PERSONAL:
HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:
The time of greatest activity is often the best time to stop and take stock. In terms of anarchism the term is getting more press in the last few days than it has had in perhaps the last ten years. Yes, even including the coverage of the Vancouver Olympics. Whether this publicity is positive or not I will leave to my readers' opinions. This blog has always attempted to be one that presents anarchism to 'non-anarchists'. An ordinary person does not just not "speak" like the average anarchist, educated in social science faculties as the anarchists are, but they don't share the shibboleths that define much of North American anarchism today. The author of this blog has, mercifully, escaped such "education", and has always tried to present the essential ideas of anarchism that lay behind "fashion" academic or otherwise.
My present coverage of the events around the G20 Summit in Toronto should be seen in this context. Yes, it is an important news story, but what does it have to do with the everyday life of the ordinary person ? The answer is pretty obvious. Very little at best. At best there is the fact that international agreements will affect the life of the average person. On the other hand protests against them will not.
I have blogged recently about the Casino Regina strike in Saskatchewan. When you include the dependents of the striking employees there you have about the same number of people who a1re pretending to fight the cops in downtown Toronto.
Yes, militant demonstrations, however ill advised their tactics may be, are important. What is more important, however, are the actions of ordinary people who don't subscribe to an ideological position. As somebody who has been an anarchist for almost 40 years I can attest that the anarchist movement in North America at least is often prey to foolish fashion, and that the ordinary person should not take one incident and the rhetoric that accompanies it as representative of what "anarchism means"
Personally I have no truck with any of the petty vandalism that has occurred in Toronto, and I emphasize that it is just that....petty vandalism. It is not the great terrorism that both the police and the supporters of these actions make it out to be. In the end it is absurd and hardly justifies the 900 million spent on security for the meeting of the G20.
I repeat my question to the average Canadian. Do you think that your work and the taxes that you have paid for this work has got "good value" for the street fight in Toronto ie 1 billion dollars worth ? Could the "anarchists" be at least a little bit right ?
But obviously I have strayed from "Molly's Blog', So I'll have to bore you with those details later.
3 comments:
Looking at the Media Coop and Real News videos it seems the B Bloc aspect is a very small part of what is going on. The cops seem to be targeting peaceful protesters and journalists. The fact that 600 people have been arrested immediately made me suspicious. No way there are 600 B blockers! There weren't more than 30 at the anti-olympic event in Vancouver. If there were a hundred at the G8-20 I would be surprised.
Further reading (Huffington Post and Media Coop)shows that the burning police cars thing was a set up. I thought it odd that the cops who are so good at terrorizing the populace couldn't surround and defend their cars. Well, they deliberately abandoned them as bait for the Blockers, stripping them first of any equipment. They then sat back let the blocker trash the windows and then burn the cars giving them and excuse to attack all the protesters. One reason for this action was made clear by Harper who said "I think it goes a long way to explaining why we have the kind of security costs around these summits that we do". He needed this kind of thing to rationalize the expenditure.
Actually i wonder if it is possible that:
1)NO people who were rioting were arrested during the riot and
2)NONE of the people arrested had anything to do with the riot.
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