http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/13/pol-rcmp-watchdog-report-g8-g20-toronto-2010.html
Reading this article and the comments.
I have great difficulty in trying to understand, support or pity people who brandish the Charter of Rights in order to condone or excuse violent acts. Some ask: "Who cares about a few broken windows (when it's about me exercising my 'democratic rights' and speaking 'truth to power')?" Well, I care about the broken window, and I'm sure so does the shop owner who has to replace it, and had to watch it being broken while he worried about the contents of the shop and his livelihood. What about his rights, to own the shop and live free from the tyranny of THAT violence?
Most of the masses out there do not get a kick out of watching these protests inevitably turn violent. I know I can't help shake my head and wonder what exactly anyone thinks they are achieving by breaking into security perimeters (such as at the PLQ thing in Victoriaville) and throwing chunks of asphalt at police, and then whinging about police brutality. Quite frankly, it's become expected: police and politicians know what is coming and how it will end, and so does the public. A protest at a summit or a hockey playoff street celebration now always ends with broken windows, smoke, arrests and accusations of police brutality, and the only ones who seem to be surprised that it ends that way are the protestors who still think that these violent marches will change a politician's mind. The only thing achieved is a little pocket of chaos, which only an anarchist or a sadist can relish and enjoy.
So that old saw that goes, "If you look like X and dress like X and talk like X, don't be surprised when people/police treat you like X." Let's assume X = anarchist. And that right there is why people can't get behind you on causes that should normally attract more understanding and sympathy.
The Occupy movement is a little different for me. The Occupiers have proved themselves to be almost completely passive, and largely self-policing. Violent people in the camps and marches were often denounced and pointed out to the police. They demonstrated the only behavior I can accept as being truly peaceful and passive: they sat down a lot. They rag-dolled when being arrested. They brought attention to and started an important an important conversation on how the ultra-rich are milking consumers and governments mostly without billiard balls and hammers and broken windows.
Those who crave more public support for causes that - at their root - appeal to a wide portion of the public should stop going out into the street with people who bring billiard balls, golf balls, rocks and hammers to "peaceful" marches, and stop crying when they get arrested for walking shoulder-to-shoulder with those violent criminals. And when you throw golf balls and hammers at the police... Most people feel that you're guilty of a crime and have no problem with the police moving in to arrest you and anybody defending you. If those arrested had been sitting down weaving daisy chains, I would question the police, whom we know are necessary but can abuse their power on occasion. When things get violent and the police step in, I really don't have a problem with that. When you mop the floor, you mop both the dirty and clean bits, you can't stop and sort. If you don't want to get mopped, you stay off that floor.
Today the newsies are reporting that those morons who smoke-bombed the Montreal metro were applauded by some people in the courtroom after the hearing was adjourned. And that's how many see the anti-tuition-hike protesters: as applauders of these morons. It's become impossible to disassociate the issue form that image and idea.
You what else didn't help the dying cause? The "creativeness" the protesters thought they were demonstrating, like that underwear march. "May as well be naked if were going to have to bend over and take it," one of the marchers explained. They were being creative, they claimed. Most adults saw it as snark. And you know that thing about imagining your audience in their underwear when you're nervous about being on stage? It works because people in their underwear are not considered as serious as when they are clothed. The underwear parade worked perfectly in that sense: a lot of people in the audience did not consider serious in the least.
All this may mean that your "not-so-peaceful protest march" formula needs to be re-figured, if it can still be used to any affect at all. If the Occupiers were successful in avoiding the take-over of their events by violent chaos-seekers, then why can't students and G-whatever protesters? I've always wondered why masked people with bulging, heavy backpacks were tolerated by peaceful marchers. If the Black Block idiots are supposed to be so easy to spot, why don't protesters just sit down and point these guys out to the police, helping the police arrest them, and then keep marching? See, it's not enough to say that YOU personally and all your friends weren't violent, you have to actually denounce the violence itself and help the police get the real bad guys if you want us to support you. But if you stand between the police and the anarchists, we begin to shrug our shoulders. If you're sincere about gaining public support and convincing people about your issues, you have to find a way to reclaim your marches from these criminals, or find a new way to protest.
