The Antisocial Socialist

I went to this today. The Star gives an estimate of "hundreds," which was probably accurate; it was a pretty small demo, consisting of a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen in awhile. I didn't actually get near the demo proper because I just kept running into folks I knew and having conversations. Brigette DePape, Rogue Page, was adorable; in general, there were better speakers than usual, though significantly worse music.

There are good bands out there who write political songs, even in Toronto. If they can't or won't play demos, perhaps we shouldn't have musical interludes at all. It would be better than hastily-written songs that don't scan.

At one point, a conspiracy theorist decided that I should read his pamphlets. This was probably not wise, as I immediately got excited and asked about lizard people. He avoided the question in favour of a convoluted theory involving ice cream and the Rothschilds and One World Government. I then got even more excited and told him that, what a coincidence, I was part of said conspiracy, and that I figured that if there was going to be a One World Government, I should get in on that. He became visibly upset and asked, plaintively, "BUT DON'T YOU KNOW ABOUT BIOMETRICS?" I replied that of course I did and I couldn't wait for them to come out with new ones.

I am a bad person.

Later, I mused aloud on where these conspiracy theorists, particularly the Truthers (who sent one representative with a full-colour placard, t-shirts, DVDs, and so on) got all their funding from, as it costs money to produce DVDs and they were handing them out for free. sphinctourist suggested that they might be funded by the Bilderberg Group.

Anyway, it was great being out in the nice weather and catching up with friends. I am increasingly dispirited about the prospects of any significant progress coming out of the whole debacle last year. There is no peaceful, legal way to hold the police accountable for beating people and ruining lives, no real restitution for the people who were jailed, lost their jobs, lost their relationships, and continue to suffer PTSD. I think the Star has actually been doing an awesome job at nailing down the worst offenders and highlighting the stories of activists who suffered the worst brutality, but when it comes down to it, the vast majority of people in this city and country seem to feel that it doesn't matter all that much or that it couldn't happen to them, and are increasingly inured to abuse of power. Maybe they even like it, I don't know. No one trusts the cops anymore but no one has proposed any sort of solution either.

In related news, the NDP have been awesome, holding a 39-hour filibuster to stop back-to-work legislation against the locked-out postal workers, but CPAC is now reporting that the bill passed despite their best efforts.

Here are today's top stories, courtesy of the Star:

The IDF kills 13 Palestinian protesters. "Oh, but I bet they were Hamas members lobbing home-made rockets at Israeli civilians!" you say (well, no, you wouldn't say that). Nope, the only "attack" they were planning was against the fence at the border of Syria and Israel. Nevertheless, according to Netanyahu, "These protests aim to undermine the very existence of Israel," presumably necessitating the slaughter of (as far as I know) unarmed protesters.

Speaking of Syria, 850 people have been killed there since mid-March. This hasn't been highly publicized compared to the uprisings in Arab countries where we aren't so heavily invested in the status quo, and despite rampant and horrifying abuses of human rights, our illustrious government is keeping mum. To add a personal note, the new Minister of the Interior is the guy who arrested and tortured the father of a friend of mine, so you can imagine what the rest are probably like. Said friend suggests writing to your MP, given that Canada has been silent on the international stage.

On a happier note, Byron Sonne has, nearly a year since his arrest, been granted bail! Here's hoping that he gets off and is able to turn around and sue the bastards.

The IMF continues to screw the working class. Literally, and non-consensually.

Stay classy, Disney!

And in local news, Shorter Rosie DiManno: It's all about MEEEE. Is it just me or do her articles never make a single lick of sense?

The last of the "G20 protest organizers" is out on bail and under house arrest. This is misleading; two people—Byron Sonne and Gary McCullough—are still in jail. The latter is a man with mental health issues who had nothing to do with the protests at all.

Something I've long suspected but is now confirmed: Almost 2/3 of Toronto police aren't from Toronto and don't live here. Fear and distrust of political activists, workers, immigrants, and people of colour are kind of par for the course when you're talking about the repressive arm of the state, but it's compounded when you're getting one group of people—homogeneous, privileged, and propertied—to police a diverse group of Others.

I know nothing about why Zuckerberg is getting sued this time, but this headline is hilarious: Facebook CEO: Keep my private life out of lawsuit. From a guy who believes that the details of everyone's life are for public, and particularly corporate, consumption. I hope this other dude sues the pants off of him and we find out all kinds of gory details.

The detention of the Juarez chief of police was the big story in Mexico City over the past few days, with this awesomecakes shot gracing the cover of La Jornada:



I was wondering if it was going to show up outside the Mexican news, but apparently it was on FOX, go figure.

I heard vague things about 1600 people killed in flooding in Northern Pakistan, but I wasn't really aware of the severity until I got home. ironed_orchid has a links round-up here.

Stephen Hawking sez: We're so screwed.

Are the courts playing stupid for political reasons, or do they honestly think that property destruction during mass demos is organized?

Jury selection for Omar Khadr's trial. I know the trial has started, but it's painful to read about it.

The intertubes informs me that Ted Stevens died. Okay, so he was corrupt as all hell, but to his credit, he coined one of the best memes ever, and his trucks will live on in the popular lexicon.

We all pay the salaries of public servants. This is mostly a good thing. We expect them to do a good job. But public servants are people, and people fuck up.

When a TTC employee or a teacher is accused of fucking up, no one questions the authenticity of the accusation. Instead, there are calls for collective punishment. Privatize the TTC! Fight the teacher's unions! Those greedy, lazy unionized employees don't know how good they have it. They should get a real job for once!

Police are also public servants. My tax dollars and your tax dollars fund them. But when a cop fucks up, everyone leaps to their defense. He was just doing his job. You don't understand how difficult her job is. You wouldn't be so brave in his situation. And when it's proven that he took that bribe, or beat that guy, well, he's just a bad apple. Most cops are fine, upstanding heroes who do their job. Even when the police en masse act badly, as they did during the G20, any criticism of their actions must be coupled with praise of the police in general.

It's a pity this worship of authority doesn't extend to the classroom, because I think I could really benefit from it, and also because while teachers can fuck up someone's school career, they tend to not actually kill their clientele.

Never let it be said that, even under the threat of a police state, Hogtowners don't have a sense of humour. I was pleased to see that, for example, Scary Cop Lady now has a Facebook fan page and has become somewhat of a local meme. Toronto Tourism Board is also pretty fun.

Also, someone posted G20-related demotivational posters.

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In other news, the LARPer guy has stepped forward to condemn police for displaying his fake weapons as if they were real weapons seized from protesters. Police have apparently admitted to targeting Québecers.

They still haven't put many of the garbage cans back.

For me, the lack of garbage cans are a more poignant symbol than the fence, or the hippies being teargassed for singing Kumbaya. Without garbage cans on the sidewalks, private space remains untouched, but public space becomes filthy and unlivable. Garbage cans are the mark of the public service, of civility, of, dare I say it, the social contract itself.

It occurs to me that there are a lot of people who would be happy to live in a police state. Right up until the knock on the door in the middle of the night, they would assume protection because they'd done nothing wrong. They might even delight in the persecution of the Other.

But no one wants to live without garbage cans on the sidewalks. No one.

Z. posted this article, which is only one of many that I want to quote for truth a whole bunch of times. It helps that Shawn Micallaf strikes me as one of those people who loves Toronto rather than simply existing in it.

I think for me the crushing despair of last weekend was somewhat mitigated, believe it or not, by being in the protests, because there was a real sense of community (not to mention a high school reunion). I was only afraid—or processing what I saw at all—when I wasn't among friends. And then I worried about what would happen on the walk to the subway, or inside the subway, or whether I'd be harassed while running errands, and how many of my friends were arrested after I left. People who didn't go at all seem a bit more traumatized. Or perhaps it's a different sort of trauma.

And damned if I don't love this city still. I had three conversations with neighbours today within the space of a few hours: a recovering drug addict and single mom, a playwright and filmmaker who just opened a trendy little design shop, and the pagan woman who rides around with her cat on a bike (I've been looking for an excuse to strike up a conversation with this woman, because she looks like she leads an interesting life, plus she rides around with a cat on a bike. But then she approached me today to ask about sewing needles, so I didn't even need to be socially awkward about it. Yay!). The east end is starting to feel like home, after two years of living here. And then I remember that "Torontanamo," the detention centre where they kept my friends in cages, is just down the street.

I wonder if we'll come out changed from this. Probably not. One of the things I like about Toronto is its ability to cheerfully shrug off whatever small calamity just happened, sell some t-shirts ("I survived the blackout!" "No, I don't have SARS." "Fuck the G20."), and move on with a "where were you when?" every so often. But I don't think the cameras, or the sound cannon, or the attitude that the people are the enemy, are really a new development so much of an amplification of existing tensions, and so I don't think they'll go away. I like to think that the intervention of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Amnesty International, and the general public outcry will nip the nascent police state in the bud, but with the election looming (and the fact that out of my urban lefty bubble, I'm aware of just how much we're hated), I don't have much faith.

Just so you know, guys, our police chief is a lying liar who lies. Also, nice try with the weapons thing.

Let's all demand the resignation of this billion dollar bully.

He's not the only liar. No one was arrested under the secret law/rule/fake-out? I guess we're forgetting about Dave Vasey.

By the way—the outrage over police tactics and the waste of taxpayers' money is important, but you should also be outraged at the outcome of the summit. In short: More austerity measures. Because that always works so well.

Note to self: Don't read toronto. Don't read the comments in toronto. Read curgoth's post on authoritarian apologism and then go for a walk.

Conflicting reports about a police raid on the Toronto Community Mobilization Network's convergence space, which turned out to be false, though there is still a police presence. At one point, demonstrators were blocked in and detained by police, but then let go. Rumours of rubber bullets being used near UofT. (For non-Hogtowners, neither the convergence space nor UofT is nowhere near where the summit was happening.) About 150 people have apparently been arrested doing strike support for the workers at Novotel.

The UofT Graduate Student Union was raided. The house of a young couple was raided at 4 am by armed police—the victims had nothing whatsoever to do with the protests. Two people were arrested at a solidarity rally at the detention centre on Eastern Ave.


Peaceful protesters boxed in by police at Queen and Spadina today.

nihilistic_kid gives us a poetic explanation.

Now, everything's quiet again. I went with bcholmes and S. to see Cherry Orchard at the Shaw Festival—it was awesome and I so needed to get out of the city. As we came back along the highway, we saw the motorcade taking the G2O delegates to the airport. Someone made or rented a gigantic billboard that read: "G-20: Go jump in the lake."

I am completely exhausted. It's over at last. Well, it isn't, because there are still people in jail or who have been charged who need our support, and there's still all sorts of disinformation in the media that needs to be countered, but for now I am a sleepy sabotabby who needs to sleep.