G20 Summit

[Johann]

And they still haven't put any benches back in any parks yet. People are sitting on the grass in most parks.
G20 was over two weeks ago!
I asked a City worker who was mowing grass "where are the benches?" in Allen gardens and he said "We don't know. Many people have been asking but we have no answer.."

Thanks again, Harper! We can't even sit on a fucking park bench two weeks after your "G26 million suckers" summit.
I say again, OVER:

You're FUCKING FIRED, shithead.

[Chris Knipp]

It's not the Sixties. No summer of love in Toronto.

Why was Toronto so different than Seattle? What happened in Seattle that was so different? How was the protest organization different? Is it just a very different place? Is Toronto actually an enclave of the right, and Seattle pretty liberal overall?

[Johann]

I admit I don't know anything about the summit held in Seattle.

As for Toronto, we are a Liberal's paradise. We accept any and all immigrants. We are weed friendly. You could walk down the street with an open bottle of any liquor and swig away. 9.9 times out of ten the police won't even look at you.
The police are so uninterested in doing paperwork that if you wished, you could do lines of coke at your table at Yonge & Dundas square and not even an on-site security guard would do a single thing. (Unless 20 people complained at once).

I really hate to say it, but if you want to kill someone, do it in Toronto. It'll be years before anyone even notices, let alone that would get a police investigation. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN IN THIS CITY- remember that. There are no police here. Zero. None.
I have no faith in them whatsoever. You'd have better luck getting help from the girl working the counter at Tim Hortons.

I often say to people "There are no police in Toronto". None.
If you call the cops for something, see how long it takes them to get to your location.
I'll bet you $500 they won't even show up.
If they do, it'll be three hours later, long after your "emergency" needed tending to.
And if you ask what took them so long, you can expect "we have other calls of priority" to be the answer.

Toronto's police are smug, arrogant, and almost always have an attitude. I think they train them to be that way.
Don't even crack a joke with a Toronto cop- they'll arrest you for disturbing the peace.

Toronto is an enclave of the right? HA HA HA!
Not by ten gazillion miles!!!

We do have our Right-Wing Freaks, like all cities, but they really have no power here.
They just make their millions and shut up, unlike everywhere else where they make their millions and NEVER shut the fuck up...

[Chris Knipp]

That's very interesting. But all this repression for G20 was from above city level, wasn't it.

"Life in Toronto" sounds like a good topic for a TV series, in the style of :"Weeds."

[Johann]

It was above city level, but the Toronto police were a huge part of it.
I'd love to know what kind of directives they were handed beforehand, if any.

And I'd also like to know how many Toronto police officers were disgusted with what happened.
How many are muzzled? How many were told "the lid is on"?
The whole force? Only riot cops? What?

The Police should be #1 for expressing their outrage over what happened, I gather.
But are they?
No.
Because they were a major problem in and of themsleves! Because they were given a Billion dollars for their trouble. And it really bothers me.
There is no place for that shit in a major metropolis inthe 21st Century.
As citizens and as taxpayers and as HUMAN BEINGS we deserved way way way better than we got.
And I want heads to roll for it.
(Just like the BP spill)
but we all know that won't happen any time soon. Life is Great, isn't it?

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe we both need to see Stuart Townsend's 2007 film BATTLE IN SEATTLE. Or maybe better to see the documentary by Rustin Thompson 30 Frames a Second: The WTO in Seattle 2000

[Johann]

They should've shown it to every cop before the G20 arrived.

That's another thing I wondered about this whole thing:
Have Toronto police never in their whole lives dealt with violent protestors?
They knew that they were going to be arriving with bells on, didn't they?
How the fuck did they not know what was going to happen?
How were orders "not to engage" even on the dinnertable?
It should've been de facto, with lots of media warnings to the public, then everybody wouldn't have been so outraged.
We would've said "Yeah! nail those fuckers! smash 'em double hard with your riot batons!! Who do they think they are, coming here and destroying shit that ain't theirs??"

Hell, the whole city would hold a parade for those cops.

But no.
We hold a funeral for democracy and decency..

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know if you can really say that. YOu thinnk if the city had tried to put it about that there were going to be violent protests and vandalism the public would have wanted the police to repress them demonstrators violently? Or is there something here I'm not getting?

Let's begin by acknowledging that the task the city or the government had was not easy. But whenever there is a gathering of the rich nations, a very repressive atmosphere is established. Or they have it at some elite spa, like Gstaad or somewhere, Doha, some princedom, which is maybe better .

[Johann]

Here's a couple letters to NOW magazine, reprinted in their entirety (re: G20 fallout)


From Vanessa Brustolin (Toronto)

I am absolutely disgusted at the events which transpired in Toronto during the course of the G20 summit, as well as all levels of government's response to calls for a public inquiry (NOW, July 8-14).
As a citizen, I am outraged.
Everyone has fundamental freedoms. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.
The media's portrayal of events has been sensationalized and coloured by repeated airings and has caused most Canadians to think of protestors as nothing more than hooligans who got what they deserved.
I fear that many across the country have missed the point.


From AK Rhodes (Toronto)

We Were Lied To
Here's my two Amero's worth on the G20. We were lied to as citizens of Toronto, Ontario and Canada. Which means our government thinks that we are idiots. And remember, silence equals consent in our culture. The focus has been on the (alleged) thugs and rioters. What is not mentioned are the lies. Think of the implications: if you were detained for the G20 but not charged, you aren't officially the police responsibility in lock-up. That means officially they don't have to look after you (food and water) and they don't have to provide legal aid (denials of help and phone calls), which means that your rights were never violated in the first place because no law was broken. Something to think about.

[Chris Knipp]

if you were detained for the G20 but not charged, you aren't officially the police responsibility in lock-up

If that is the actual policy, it should be challenged in court.

[Johann]

You wouldn't believe the amount of lawsuits that have been launched in Toronto.

[Chris Knipp]

That was predicted earlier this month but details are still pending.

[Johann]

YOu thinnk if the city had tried to put it about that there were going to be violent protests and vandalism the public would have wanted the police to repress them demonstrators violently? Or is there something here I'm not getting?

No. I'm saying the outrage could be diminished. Obviously the public wouldn't want the cops to smash heads no matter what, even with warnings.

Something must be made VERY clear here: there were two distinct types of protestors:

1. Peaceful, law-abiding who had every right to protest
(even though I feel taking it to the streets for this kind of thing doesn't do jack shit for anyone. I'm down with your cause, just not down with protesting in the streets. Why? Well look at what it got you! Aircraft carriers full of grief!)

2. the Black Bloc. Those violent shitpump thugs dressed in black who did all the damage to property- including setting cop cars on fire.
They were a concentrated group, who planned what they were gonna do long before they got here.

The public should've had warnings from the authorites about the Black Bloc or just about violent protestors in general- then the business owners and citizens could've prepared for it in some way. We had no fucking warning! All we were told was "G20 is here this weekend" and we watched with our own eyes the transformation of the downtown core into a fucking ominous, oppressive FORTRESS. It interrupted more than just a nice summer.
It created a fearsome tempest that hasn't stopped since Harper left town, saying "Fuck You Toronto, Fuck You Canadians! BYE!!"

Everyone had their pants down: cops, politicians, the public, EVERYONE.
It was revolting.

[Chris Knipp]

Iheard that but I didn't know it was callled the Black Block.

So then 1. They shouldn't have had this in Toronto. But I guess somebody made a lot of money out of it.

[Johann]

Here's some editorials from today's TORONTO STAR (Tues. Aug. 24/2010):


GROWING CASE FOR G20 PROBE


Christopher Miller was charged with mischief for writing "shame on you" in charcoal on a sidewalk at police headquarters.
National Post photographer Brett Grundlock was charged with obstructing police and unlawful assembly while doing his job.
And Robert Gamble was charged with disturbing the peace after he yelled "Arrest the war criminals! Investigate 9/11!".

The Crown dropped all these charges, and more, on Monday as hundreds of people paraded through Ontario Court in the aftermath of the Group of 20 summit protests that rocked downtown Toronto on June 26 and 27, during which some vandals torched police cars and smashed shop windows.
The sheer flimsiness of some of the charges ought to embarrass the Toronto police and other forces that arrested more than 1,000 people, penning them up in wire cages for much of the weekend.

Ultimately only some 300 were charged. And while the 17 alleged ringleaders and others still have a date with the courts, prosecutors were eager to drop or "divert" charges for scores of people if they agreed to give to a charity, do community service or sign a peace bond.
This winnowing process reflects well on Ontario Court and its reluctance to criminalize dissent. But it does nothing to ease concerns about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's profound unwisdom in holding the G20 in downtown Toronto, turning it into an armed camp of empty streets.
Or Premier Dalton McGuinty's decision to grant the police enhanced powers of arrest without properly informing the public.
Or the police stategy that first let vandals run amok, then cracked down on non-violent protestors.

These are far-ranging matters of political responsibility and civil rights that only a full inquiry can properly address, not the slew of low-level probes now underway by the Toronto police, the Police Services Board, the Ontario ombudsman's office and Ontario's new Independent Civilian Review and Public Complaints Process.
Each is looking at a PIECE of the problem.

What's needed is a broad public inquiry by Ottawa or Queen's Park into this wretched chain of events, from the Prime Minister's fateful decision to turn Toronto into an armed camp, to police tactics that ranged from laissez-faire to abrupt mass arrests.
WE DESERVE A FULL ACOUNTING.


****ME, JOHANN****:

AMEN.
Let's get on it so that heads can fucking roll over it. Starting with our idiot Prime Minister's.