You're right Steve, it is very complicated. Toronto's G20 last year was a debacle for many reasons: imported rent-a-cops, along with the use of known local hot-head cops in situations that needed cool heads and measured response. That, combined with professional provocateurs, radicals and terrorists from around the world and you've got a problem brewing.
Add ineffectual leadership, use of an archaic and likely unconstitutional WW II era anti-assembly law with suspension of civil liberties and you've got a huge problem. Then make it all worse by subsequent stonewalling and cover-ups by cops and politicos alike and you've got G 20. The occupy movement stayed local because every city had its own. Local cops were mostly pretty good during G20, but still stinging from criticism and embarrassed by the actions of a few, they really showed admirable restraint during recent "evictions". I'm saddened when I see the violence that took place in the US, but I don't think it's a Canada/US dichotomy. Yes, we look better wrt Occupy, but we can't hold our heads too high this soon after G 20. cheers, frank --- Original Message --- From: steve harley <[email protected]> Sent: November 26, 2011 11/26/11 To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: GESO - Occupy Toronto: The Final Days on 2011-11-25 17:13 William Robb wrote > It is telling that the Canadian protests seem to have been put to bed without > the overarching police brutality that has been so common south of the border. > It seems that to a great extent, our cops still know the difference between > right and wrong (and that perhaps they learned something from the way they > behaved at the G20). i think it's a little more complicated than that; yes, there are some provocateurs in the US occupations; hard to avoid when there is no real hierarchy ... but the police (federally supplied and trained on anti-terrorism tactics they have been itching to use) seem to have been touched by an escalative effect from how the authorities are coordinating their repression, compounded perhaps by the fear and lack of savvy of many of the local politicians who ultimately decide how to react to each occupation; here in Denver, both the moderate mayor and moderate governor have directed the crackdown, and both are terribly afraid of the center drifting right in next election in any case the physical "occupation" part of OWS is only tactical, and the attention must be transformed now if they are to extend the awareness the public is gaining about the underlying issues; it also remains to be seen how well corpse money can "fix" it i was struck by this article, even if some of the conclusions are hard to swallow: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy> -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
