There are riots and then there are riots

[sabotabby]

So whiny baby hockey hooligans* in Vancouver didn't like that their team lost, or something, and rioted en masse. Not that I begrudge anyone a good riot, but that's a stupid reason for it, and so we here in Hogtown get to feel a bit smug, I think.

Anyway, unlike the G20 (not a stupid reason for a riot), the rioters actually hurt people—stabbings and such. The cops probably got a bit brutal, but I'm struck by the disparity between the reaction of the Vancouver cops and the militarized police state we saw last year in the streets of Toronto. It sounds like about as many cars were torched and far more property damage accomplished—and in a much shorter time frame—but only 100 people were arrested, in contrast to the 1000 or so arbitrarily picked up here.

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "can't fault you there, sabotabby" and 10 being "and you call yourself a role model?! Get me to my fainting couch while I clutch my pearls," exactly how bad is it that I find this all grimly hilarious?

Here, have a song:

Watch on YouTube

Postscript: My favourite comment from The Face is: "Wonder if any of the rioters from last night will get 'not allowed to publicly express sports opinion' as part of their bail conditions"

* I guess it's hockey? A few of my co-workers were talking about "The Game" on the bus today and I never know if it's the one with the ice skates or the one with the stupid-shaped ball.

Comments

I don't get sports.

[nichtsda.livejournal.com]

I've had the misfortune of living in university towns when the school team was in the final playoffs of something or other -- in both situations, the school won the championship and then the students and fans took to the streets and smashed windows and overturned cars.

I can understand being happy that your team won or being disappointed that your team lost, but I don't see the point of trashing your own backyard because a group of people who were not you played a game either better or worse than another group of people who were not you. The angry Canucks fans were treating Vancouver like an invading army would -- forget terrorist threats, just have a sports team lose -- or win! -- and you can get the city to bring itself down.

Re: I don't get sports.

[sabotabby]

In Montréal they riot no matter what. Though in fairness to La Belle Province, they riot a lot for political reasons too. I think they just like to make things go smashity-smash.

I honestly don't get doing it over sports. People are wanking all kinds of explanations in the media, but I think it comes down to a lot of sports fans being hooligans.

Re: I don't get sports.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

It might be the French spirit -- they riot a lot in France, too.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

1. Definitely a one. I'm with you on the grimly hilarious.

[sabotabby]

It doesn't help that, while I know some lovely people there, I really don't like Vancouver.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Too many yuppies?

[sabotabby]

Too many smug assholes going on about the weather and how you couldn't pay them to move back to Toronto. I would possibly pay them to stay away.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

Heh, my friend and I like to joke that, although Vancouver has very clean, fresh air, and usually no smog, on beautiful days you can see a thick impenetrable layer of "smug" in the air.

[sabotabby]

This.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

<3mekons<3!

[sabotabby]

I think there is a Mekons song for every occasion. culpster got me into them.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

then i tip my hat to said culpster!
i've been in love with them since the early nineties.
one of the few rock bands that still tickle my fancy.

Yeah, I really have nothing important to add to this conversation.

[infintysquared.livejournal.com]

As for your postscript, I'm now officially obliged first to mention Michael Douglas movies, and then post the following picture.

Re: Yeah, I really have nothing important to add to this conversation.

[sabotabby]

...which I can't see.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "can't fault you there, sabotabby" and 10 being "and you call yourself a role model?! Get me to my fainting couch while I clutch my pearls," exactly how bad is it that I find this all grimly hilarious?

1, definitely.

Although I feel compelled to add that I initially misread the word "pearls" in there, possibly due to spending a lot of time around an almost-4-year-old boy who thinks it's hilarious to run around clutching something he has which is not pearls but begins and ends with some of the same letters. It did make for a much funnier visual that way, but sadly would make option 10 only available to 50% of the population.

[sabotabby]

That is a much better visual, but I don't have one.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

You get hockey hooligans like we have football hooligans!
Cool in a crazy way. As in, grimly weird way. It just seems bizarre to me as here hockey is something schoolgirls are forced to play. I used to play left wing. Heh. I hated it, though. Oh, and it's in mud here, not on ice.

Our football hooligans don't overturn cars, though they do attack people and are generally very unpleasant. The world cup is the worst as they go looking for tourists from the winning team's country to attack after the match.

What really really really AAARRRRGH gets to me about it all is that this pathetic tribalism is completely arbitrarily based on consumer capitalist constructs: over here, at least, the a football team's players are not from the area the team supposedly represents, but bought and sold by their clubs for huge sums and shuffled from place to place. There is no local comraderie or community basis to the support of one team rather than another. It is so scarily 1984-ish, the idea that there is a large class of violent males needing their desperate lack of meaning or community channelled into fake mini nationalisms and exploited by huge corporate thingies. Can't we just send these thugs to special boot camps where they can be trained for disaster relief or aid work abroad and their frustration turned to good works or something?

Unlike Irish hurling, where the players are not professional players and are from their local area, and their children run onto the pitch to celebrate after a match and the losing and winning teams all go to the pubs together afterwards.

[sabotabby]

For some reason, I understand football hooliganism a bit more—I mean, don't you guys choose teams along political lines? Or is that just continental Europe? Also, hockey is not aesthetically appealing in the way football is. I think "hockey hooligans" and I'm picturing dudes with mullets and no teeth.

Anyway, the World Cup thing is depressing. Here, as long as you are not living in the neighbourhood of a winning team, World Cup time is great. People have national rivalries but it's always in a cute way, with street parties and sidewalk marches and big gatherings in pubs. I think that's why I like football more than other sports.

Can't we just send these thugs to special boot camps where they can be trained for disaster relief or aid work abroad and their frustration turned to good works or something?

I think they call that the army.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't about the game at all. Win or lose, there would have been a riot; a game like this was just an excuse to turn things over, set them on fire, and loot. These sports riots are the worst. This one was more costly than the one in 1994, the last time the Canucks took a run at the cup and failed, there was a lot more property damage and was more spread out.

Vancouver is close to where I live, as you know, and I sat up late watching the video until it started to repeat itself (the riot was pretty much over after 3 or 4 hours, as opposed to the 1994 riot that went about twice as long). It's weird to see a bookstore where you've shopped have its windows smashed in and looted on TV (though I think they probably only had use for the chocolate and Kindles).

What got me was that, like all riots, there was only a small core of really active troublemakers who whip the others up - but what was different were the crowds of people standing around looking not at the riot, but at their cellphones and cameras that were making video of the riot for them to watch later. Meanwhile it was as if they felt they weren't even there - that as such spectators nothing would happen to them.

I see this happening more and more: crimes, looting, rapes etc. happening while no one intervenes, they just stand around and film it for their private jollies later. That's the sick and scary part. This isn't the normal stupidity or sheeplike apathy that we've had dogging us for as long as we've had society; this is a serious lack of empathy and an act of resignation from being a human being.

I'd also note that where I saw an actual fight, it was always 7 or 8 guys beating up on one guy, not the one-on-one matches that our fathers told us they fought... and every one of them, including the victim, wearing Canucks jerseys.

There was some irresponsible talk yesterday by Vancouver's police chief about how the "Black Block" of anarchists was responsible, but I think that's just stupid journalists happening to notice that some of the rioters wore black hoodies. They also blamed the Block for the minor riot that disrupted the 2010 Olympics, but they didn't have much to do with that.

I saw footage of one bunch of people in a high-end store, they had found and taken out all the fire extinguishers - not because they wanted to put out the burning cars outside before they exploded, but because these are good to smash windows with. That's not anarchy, that's just making and using tools. Any gang of teenage amateur criminals is better organized than the BB, at least they can agree on what they want to get out of the violence.

[sabotabby]

The fact that anyone would blame it on anarchists or the Black Bloc shows that those in positions of power and influence are either pernicious or seriously out of touch with reality, or both.

What got me was that, like all riots, there was only a small core of really active troublemakers who whip the others up - but what was different were the crowds of people standing around looking not at the riot, but at their cellphones and cameras that were making video of the riot for them to watch later. Meanwhile it was as if they felt they weren't even there - that as such spectators nothing would happen to them.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Some of them even watched.

Sorry. It is disturbing, I agree. My first response when I see something—funny or awful—is now to whip out my cell and try to capture it. This can be beneficial: Police crimes, for example, are being caught on camera with much greater frequency. But it can also lead to an atomized, sociopathic citizenry.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

The fact that anyone would blame it on anarchists or the Black Bloc shows that those in positions of power and influence are either pernicious or seriously out of touch with reality, or both.

I like to joke that BB is to rioting as Anon is to hacking, no matter what, they will get blamed by everyone, for everything.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

that is a fantastic and perfect metaphor.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Both are true, but I think much more the latter than the former.