[URBAN NOTE] "The most disturbing thing we learned from the G20"

[rfmcdonald]

Edward Keenan's Toronto Star article describing how, at the G20 fiasco years ago, the police collaborated with the Black Bloc is stellar.

The bad guys, the Black Bloc anarchists and vandals — the people Fenton referred to as “terrorists” — were trying to make a point, and the police reacted by proving it for them.

See, the peaceful protesters were the optimists, who gathered under the premise that our leaders — the leaders of much of the world — would listen to the people, would have to, if they gathered together in a large enough group with big enough papier-mâché puppets and loud enough chants of “Hey, hey, ho ho.”

This is the essentially generous democratic assumption behind all peaceful dissent: if enough of us speak loudly and clearly enough, our leaders will listen.

The Black Bloc do not share the faith that we live in that kind of democracy. And they make it their mission to expose that faith as misplaced. The point of their activities, which, if they don’t fit most people’s modern interpretation of “terrorism” (despite Fenton’s characterization) are certainly intended to be scary and chaotic and disorienting, is to provoke a reaction. They think the idea that police (and world leaders) serve and protect the public is a sham. Those authorities, they claim, only protect capital, and they only serve corporate interests and their own power.

And so while the innocent march and chant, the Black Bloc say to them and to the general public: if you don’t believe us, watch what happens when we smash some windows, destroy some property, light a police car on fire. See how your capitalist democracy holds up then, see how your constitution is applied, see how well your voice is heard.