Keep calm and carry on.

Having lived in and around the GTA for most of my life, I have found our city to be mostly calm. Sure, there are big street parties when Canada wins the gold in hockey, big festivals blow throw town like TIFF, NXNE, and Pride. Everything usually ends up being alright. Even when it comes to protests; students gathering in opposition tuition hikes, stoners in Queen’s Park on 420, or members of the Tamil community voicing their discontent with the government, it is for the most part peaceful. So when I see the BBC reporting that there is rioting happening in our fair city, and I can’t help but think: what the fuck?

As many people have pointed out, and many more are aware, these persons smashing store windows and setting cop cars on car are not protesters. They are something much more; delinquents. The sad thing is that they have more power than those carrying out civil, well thought out-protest. Their actions are what draw news networks like the BBC to show the spectacles that are being produces by these vandals. I have no doubt that some people involved in this so-called “Black Bloc” are intelligent people, but the sad truth is that they do not know how to behave intelligently. These establishments they are targeting do not feel the pain of broken windows. Do you know who does? Those that work in the spaces within. I read about the windows of  Tim Horton’s being smashed while customers and employees were still inside. Then this Bloc has the gall to have “medics” to make sure their own people are OK. Do they honestly think that those civilians inside give a shit what the Bloc thinks about globalization now? Not a fucking chance. There comes a point in social movements when only escalation of action will keep people interested in what is trying to be accomplished. When this escalation happens, one runs the risk of alienating those whose opinions you wish to sway. I can say, without a doubt, that the average Torontonians does not care about what the people dressed in black stand for. All they see are smashed out windows and the smoke coming from blazing cops cars with “DIE FUCKING PIG” spray painted on the side. These people have transgressed the line between civil society and hooliganism.

We live in a capitalist world. This is a fact. For many of us, the only way to make a living is to sell our labour potential to companies much larger and much richer than we are. Not everyone can produce everything they need to survive; food, shelter, water, medicine, so we need to purchase these things from others with money. Duh, right? There “protesters” must know what kind of system they are living in and what monumental change must take place for a different sort of world to emerge. This change will not happen with blood running in the streets and smoke billowing from car fires. Only through deliberate, reasoned action, will any change occur. Changes in law and regulation will stop workers from being exploited. It is a slow process and we must be patient. Otherwise all people will pay attention is how much of a nuisance your violent “methods” are. I wonder how many of this Bloc made their own shoes, or their own transport to get into downtown Toronto. I wonder how many of them produce their own food and live in a house that they themselves built with materials they procured themselves. If not, they too are benefiting from a capitalist system.

I can’t really judge from just pictures and video, but the majority of these troublemakers seem to be young people. There are two reasons for this: 1) the older people who want to live in worlds free of oppression and exploitation are ALREADY WORKING ON IT. They know that this sort of nonsense accomplishes nothing. 2) They are bored. Plain and simple. They probably loaded up their iPods with Propagandi and Pennywise [thanks MB] before heading out from their suburban homes thinking they would “fuck shit up” [thanks LM]. Do they really understand what they are “fighting” for? They are perfectly content with picking and choosing the things to be “outraged” by and showing “support” in their own immature ways, all the while using cell phones (wireless technology based on military tech, how’s that for your military-industrial complex you damn hippies?) to coordinate their efforts. These are bored, middle class kids with no outlet for their frustrations. They are privileged positions to carry out this sort of behaviour. Do you think the people who are really suffering from the effects of globalization/capitalism/neoconservativism would do the same? No, they are smarter than that and have far fewer resources at their disposal.

One thing I didn’t like on the part of the Toronto Police was a clip from CP24 I saw on the globeandmail.com. It was of an older man holding two signs (I couldn’t read what they said), being tackled by three officers. Surely that was unnecessary violence.

Ugh, what else could we expect?