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Syndicate
The civil rights violations are a direct result of the attempt of the powers that be to supress the mass mobilization. The resulting arrests and breaches of the civil code are a direct result of the street protests that Harper decided needed to be repressed in the most ruthless fashion, because Stephen Harper recognizes the intrinsic threat that such mass mobilization mean to the interest he represents.
That is why they spent a bundle repressing this action in the hope of intimidating the people so they would not engage in future mass actions, Stephen Harper is not an idiot. Maybe he knows something that you do not.
but that is precisely the point: Knowing that Harper had spent a bundle to suppress a mass mobilization, and knowing pretty much what that suppression was likely to entail - if the decision is made irregardless to march masses anyway - does it not make sense to have run some scenarios by way of preparation? Why did such things as the preliminary apprehension and snatching of organizers and keys on the Friday come as such a shock? Or the invasion of the Queens Park 'safe zone' - or 'kettling' or 'provocateurs'? There are some fairly basic good practices accummulated on these types of things and all I'm saying is what's quite painfully obvious - there should have been a good deal more preparation and planning on creative strategies/tactics as well as who calls who if the shit hits the fan and people start disappearing into custody. I don't think this can be argued and is simply a developmental task for the TO progressive sectors to factor in next time. Especially if the decision is made to play the role assigned by mobilizing precisely as the PTB script called for. Oh well lots of work for the lawyers...
I agree there should be more coherent organization.
I was going to post a response to unionist's request for examples of how police pose as militant pacifists to disarm peoples anger way back in the first round. But then I read something that Erik wrote that made me sad. He said that babble is being highjacked by the same people hogging all the space. I thought, "OMG, have i unknowingly become one of those people, when i had no intention to?" So I dropped out.
But, i feel inclined to respond before I actually do drop out. Sorry folks.
About 19 or 20 years ago in Victoria I witnessed two scenarios. One was at the annual Earthday march, of all things, the other was at a march for ancient forests. It maybe had something to do with the struggle to save the Walbran Valley. I don't remember exactly now. Both scenarios played out the same. Some people, more vociferous and expressive in their anger, but nonviolent nevertheless, carrying placards and banners which had more radical or edgey slogans on them, were first approached by pacifist protesters asking them to not join the march because their signs were "not peaceful". The pacifist protesters were quickly joined by obvious undercovers posing as pacifists who then tried to physically stop them from joining the protest and tried to wrestle the placards and banners away while saying "nonviolence! nonviolence! this is a peaceful protest!".
The example in Quebec City in 2001 was sad. It was at a "green zone" where some nonviolent protesters had gathered to "confront" the police in a narrow street. When the cops charged in, some pacifist protesters started with the "NO violence" chant. When some poor souls tried to resist being beaten up or tried to get away, the undercover cops stepped in to ensure the protesters remained nonviolent, chanting "no violence" "peaceful protest" while their colleagues in uniform beat and arrested people freely. I wanted to step in and help, but I was wearing the wrong colour to be in a "green zone". My comrades and I respected their right to peaceful protest as decided collectively in the diversity of tactics agreement.
My point in all this is that agent provocateurs work in every sphere. In most of the video footage of the G20 protests where there are snatch- and -grabs occurring, there are loads of plain-clothed police posing as demo participants. Yet nobody says that peaceful marches are so saturated with undercover cops that it's really them that are directing the protest.
I joined this discussion because I feel stabbed in the back by people who I consider to be allies. And I didn't even participate in the demos! Infact, I haven't been to a demo in a good number of years. But, I expected better from people who are on the left.
The claims that the BB are totally infiltrated by the cops is reaching conspiracy theory. It's totally inaccurate.
Calling BB participants mere vandals and thugs, is totally inaccurate.
Saying that they are all testosterone driven men is totally inaccurate.
Saying they hijacked or endangered the peaceful march is totally inaccurate.
Saying they stole all the media's attention is totally inaccurate.
Saying they gave the police an excuse to attack people is totally inaccurate.
Now, if you want to critically debate the merits of this particular BB action go ahead. I'll be the first to say it didn't accomplish much of anything as far as movement building goes. It really just ended up being an isolated incident in most ways. Probably the only reason it happened was because the police let it. But, condemnation of activists who smash windows and set cop cars on fire is unwarranted and treasonous. Personally, and I know I'm not alone on this, I was elated to see cop cars burning in the streets of Toronto. Even if at least two of them were not set ablaze by activists of any sort, but by bystanders. More and more people (especially after this demo) are aware of what the state/police are really about and they too will be happy to see cop cars burning one day. As I said before, because of raising the social costs of having such a summit ie. the property damage done, they will never hold another summit here again.
If I can get an average apolitical person to understand why people would want to attack property in the financial and commercial districts of Toronto, certainly people on the left can get it. You don't have to condone it, or agree with it. just critically analyse it. It was a minor riot against the financial and commercial districts "in the belly of the beast" so to speak. Even the average person understands that our consumer lifestyle is based on exploitation and is killing the planet. In the words of one apolitical fellow I spoke with, "Just seeing those images of the oil spill in the Gulf is enough to make me want to smash something."
Anyways, I believe that both nonviolent and not- so -nonviolent methods of protesting are needed, if not for anything but for maintaining people's own sanity in this messed up world. I respect people's right to nonviolent protest, and as someone who considers himself what would be an average person who might participate in BB tactics, I know I'm not alone.
Thanks for that contribution.
But from a purely tactical point of view, I think we can see that the mix and match form of demonstration is really not working to our advantage because it allows to many opportunities for divisions. This is what you examples tell me.
To me, the main problems I see in the G20 videos is rampant disorganization, random sit down protests, and individual protestors getting plucked from the crowd. Kettling is another issue, and in order to prevent all these things there needs to be more authorative marshalling, with a clearly designated front line, and clear instructions as to how to handle these situations. Big mistake hanging outside the Novotel Hotel, waiting for the cops to get everything together to close in the group. We can't have people running all over the plase doing random demos and getting kettled, and then detained.
We need to stick to a larger mass, and be more cohesive in the tactics used.
If certain persons want to engage in direct action then they should do so as part of a completely seperate activity, not get it mixed up with everything else. What we are doing now is just causing confusion, and worse, serious dissension.
So, the Greek protestors in Black Bloc garb who threw a firebomb into a bank and killed 3 people weren't hurting anybody?
I realize that no Canadian Black Bloc protestors have done anything similar. The problem is that they are proudly wearing the uniform of the people who committed this act of murder, a uniform that conceals their identity and thereby has a disinhibiting and deindividuating effect on its wearers. Furthermore, consider the cheers of Black Bloc supporters when David Eby asked, during the Olympics, whether respect for "diversity of tactics" would require that the larger social justice movement endorse hypothetical actions such as burning down the Hudson Bay store and killing corporate executives. Finally, please note that people showed up in Black Bloc garb at an event that the organizers explicitly stated was to be free of Black Bloc tactics, and that in Toronto the police gave free reign to the Black Bloc as they intimidated other protestors and vandalized small businesses, preferring instead to hunt down innumerable unmasked protestors and bystanders.
So, the Black Bloc uniform has been associated with political murder in Greece; supporters of the Black Bloc in Vancouver have cheered suggestions for political murder in Canada; people in Black Bloc uniforms have refused to show solidarity with the organizers of a rally demanding a public inquiry into police brutality at the G20; and the police have very clearly used the Black Bloc to garner public support for wanton attacks on undisguised protestors. Can you not see the incipient authoritarianism here, or the ease with which the tactic is co-opted by the police state?
The right and the left are terms used to describe a set of mind. Our brains are wired to one or the other. These diferences in the way people think have always existed. There were right and left minded people among ancient civilizations and I'm sure as long as humans have existed, we just don't have documentation on those. They were called different names and now we call them right and left. It's basically the tendency of some people to think of themselves first and foremost and the tendency of other people to think more of the whole.
See, I find these all a bit of a stretch to blame on people dressing in black. I hadn't heard of the political murders in Greece and I doubt it's on the mind of any Canadians dressing in black when going to a demonstration. It may alarm you but I don't see how it's relevant to Canadian politics, since it's from a completely different situation where people of many political persuasions, unfortunately, participate in political violence.
As for your second point, I don't know what you're referring to, is it the one in vancouver which explicitly barred "black bloc" people from attending and involved the vancouver police? Considering that I went to another demonstration last week which was in solidarity with the persecution of the black bloc, and which had no mainstream support or solidarity from other organizations, I fail to see the "fascism" here. What we have are different segments of the same movement that are not getting along well, true, but nothing more than that. Of all the anarchists I know here in BC and back in Ontario and Quebec, many reject the idea of a public inquiry, true. But I believe that this is due to mistrust in the impartiality of such an inquiry, concerns that I personally don't share. This cynicism is hardly fascist or dangerous to others, is it?
As for your point about the hypothetical situation involving the murder of executives, I hadn't heard of that one either. Again, people say all kinds of dumb things, especially activists given to extremism of the kind of might participate in the BB. I don't see that as an ideological part of BB groups--"kill executives when we can"--so why are you bringing it up? Are you suggesting that it will become a reality eventually, that some are beginning to hint at it only to do it for real later on? I find this very unlikely, knowing the anarchist milieu in Canada..
No, I don't see authoritarianism. I see independance -- I'm not trying to glorify this, just to be descriptive--from other parts of a movement, which is not a healthy sign. But to try and confuse authoritarians and anti-authoritarians, to make anarchists into fascists because they broke a few windows strikes me as intentional misrepresentation, and quite frankly a very liberal position to take, not a leftist one.
The thing about authoritarianism is that its perpetrators rarely see themselves as authoritarians: authoritarianism thrives in the compartmentalization of the mind, in the division of the world between a righteous "us" and a demonic "them", and in the deindividuating and disinhibiting effects of such strategies as wearing uniforms and masks. It doesn't surprise me that you were unaware of one of the most significant and tragic events in the European history of Black Bloc strategies, or that you were unaware of the thuggish machismo expressed by Black Bloc supporters during David Eby's public statement. Were you at least aware that during the same event a Black Block supporter threw a pie into Chris Shaw's face? Defining oneself as "anti-authoritarian" and "anarchist" is like defining oneself as a "God-fearing Christian": it's a label that can all-too-easily be used to defend oneself against unwelcome self-awareness, a filter preventing cognitive dissonance from traversing the distance between our actions and their ethical significance.
This isn't about "wearing black" (or, in the case of the Black Bloc contingent at yesterday's protest, pink): I wear black often. I don't, however, wear black like a uniform, which is what people using Black Bloc tactics are doing. I understand that uniforms and masks are, when worn during political events, psychologically dangerous. I also understand that wearing a uniform associates me with the larger movement defined by the uniform: you can't wear a uniform associated with political murder and vandalism and expect people to see it as a simple fashion choice.
And this is the problem: supporters of Black Bloc tactics don't seem to understand the ethical significance or the public perception of their uniform. When confronted with the unsavoury history of the uniform, they resort to typical fundamentalist binary reasoning to defend themselves from criticism: they condemn their critics to the apostate category of "liberal", reserving for themselves the ideologically pristine domain of "leftist".
The supporters of the Black Bloc don't seem to recognize the way that authoritarianism develops. It isn't born fully-formed: it develops over time as reprehensible actions by members of a group are justified or minimized by the group in order to minimize cognitive dissonance and unpleasant self-scrutiny. It's a progressive cycle involving disinhibition and deindividuation, celebration of those who transgress normative boundaries in the name of ideological purity, villification of those unwilling to engage in this celebration, escalating acts of vandalism and violence, rationalization and minimization of these acts, and the gradual transformation of one's self-image to accommodate the violence and vandalism. It doesn't matter that "killing CEOs" isn't an explicit part of the consciously-held ideology: the real ideology evolves on a subterranean level, beneath the protective layers of self-deception in the realm of unfolding history.
The same dynamic is occurring with the police: their real ideology is being formed by their actions as they cross one normative boundary after another, aided by the disinhibiting and deindividuating effects of their numbers and uniforms and by their apparent lack of accountability to anyone but themselves. The police don't need the Black Bloc to follow the trajectory of this ethical degeneration, but the Black Bloc certainly helps it along. At the protest yesterday--the protest that, again, was explicitly supposed to be free of Black Bloc tactics--Black Bloc supporters joined the march and chanted "Fuck the police". By doing so, they made it easier for the police, their supporters, and the MSM observing the event to define all the protesters as a demonized "other", to dismiss our grievances, and to make it easier to justify smashing our heads at the next major event.
This, I fear, would suit the Black Bloc supporters just fine, as it plays into their manichean and rather apocalyptic narrative: the goal is to provoke the police into abandoning all restraint in order to clarify the division between the virtuous in-group and the monstrous out-group and, supposedly, to force every other protestor to choose sides. This is what they meant when, in their communique during the Olympics, they said, paraphrasing the Borg, "Whoever you are, one day you will join us." (You can find that communique here: http://mostlywater.org/defense_black_bloc_communique_olympic_resisters )
The dynamics playing themselves out here are every bit as psychological as they are political. To clarify the psychological dynamics involved, I strongly, strongly recommend the works of Robert Jay Lifton (eg., Destroying the World to Save It) and Philip Zimbardo (eg, The Lucifer Effect).
Michael. Please. Why glorify them as "authoritarian"? They are adventurers and saboteurs. The movement must deal with them (and happily is already dealing with them, after the disgrace of Toronto) in order to advance.
By the way, I'm sick and tired of hearing about vandals who are described as "working in food banks" in between protests. Is this for real?? Is that what activists do? It sounds like Miss America contestants saying, "I'm not just gorgeous, I'm trying to end hunger and war."
How strange is it to find people starting a discussion with the call for closure? To tell me to 'STFU' never satisfies, it provokes response; I believe in asking questions.
My lovely daughter is a first attendant at emergency sites. She spends a lot of her life volunteering. I've repeatedly quiried her as to whether she is scabbing. She, unlike me, likes to have cops around; they're like fork-lifts, when some belligerant drunk needs to lie down, they can arrange it. I can not leave without mentioning the best police force of the metis which ruled the Winnipeg area until their leader was cut down by banks in Toronto. We all need cops, even anarchists. It's about what you need these people to do and who controls them.
This weekend of brutality had much more effect on our servants than on the rental BB. Everybody got paid and the game changed channels.
Polunitic and Unionist, I will remember, tell me to STFU will you?
In case you didn't understand (well, let's be honest - you didn't understand), part 1 of this thread was opened by some slanderous provocateur who joined babble to say that "I heard about certain members of babble snitching to the cops".
Because you were entirely absent from that thread, you may not have been aware (sorry, you obviously were not the slightest bit aware) of what that character was doing. Why don't you review the 120 posts in question:
http://rabble.ca/babble/national-news/members-rabbleca-snitch-black-bloc...
So, you see, friend, Polunatic2 and I were not interested in shutting you up. We were more interested in stopping liars from inventing libellous stories about our community and then crawling back into their holes.
Your comments, at least from my viewpoint, are more than welcome.
Oh, and by the way, as you may have noticed, even if one thread is closed, you can always open another one.
Just what you will remember is still an open question.
Thanks,
It's hard walking into a fire fight, but my comments still stand. I'm sure that your memory and mine will be different. Please let us find some common ground to work from.
I'm ok with BBers being called adventurers in the negative sense of the word, or even vandals.
Not fascists, thugs, etc. That's just hyperbole and misrepresentation.
If you don't consider them your fellow activists anymore, that's your hangup, but I don't see it as any different than anarchists or trotskyists calling labour activsts or NDPers "Sellouts" "capitalists" or whatever. It's just pointless bickering when we should be reserving our hostility for the police and governemnt, who might I remind you were still the only ones to have hurt anyone at the g20.
I don't think we should reserve our hostility to certain entities. We should be fair and direct our "hostility" to whoever desrved it through their actions.
I'd like to think that we are not at war with our government or police service but in a struggle to improve them where needed. And since we are the ones who elect our government we should direct our energy toward electing somebody better rather than waste it on hostility.
And by the way, the BB'ers hurt the cause of the organizations that organized the G20 protest by crashing their party and also hurt local Toronto businesses their their acts of vandalism.
Cruisin'Turtle, you are such a troll.
I think there is broad consensus on the most basic definition in theory-- I am referring to an in-practice definition that requires some idea of the boundaries of what is right and left as there are continuums. The border of what is left or right needs to be agreed on before we can decide who we include as left or right. the greatest Canadian example is that the Conservatives consider the Liberals as left while the NDP consider them at best centre and more often to the right.
Huh?
Or we keep attacking on the same line of defence that is most heavily defended and that we need to ignore where they defend themselves best and identify a weaker area and less predictable tactic than the ones that stopped working -- at least for this particular event (G8/G20 protests).
What Harper knows that I do not is that we must keep doing the same failed moves we always have, those moves that they invest heavily in disrupting and neutralizing. I don't know that. I still think we could put all that energy in trying to go around the power of the state rather than sitting in front of it being creamed by it.
Essentially, I think you and I are closer than we appear-- the main differnece is that I don't think that these demonstrations against the G8/20 have been that effective and therefore we can afford, without losing much, to spend our resources doing some different things that at worst could only be as ineffective as these were. Now you might think that much has been achieved and therefore we can't let go of this as a tactic. That would create a difference of opinion -- but you really do not need to be as rude as you have been in this thread about it as it is a legitimate difference of opinion that is worth discussing rather than lampooning.
I am open to being proven wrong in a discussion but from the start in this thread you have used language designed to alienate and drive me from the discussion rather than engage and prove an alternate point of view. I don't think that serves either you or your point of view as effectively as if you simply explain why these street protests are both so effective and so essential requiring organized support from Labour and other (at the moment) anti-government organizations.
I suspect that our conversation could be more instructive for ourselves and for others if it were a little less insulting in tone. Now I can respect where you are coming from and debate you without implying that you kow nothing about what you are talking about -- can you do the same for me so we can continue a worthwhile discussion or is this just going to be tit for tat insults and implications such that the topic remains semi-derailed?
As for the BB-- I would not call them facsist thugs, especially as we have had another thread point out that even our government which used police in an extremely anti-democratic way themselves are not fascist.
I still stand behind the fact that I cannot respect the BB for crashing an event using tactics the organizers of the event opposed. That is about respect. I can agree to disagree on tactics with the BB when they keep their show separate from one it is incompatible with. Otherwise they are imposing their tactic on a wider group much larger than they are and that is certainly not respectful or worthy of respect.
Dear Sean in Ottawa
Read the post, get back to me.
Earnest
Huh? The BB didn't crash the event. They left the event, and the police had precise knowledge of where they were going, and knowledge of the kind of activities they were going to be engaged in. In fact the BB did not engage in any direct action at the main events at all. It was the police who chose to ignore them, and it was the police that used their activities as a pretext to attack everyone else.
All this discussion is just adding tinder to the fire of misinformation, and aiding the police in framing the issue of peaceful labour demonstrations being the catalyst for violent activity using the logic of collective punishment. The labour movement and the left in general are somehow responsible for any and all activities being done by any individual or group in the city of Toronto, just because they happen to be there at the same time?
What is happening here is that the police and the authorities have successfully managed to get some people on this board to dillgently and agressively present their justifications for what they did as the "truth".
Laying the guilt for the police crack down at the foot of the BB is precisely the strategy being pursued by the authorities in order to distract from their guilt and responsibility for their own actions.
How can anyone "hog" a space that is by definition unlimited. I hope you don't drop out. The fact that I may disagree with you makes your presence here to me more useful in some respects than someone I agree with all the time. It is important to alternative view points I respect you for that.
Your comment that it had to be (obviously) police undercover officers insisting on nonviolence makes no sense to me except as an assumption that everyone thinks whomever they disagree with must be undercover cops. Indeed, many believe it is those inciting violence were teh cops not those trying to keep it peaceful.
You say that it is totally inaccurate to say that the BB hijacked a peaceful march. Please explain. Are you disputing that it was planned to be peaceful, that they made it otherwise or that doing so was not significant? It was significant to organizer, many of whom suspected that the source of the violence must be the police or state as it was so counter-productive.
I agree that there is no supported proof that all BB are cops, or that they have no purpose (even if their purpose is in opposition to that of the main body of the march). Nobody said they stole the attention of the media -- but they sure knew that their tactics would overwhelm the coverage and even direct memory of the event- so call that what you will. I did not say it gave the police an excuse but their precense provided cover for the police excuse. There is a distinction that is not all that subtle. I was clear in fact that the police actions were not excusable.
Why? If what they did compromised a tactic (peaceful protest) that the majority there wanted preserved, why should we not be allowed to condemn it?
I was not eleated because I recognized that the police cars bruning was more in the interest of the state , the G20 and the police than it was in the interest of the protesters.
Just because you can get some people to agree does not make it right -- nor does it follow that you should therefore be able to get any other person to agree.
But do stick around-- it is better to discuss than not to engage.
Hi, my writing Huh-- was to mean -- I can't hear you-- in other words I can't see your point. Your link for some reason just brought me to my page not to a post that would explain. Cruisin' turtle may disagree with you but that is not definition of a troll. I have read enough of CT posts to be confident this is not a troll. Anyway, I think that "troll" is a strong accusation and should not be presented just like that-- it needs at least a reason to be presented.
And, I think it is important to remember that some things may offend us, some things may even be unfair, but that does not make the poster a troll. A troll, I think, is someone pretending to be or hold opinions they do not have just to provoke others and have no interest in the topic at a substantive level. I have seen nothing that explains how anyone could conclude CT falls in that category. I just think it is fair to explain when making that insult which is the worst you can make to another poster.
Indeed, I have found myself most upset with people who are not trolls here who I felt went over the line but did indeed do it with sincerity if not with civility and fairness. I have seen nothing to assume CT is insincere. Anyway please explain.
I see the motion failed.
Cueball are you saying the BB did not go in to crowds who were protesting peacefully? There is enough photographic evidence to prove otherwise.
I have never excused any of the police behaviour due to BB behaviour. I am sure you can read more carefully than that.
Others have and predictably so and that is why organizers have asked that they do not enter otherwise peaceful protests because predictably claims of justification will be found there.
There is no point pretending that I made this up-- organizers of peaceful protests for decades ask those who want to be violent to stay away for this reason -- I did not invent it.
I guess that we union movement types are bad. If we have a picket line - or a demonstration - and some participant (sober or otherwise) tries to burn something or smash something or do violence to someone, we neutralize them - using whatever means are necessary, but no more. We do not allow diversity. We stand squarely against freedom. We debate everything - before we march - and once we march, watch out baby. That includes the cops.
But carry on debating whether juvenile assholes (or police agents) burning cars and smashing windows will help bring on the revolution. Maybe they'll capture the imagination of some desperate lonely souls somewhere. Workers, in my humble opinion, will shake their heads and call them by their proper name. Assholes.
It ought to be enough when the organizers of an event say they expect it to be peaceful and ask that everyone attending follow that request. That is, in my view where the organizer's responsibility stops. I have never heard of a union event where the organizers did not make this request-- and they do it in part to preserve the integrity of the protest but much more to protect their members who are in attendance. I have attended a number of union events and have never found any of them to be responsible for violence and I have never found them condone or approve of it. And that does not mean they have run out of ways to get a point across.
I get the sarcasm Unionist but I hope everyone reads your irony. Unions are by nature inclusionist which is why they want to create events that you can bring your family to.
They tend to resent and yes, Cueball and others, they condemn those who hijack those events to try to turn them in to the appearance of a violent mob.
Frankly if the opposition to the government is best expressed in rock throwing BB members and the like, political parties that only sometimes deliver on their principles, frequently checking them at the door for momentary expediency, I am with the third group, organized Labour which frankly rarely is inconsistent, always is inclusive and always can be counted on to stand up for what is fair, just and democratic. It is a damn shame that Labour in this country does not have the respect it deserves because often it is the only thing between a nasty government and a population that lacks any other coherent means to offer an alternative.
Another point worth considering -- Labour in this country does not just stand up for the immediate needs of workers-- they also have excellent track records on pensions and old age security, workers rights and minimum wage for non-unionized workers, medicare and a wide range of social policy not directly related to working. Indeed, unions understand and accept their responsibility as the only powerful- non-establishment, non capitalist force in the country.
Even if it is perhaps not the most appropriate place to say this, I'm damn proud to be a member of a union and what that union does in our wider society.
Thank you, Lachine Scot!
The BB'ers, whether they are misguided souls, police agents or just mayhem lovers, serve the interest of the police by devaluing the work of activists fighting for social justice.
I'd like to see Black Blocers for once crash a rally organized by right wing forces. You'll never see it because if they try the police will immediately arrest them.