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rfmcdonaldBy the time that I was ready to go on from work on of my co-workers, who lives in the area around the University of Toronto perhaps a half-hour's walk north of the G20 summit area, told me that someone set a police car on fire in front of her apartment.
The Globe and Mail's timeline suggests that the Black Bloc protesters had begun their work around 3 o'clock, breaking out of the crowd to start attacking different outlets--an American Eagle, a Starbucks, a Scotiabank--on Queen Street West and Yonge, too, as the below video shows. Yonge was unprotected by police.
All were eventually redirected north and east and the whole body of protesters being dispersed a bit after 7 o'clock. Long before that, the TTC had made the decision to halt all subway service below Bloor Street, along with the streetcars, and left only two bus routes bracketing the downtown running.
I like Aaron Wherry's description of Toronto as being in a state of "stupid chaos." Toronto is pretty far from succmbing to a provisional revolutionary government of any kind, most Torontonians simply staying away from the downtown core--I know a few people who have vacated the city entirely--and people who wanted to go somewhere managing, somehow, soccer fans hoping to see the Toronto FC perform being given a dedicated bus starting from Bathurst Station. Attendance at various events is still very depressed, notwithstanding reported hopes that business will not collapse, but even thrive.
Violence is being blamed on the "Black Bloc" protesters, belonging not to a movement so much as maintaining a tactic of being selectively invisible: "The crowd, dressed in their black uniforms, moves as a blob, its members indistinguishable from one another. One will run from the pack and lob a rock through a window, before disappearing back into the mob." Presumably it is the sort of tactic supposed to trigger generalized police attacks against crowds and further radicalization; again, given a profound lack of interest in revolution, I have no idea how this is going to work. The Black Bloc is a post-modern cellular group, "made up of smaller groups of 10 or so activists, keeping head counts and decision-making quick and easy. Directions are passed through the mob with codes — on Saturday, “umbrella” was a call to move to the frontline." While resistant to being taken over, as Wikipedia notes it is pretty easy for outsiders like police to subvert the tactic users, who are prone to go off in all directions anyway.
I have to agree with people like the National Post's Don Martin, who criticized the Black Bloc folk for ruining things for the other protesters, and not incidentally repeating the obvious point that it is a bad idea to hold these kinds of summits in crowded city cores. Sarkozy promises that the next G8/G20 summit, in France, will cost a tenth. I can only hope someone will learn from Harper's foolish decision.
The Globe and Mail's timeline suggests that the Black Bloc protesters had begun their work around 3 o'clock, breaking out of the crowd to start attacking different outlets--an American Eagle, a Starbucks, a Scotiabank--on Queen Street West and Yonge, too, as the below video shows. Yonge was unprotected by police.
All were eventually redirected north and east and the whole body of protesters being dispersed a bit after 7 o'clock. Long before that, the TTC had made the decision to halt all subway service below Bloor Street, along with the streetcars, and left only two bus routes bracketing the downtown running.
I like Aaron Wherry's description of Toronto as being in a state of "stupid chaos." Toronto is pretty far from succmbing to a provisional revolutionary government of any kind, most Torontonians simply staying away from the downtown core--I know a few people who have vacated the city entirely--and people who wanted to go somewhere managing, somehow, soccer fans hoping to see the Toronto FC perform being given a dedicated bus starting from Bathurst Station. Attendance at various events is still very depressed, notwithstanding reported hopes that business will not collapse, but even thrive.
Violence is being blamed on the "Black Bloc" protesters, belonging not to a movement so much as maintaining a tactic of being selectively invisible: "The crowd, dressed in their black uniforms, moves as a blob, its members indistinguishable from one another. One will run from the pack and lob a rock through a window, before disappearing back into the mob." Presumably it is the sort of tactic supposed to trigger generalized police attacks against crowds and further radicalization; again, given a profound lack of interest in revolution, I have no idea how this is going to work. The Black Bloc is a post-modern cellular group, "made up of smaller groups of 10 or so activists, keeping head counts and decision-making quick and easy. Directions are passed through the mob with codes — on Saturday, “umbrella” was a call to move to the frontline." While resistant to being taken over, as Wikipedia notes it is pretty easy for outsiders like police to subvert the tactic users, who are prone to go off in all directions anyway.
For the most part, their targets are specific and symbolic: As the crowd tore across Queen St., they hammered police cruisers, attacked banks and other corporate companies. Yet they left a record store, a local tavern and an independent hardware shop untouched.
“This isn’t violence. This is vandalism against violent corporations. We did not hurt anybody. They (the corporations) are the ones hurting people,” one man said.
Others pelted the Zanzibar strip bar with manikin limbs they had snatched from a nearby clothing store.
“This is all part of the sexist, male-dominated war machine we live in,” explained one member.
Factions within that group, however, appeared to just relish the mayhem. As the protest marched up Yonge St., they became more indiscriminate in what they damaged.
Two young activists sprinted onto Yonge-Dundas Square and battered the tourist information booth, sparking jeers from some crowd members.
On College St, a pack of masked protesters began to vandalize an empty BMW 4X4. A civilian car, albeit it an expensive civilian car.
“Stop it. They’re not our enemies,” one protester shouted.
The other retorted: “Yuppies are our enemy.”
I have to agree with people like the National Post's Don Martin, who criticized the Black Bloc folk for ruining things for the other protesters, and not incidentally repeating the obvious point that it is a bad idea to hold these kinds of summits in crowded city cores. Sarkozy promises that the next G8/G20 summit, in France, will cost a tenth. I can only hope someone will learn from Harper's foolish decision.
