Why Anarchists Annoy Me: The Black Bloc and Police Partnership at the G20

While the whole truth about the confusing circumstances that surrounded the police crackdown at the G20 in Toronto on the weekend of June 26/27 will likely never be unravelled without a serious public inquiry, enough evidence has emerged for me to draw my own conclusions. What happened at the G20 was an ambush, a set-up, entrapment, a sophisticated bait and switch operation in which the anarchist elements of the protest were led to do exactly what the police wanted them to do: raise hell and give them justification (and it doesn’t take much when spin-doctors are at work) for a general crackdown on dissent.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5G7aCgXtWg&feature=player_embedded

A High School Student's Perspective on the War on Terror (Circa 2002)

(Just a recently rediscovered piece of work I turned out back in Grade 12, many years ago now).

For the average student, such as myself, locked within the confines of the education system with no hope of escape, it’s often hard to picture what is really going on in that great wide world outside the warm and fuzzy enclosed spaces we call classrooms.

To the average student (or any kid for that matter, student or no) – as in touch with the world as we are (or at least as much as the Internet developers dreamed) – the “War on Terror” proposed by some president sitting in a far away house that just so happens to be white against so fanatical terrorist zealots and their “president” who apparently blew away a couple of sizable office buildings seems almost like a video game (an analogy only someone in this digital age could come up with).

Remember those old Mortal Combat Nintendo games? Those classic pieces of video technology where the winner of the game often didn’t just take the loser’s pride but his entire head and spinal cord as well (in addition to dicing up his body, throwing it into a spike-filled pit, corroding it with acid and all manner of other spectacular means of desecrating the recently deceased)! Well, it only seems fitting – given our digital violence charged psyches – that we see this “War on Terror” as an intriguing (and suitably lethal) Mortal Combat sparring match between “Captain America” and “Angry Arab” with all the pretentious amounts of blood and gore that make it such a good show.

Canada Day False Reassurance

Only days after the mass arrests and beatings that featured in the police crackdown that surrounded the G20 Summit in Toronto, the Queen addresses cheering crowds on Canada Day with a feel-good message that all is well and that Canada is a shining example for the world – exactly what the people want to hear in these uncertain times of war and economic uncertainty and exactly why they still look to an 84 year old woman for semi-divine guidance.

Now the debacle of the G20 can be blamed on a few despicable anarchist morons, the country can go on as normal with its supposedly sacred mission in Afghanistan, its supposedly profitable tar sands showpiece oil industry, its sure to come economic austerity programs, its manipulative Prime Minister, its star hockey team, its down home celebrity singers and figure skaters and its tame gospel of multiculturalism which conveniently ignores the third world living conditions that persist not only on native reserves but in our inner cities and countryside alike – not to mention its ancient draconian anti-sabotage laws from 1939 that can be revived secretly to deal with troublesome dissenters. This was a day of Tim Hortons, monarchy, street hockey, and endless patriotic protestations of innocence by guilty politicians – the inconvenient 2000 protestors who marched in Toronto under heavy police guard were dwarfed by the 100,000 strong mass of flag waving people swarming Parliament Hill.

Too many choose to remain blind and cling to myths rather than face up to harsh realities. Stephen Harper has washed his hands clean of the G20, left any after effects for the Province of Ontario and the City of Toronto to deal with, and taken sweet refuge amid royal pageantry and tradition. The lessons of the past week are telling: There will only be justice in this land, and we will only be a truly “shining example” for the world when 100,000 people throng downtown Toronto to protest against injustice in solidarity with their fellow citizens and a mere 2,000 show up on Parliament Hill to stare at royalty.