As could be predicted, $1Billion did not prevent chaos in Toronto and far too many INNOCENT PROTESTERS have been mistreated and thrown into deplorable imprisonment conditions. On the other hand, it can’t be denied that a number of SCUMBAG CRIMINALS ruined it for everyone and deserve to have their heads cracked, thrown in jail, and forced to pay for all of the damage they’ve caused.
Unfortunately, the average person cannot think beyond “black and white” and will thus look at only part of this travesty. For instance, today, two people (one was part of a volunteer student lawyer group) were speaking about the unfair treatment of innocent protesters. I’m glad someone is sticking up for them. However, when the media asked these two about the CRIMINALS/VANDALS who were lurking among them, they totally ignored and minimized these concerns. Such one-sided presentation of information is not helpful at all.
In the end, $1Billion was wasted, millions of dollars of damage was done, many innocent protesters were abused, a number of scumbag animals (please don’t call them “anarchists”) got away with disgusting crimes, and nothing tangible or productive will ever develop out of this idiotic photo shoot called the G8/G20. Thank you Stephen Harper. Thank you world leaders for never having heard of SKYPE…
Where did that $1 Million come from? Who’s going to pay for all the damage done?
I think that perhaps we ought to hold all three levels of gov’t accountable for this crap. Get rid of Harper, McSquinty and Miller. There’s no excuse for making taxpayers pay for these junkets.
I have to leave my two cents on this, i’m sorry. I watched in horror as everything it meant to be Canadian was torn apart and mutilated by two bit politicians unfit to scratch my testicles should the need arise. For three hours I watched as people sat in the rain after being cordoned off and unlawfully detained for no reason, until people were literally crying from lack of food, water or medical supplies while they suffered panic attacks and were threatened with arrest for charges that were never read out to him. I thought being Canadian meant that you could walk down the street and not have to worry about being arrested for something that you had nothing to do with. This is the biggest heap of bullshit i’ve ever heard from a government in my life.
It’s one sided and minimized BECAUSE of the fact that it IS MINIMAL. The LA FANS caused more damage in Los Angeles when the Lakers won the NBA championship a few weeks ago. This is a “riot”? People in this city need to get over their own cojones and understand that they’re not special, and that they need to stop being such ignorant dickheads. Every major protest in the world has a body count, yet we’re such pussies that we’re calling this a “major full on riot” when not a SINGLE POLICE OFFICER was taken off the line from injuries. Our own torontonians were thrown in cages, locked down without food or water, for over 20 hours and then randomly released for no reason. If you’re going to lock someone away for 20 hours in a cage bolted to the floor, you better have a fucking good reason for doing so. I’d rather be locked away for 20 hours and be charged with something that I did, rather than just be let go and making all the things that they went through absolutely useless.
The truth is, the peaceful protesters, regardless of how innocent their intentions may have been, acted as a diversion towards the police/security from those who posed an actual threat. Their presence gave the real criminals an opportunity to strike and get away scot-free.
What was the police supposed to do, hand out milk and cookies?
People knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty sight, yet they decided to take part in it. You can’t jump inside a fire and then complain about getting burnt.
It is unfortunate how this situation was handled, but there really isn’t a professional way to handle something like this.
They were given a billion dollars, months of planning, and hundreds of police forces. But they couldn’t stop a few hooligans from setting fire to a few cars, breaking a few windows and spraying some graffiti. I refuse to believe that you’ve done any research on the topic at all, and you’re just buying into the bullshit that the government has been saying about “trying their best.”
Point 1) They had MONTHS and MILLIONS of dollars of planning and resources. You’re telling me that this is the best that they could do? In that case, that’s just another reason why Blair should resign – he obviously couldn’t handle the pressure when he needed to.
Point 2) People knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but they didn’t know that they were about to become part of one of the biggest human rights violations ever seen in this country’s history and, definitely in Toronto’s history.
Point 3) There is video footage of over 20 cops at a time, standing around and watching them jump on the cars and set fire to them, along with breaking the windows and spraying graffiti everywhere. Watch the footage – one person breaking the window, while everyone else backs away from that one person and takes pictures. and tries to get away from him or her. You’re telling me, that when the crowd THEMSELVES are making a 20 foot radius from the person, the person is by themselves, breaking a window and 20 cops are standing not 30 feet from the person, that two of those 20 cops couldn’t take down this one snotnosed brat? That, is the biggest, most smelliest pile of bullshit that I’ve ever heard from our poor excuse of a government. What safety concerns? What can anyone say to allow that? It’s not like they didn’t have the means or the force available to take down the Black Bloc while they were doing the disgusting vandalism on Saturday – they surely showed that they COULD on Sunday, albeit with INNOCENT PEOPLE.
Point 4) We are now the laughing stock of the whole world. You want to know why? We got one billion dollars in spending money. We had more cops than protesters. We had enough riot cops to occupy downtown Toronto and put the whole fucking city into lockdown.
But we couldn’t stop a bunch of limp dicked, fucking moron hooligans, not even more than 50 in number, probably around 25 in number, from breaking some windows and setting some squad cars on fire.
How the fuck, would we have stopped an ACTUAL ATTACK? We WOULDN’T HAVE. Point blank, checkmate, end of the game. We WOULDN’T have. We couldn’t control our own streets from a couple of hooligan vermin – instead the cops were ordered to stand down and let the Black Bloc do what they wanted to do, in order to gain sympathy for spending a billion dollars in money, and then on top of that, we then arrested over 200 innocent people and detained them unlawfully in the rain in downtown Toronto and made them subject to a lack of any thing that we might deem essential for human life, and then threw them into cages where the violations continued.
Excellent job. Excellent.
@UTSC Student
You make some good points. After a little research, I do agree with you.
To UTSC student: I agree that this was a debacle at every level. And we now know that, of the approximately 1000 people arrested, 700 were let go without charge. This is ridiculous. I’ve been following this story closely and police themselves are furious because they were told by their superiors to step down, as they watched their own cars get trashed by those fucking punks. So here you’ve got thousands of cops with all these great “toys” and months of training and preparation to do something, being told NOT to do anything while these scumbags run amok in front of them.
I’m not defending the cops at Queen/Spadina or anywhere else where they appear to have acted badly. But I can see how they displaced their aggression against the WRONG people. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t mind what the cops did on Eastern Ave. around noon, when they swept in and grabbed a few of the alleged scumbags. Better late than never. But I still have not seen any evidence that they gave three warnings to the protesters and pedestrians around Q/S before subjecting them to bullshit harassment and abuse. Accounts from the ground say it was chaos as the cops rushed in without warning, knocked people over, roughed them up, etc.
And I understand that prisons aren’t supposed to be comfortable, but prisons are for bad people. When you release 70% of your detainees without charge–and who knows how many of the charges against the others will be dropped?!–you should treat them with more respect, dignity, and legal practices, since many people were not allowed access to lawyers. I don’t know if the claims of strip searches by opposite sex police are true, since I’ve heard a lot of lies spread so far–likely by the scumbag CRIMINALS–but most accounts indicate that the INNOCENT detainees were treated badly. If you’re going to spend over $1Billion on this shit, make sure to have some proper planning. This was a failure on all levels.
to …
You have my respect for being able to look at the situation from a different perspective, even after UTSC student came down pretty harshly on you. You didn’t get defensive and allow emotions to block out reason. That is what this site is all about. You showed the utmost class and critical thinking.
Agreed completely, Redzdevil. The sad thing is, even if the Harper gov’t pays for the damage/lost sales, in the end it’s WE THE TAX PAYERS who actually pay. And that means that certain services are going to be reduced or our taxes will go up. Or, the country’s debt load will just keep soaring for future generations to get screwed over by…
To …
You made me smile with that. The only reason why I come down so harshly on people is to see what they do. I’m a very confrontational person – If i’m going to post, i’m going to rush the person and see what happens. I’m in the business of either forcing someone to look at things from a perspective that they didn’t expect, or force them to make me do the same. If someone ever puts me in my place with rational, meaningful arguments that show me how wrong I am, then i’ll be the first to say that yeah, i’m wrong. But class, is never taught – I’m glad that I at least changed the mind of one person on this vital topic.