Now For The Other Side Of G20 Mayhem

Yesterday, I gave my verbal smackdown upon the thugs and psychopaths that masqueraded as protesters in Toronto on Saturday. My biggest issue was that I likely agreed with what they claimed their message was, but I was completely opposed to how they decided to execute their message. They may have claimed they were demonstrating their protest against Harper's seemingly constant decisions to diminish freedoms and democracy which accumulated recently with mandates passed for G20/G8, but instead, it screamed, 'I am 30 years old and I really need a babysitter!' But the fact is, there was peaceful protesters present in Toronto, and they did try to convey their message in a much more effective way.



Now, of course that video is a lot less sexy, even if you dress it in some lacy, black number. The fact is there was groups who recognized the value of demonstrating and protesting in a civil and peaceful way -- surprisingly enough, they didn't come off as Neanderthals or raging lunatics. It is unfortunate, the other maniac group completely overshadowed the work done by these folks.

The other big issue coming out of this weekend is the behaviour of the police towards some of the peaceful protesters. I'm sure anyone who has been following the events in Toronto to any small degree has heard about the mass amount of protesters arrested and the claims that the cops have been illegally enforcing their authority. Of course, you need to remember the tense situation that has been created due to the Black bloc thugs' redecorating of Toronto on Saturday, thus the cops are justifiably going to be on the edge. Though the arrest of people without any cause, or the attack of peaceful protesters is uncalled for. Of course, the argument would be this isn't happening, but rather distortion of facts and video, and instead, it is the criminals and violent protesters who are being rounded up. I do believe that even if it is happening, that a lot of it is being commanded by an authority that are a lot higher than the police officers, and it is just a matter of them following orders. Needless, to say, it appears we have a mess going on in Toronto, and many sides are not coming out of it looking too exemplar. It is one of those situations where blame can be thrown in quite a few directions, and was initially made pretty bad by edicts originally passed by the government.

Here is a video that makes you question exactly what type of authority the police are trying to push. Of course, it should be made clear that this is a 30 second video that not only lacks context, but is likely missing out some key triggers prior to this incident. It definitely makes you question what exactly is going on in Toronto, and are the peaceful protesters really getting their lawful right to protest.



Of course, I can blather on and on about this, but I am just an armchair quarterback who is enjoying the comfort of his office, which is over an hour car ride away from the events. I am not there, thus only see what the media and Youtube videos are allowing me. As I stated before, these videos often lack the context and are framed to show a certain view. This is why I believe this article by Steve Paikin is definitely worth a read, and it paints a story that is very disturbing.

In the end, I believe we have a really ugly situation on our hands. A situation that was partly created by the decision to have the G20 Summit in a heavily populated city, and a government that felt it needed to restrict some liberties and freedoms from the populace (though only temporarily). Then things were escalated because some thugs felt they needed to demonstrate their frustrations and message in the most asshated and destructive way possible. I really think that was probably the major catalyst for the possible overly stringent and aggressive tactics performed by some members of the police force. No matter what, this is a rather large black eye that will be hard to remove from the history of Toronto.