do so already use that shield of anonymity.
WRT anonymity in protest, I can see the need for masking in some cases in which a specific person feels threatened. The rural Alberta case is a good example. On the other hand it is not as strong a statement as showing your face publicly in opposition.
I was at an anti-racism demo some years back with a friend of mine in Germany (a country where masking and face-painting is illegal, and where they nevertheless have a much higher level of protest than here in Canada). She was more concerned that neo-Nazis would identify her because she had an artificial leg and attack her at some later time, than she was of the authorities.
I don't want to make presumptions about people who choose to wear masks, but when you have what seems to be a group of people who wear masks as part of their uniform, and who have a similar set of tactics (which includes proterty damage) , it begs the question of what the purpose of that mask is - is it really worn as a matter of personal choice because a person has special reason to feel threatened, or is it just part of a standard superhero costume worn to carry out specific actions?
Well yes, I've completely passed over the intent of the thread in order to use the platform as yet another opportunity to impose my values.
SJ, I don't know whether you were addressing me, but I certainly can understand your frustration. You should hear the speeches I make at my monitor several times every day.
The trouble is, I know something about history in the long term, social history, and what I know is that it takes numbers. You want change, you get (or suddenly find) one million people in Nathan Phillips Square or at Queen't Park. Kettle that, McGuinty and Blair.
It matters that we remain principled and also that we have pure hearts, SJ. I hears ya. But it won't happen just because we wish harder. The work is long and slow and often sad. Or angry. But it takes numbers.
So just out of simple curiosity - is there anyone here (or anyone on babble) who thinks it should be unlawful to cover one's face during protests?
Or is it much more fun to create straw men and then hunt them down like rabbits?
This is precisely what a million people standing around peacefully constitutes in this age skdadl, without some other dynamic at work to worry the oppressor.
Unionist, to be fair, I thought that it was sometimes unclear on that first thread what people intended by unmasking provocateurs -- hand them over to teh cops or deal with them ourselves? I realize that you have never argued the former, but I wasn't sure that some other people weren't. I think that people need to be given a chance to think this through.
I have wild rabbits. Anyone comes here and tries to hunt them down, he'll have me to deal with. I may be a little old lady, but I can has pitchfork.
We may have another dynamic at work, SJ. Economic collapse.
I have to tell you, I am not looking forward to this. I wish we could have justice and equality without it. Revolutions are very hard on people.
Skdadl - really - please re-read the OP. It is about people who are masked - nothing else. Now, I asked for a link to anyone saying people wearing masks should be unmasked by force or handed over to the cops. I haven't seen one yet. So it's a diversion.
On the other hand, let's forget about masks for a moment, and say that we're having a nice demonstration, when suddenly one of the (unmasked) demonstrators calls over some media person with cameras, and starts setting fire to trash bins, breaking windows of shops, and torching empty cars (any old cars) - but not hurting anyone. Pretend you're an organizer of that demo - or just a participant. What would you do?
I'll tell you what I would do. Anything reasonably necessary to stop the asshole. That could absolutely include, after a warning, turning the asshole over to the cops.
Are those really the only two choices?
What if everybody - all five thousand demonstrators - wore masks? Wouldn't have to be black; could be all colours, maybe even representing one's hockey team, school, garden club or coalition. That might put the wind up some powers . Can't arrest everyone who owns a mask, red jacket, rainbow jeans or whatever: thus, no excuse for arrests.
Seriously, making action - provable criminal action - the only cause for arrest is a better strategy than suspicion and speculation about the motives of the person marching next to one. There will be some bad behaviour; it's impossible to prevent.
It's most likely inevitable skdadl, and in that scenario if it should come to pass, there'll be little room for reminiscing over the halcyon days of principle. We'll find our available time taken up with more immediate concerns, such as hiding.
I think I made it clear that I don't think it should be unlawful. I do however know that bans on anonymity have not stoppad a nuch higher level of political engagement and protest in Germany.
On the other hand, England has a new "anti-terrorism" law which prevents photographing police. So they seem to want to play the anonymity game as well:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7888301.stm
The words "insurrection" and "revolt" have a different resonance and reception in a "managed democracy" such as Canada than in a more overtly totalitarian state.
And aside from the notion, sui generis, of "permanent revolution" or "permanent warfare" such as some followers of Trotsky (and his converts to neoconservativism) have, the tokenistic destruction of property is presumably a means to a political end.
The Harper government and the security state developers of Canada have a relatively clear end in mind in the use of agent provocateurs:
1) Justify the savage repression of ANY dissent and obliterate the reasons for that dissent.
2) Through the ever-willing complicit corporate media make sure the main of the public sides with ever expanding repressive action, by eliciting fear and anger through showcasing "terrorist mindless violence".
Indistinguishable actions, regardless of who is doing (provocateurs or "protesters") will elicit the same political effects. In the case of very differing goals for indistinguishably actions, one of the proposed outcomes must be very mistaken.
My bet is that incipient security state actually knows what it is doing in the use of agent provocateurs. The supporters of "diversity of actions"--not so much.
That's a lie.