how not to do it

[davemerrill]

Riot police detain hundreds of people in pouring rain for four hours at Queen & Spadina - just let the last of them go minutes ago. Not protestors, not rioters, just passersby. Way to go, Integrated Security Unit. You just made the next demonstration one hundred times larger. If we had gone out today to take pictures, that might have been us standing in the rain for 4 hours.

Comments

[footyfoot.livejournal.com]

I think at some point, a sort of 'global summit island' or 'universal summit district' will need to be set up if this whole global thing is to continue. The whole circus of 'invade a different city every couple of years to have a meeting, attract every angry person in the world to it, then close off most of that city at great expense to try and keep them away from the meeting' has to stop at some point. I think that the Swiss should be forced to host everything from now on, since they claim to be so neutral :P

[frustratedpilot]

From what I heard the plan was to go to some mountain lodging town for this summit, but the event outgrew that venue. I'm sure there some Pacific Island nations who would jump at the chance of hosting all those dignataries, but can't because they lack the infrastructure to handle everybody involved.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

The G-8 was held in Muskoka, which is a resort cottage town a couple hours north of here, a pleasant enough place, but deemed not large enough for the G-20.

My feeling is that they should just hold these things in Bermuda. A pleasant island with a calm and non-excitable population, devoid of strategic importance.

[frustratedpilot]

I hope to write a live-action feature movie, and one of the scenes I want for this movie is an urban protest-turns-riot sequence. If you feel like sharing some further perspective on your experiences, please, let me know. :)

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Might I suggest that if having a group of people sit around and talk about things they've ALREADY decided between themselves requires 'infrastructure to support the conference', um.....

I think we called it the U.N., didn't we?

*ahem* anyway, don't they realize, in this day and age of portable video and instant communication to a broad receptive public, what an utter sham that makes this nonsense?

Also, don't they realize it's basically the same group of people following them around and protesting? So DO something about those people, you secret ruling cabal!

Or is it all a distraction? The conference comforts those people who think something is being done about something, while the allowed protest (which never really gets out of hand. I mean, Toronto could be completely on fire if those protesters actually were as riled up as people in the '60s were.) comforts those who want to 'rebel' and 'stick it to the man'?

It's all a show man, all of it. It's all theater for the masses.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

The mayor of Mississauga suggested videoconferencing. But no, Stephen "Big Baby" Harper demanded that Toronto host the G20. I don't see him out there shivering in the rain under threat of arrest.

[(Anonymous)]

So let me get this straight--they let the violent protests happen relatively unimpeded the other day, then they "clamp down" by going after peaceful protestors and casual passers-by? Of course, if this was what the anarchists hoped they would do--that is, go after peaceful assembly to show their authority--their actions might actually make a bit more political sense than merely smashing shop windows that, after all, could have been smashed any time, not just during the summit. Whatever the bill is for the anarchists' damage, my guess is it's somewhere far south of $900 million.

--Carl

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

This is actually sort of normal for Toronto police-- why go after the people doing the damage, who after all are violent and scary, when you can go after people who are just innocently wandering around the city, who are probably not the slightest bit dangerous or scary? They're lazy as hell and always go after the "easy" targets rather than people who may pose a threat to them.

There were police present during at least some of the cop car burnings; one person pointed out that not only were they present, but they had water cannons (presumably intended for crowd control). Yet they allowed the cars to burn for hours, so the media could get plenty of pictures of the burning cop cars, thus turning public sentiment against the protesters and towards the police. Which might've worked, had they not totally screwed the pooch the next day, by not only detaining and arresting innocent bystanders, but members of the press as well. The difference in TV coverage of the protests from Saturday to Sunday is kind of hilarious.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

See, this is the sort of thing that makes it all seem some cosmic joke, like there's an agreement between the 'sides' in this.

Such as you don't see pics of the REALLY SCARY looking riot cops on mass media TV. Not the regular cops turned out with shields, I mean the pros, clad head to toe in black, gas masks on, armor padding all over, looking like a cross between stormtroopers and the cops from THX 1138.

Maybe they're not at Toronto but they sure were at the last summit. brrrr.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

The scary riot cops with the helmets, gas masks, shields, batons, armor, etc., were all over the mass media TV here.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen them here. Now, you know what I mean, right? I'm talking the guys who look they they should have 'eye in the pyramid' patches and 'one world order' stitched across their backs. Not just cops in deep navy blue or black BDUs with the helmets and shields. The kind of tactical gear that gives Shirow a stiffie.

Not a single pic of those dudes in the American news, not even Fox. They're all in on it.

*ahem* I need to reline the tinfoil beanie now... :)

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

You might want to add an extra layer of Reynolds Wrap to your headgear, yeah. Or at least throw in a "I haven't seen" or a "to my knowledge," that might take some of the edge off.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm just saying. Maybe they're Euro-centric. I saw pics from...oh lordly, was it the '09 or even the '08 conference...hell, might have been one of the G8 ones, not the G20. Since I generally fail at the Google, I can't point you to the pics.

And why the hell are there G8 and G20 summits, huh? Like I said, isn't this, the issues supposedly under discussion, why the U.N. was created? Yeesh!

Ya know what I need? Donuts. I really need some donuts. I've been 'off' donuts for some time, as I can't go to the Dunkin' on a whim. Donuts. That'll solve everything. Maybe tomorrow I take the bus to Meijers and use my food stamps and buy some donuts.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I can't point you to the pics.

You can't point me to the pictures of the riot police that you're saying the media isn't showing pictures of? Sounds to me like you're trying to prove a negative. Still, here's five minutes search worth of pix.

These are from CNN and MSNBC and I'm trying to stick to the UK and North America, pix of Chinese, South Korean, Iranian, Georgian, Greek riot-control officers are a dime a dozen. The last one is a slideshow.

http://tinyurl.com/24pz2wp

http://tinyurl.com/29hq84a

http://tinyurl.com/2532g97

The Google trick is to add "site:msn.com" or "site:foxnews.com" to your search, that narrows it down to particular domains. You can spend all day long looking at scary police images from prisonplanet.com or infowars.com, shivering in glee waiting for the black helicopters to come for us.

Everybody knows any police department of any size has scary, high-tech riot control and SWAT gear. Even Smyrna GA has a SWAT team. Why, I don't know, other than to say that nobody ever votes down funding increases for the police department.

So, yeah, the mass media is... not hiding images of riot police.