After a police car was set alight - one that had been mysteriously left abandoned with an empty tank and the gas cap off - it was left to burn. Once again the police did NOTHING.
When peaceful protesters started to march and journalists tried to record the scene, the police weighed in with batons and attacked, brutalized and arrested nearly one thousand people who had done NOTHING.
The treatment of women held in detention at the hands of male police officers was described by one journalist. It is enough to make you sick.
But don't worry. The cops got lots of new toys to use against the next bunch of upstart citizens who dare question anything their thuggish leaders should decide. There are water cannons, police cannons and high powered assault rifles just in case you might get uppity.
Police State Canada from bill johnson on Vimeo.
Canada sure ain't what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened up there?
Did your Govt. get a strong case of Neoconitus?
I think we got sideswiped, RZ. People weren't paying attention. The centre and left were fractured into several parties. The far right will always vote for the Harperites, no matter what they do. The security apparatus is growing like a cancer and the neocons just love that law and order agenda. Kinda makes you wonder what kind of childhoods they had.
ReplyDeleteIt really doesn't have much to do with security, of course, as you know, but the need for the unelected to hog resources and wield power by force.
The police were getting triple and quadruple time for their efforts on that weekend. Sound and water cannons are for use against unarmed protesters. Some police from Calgary were there on a training mission (that's what they called it) in case oil town goes ballistic (bad mixed metaphor) sometime in the future.
Know what's really awful? When a vote was held among the Toronto city councilors sometime in the last couple of days, all of them supported the motion that the Toronto cops had done a wonderful job. Not one had the whatevers to vote no. They probably didn't want to take a chance that their car would be ticketed or their emergency call ignored if they had the need to make one.
That's what happens when the guys with the (legal) guns have to answer only to themselves.
Makes you almost want to book some time on the shooting range...
Well people had better start waking up. Or they will be goose stepping from the Arctic to the Andes.
ReplyDeleteI always thought on my trips to Toronto, Elliott Lake and Brampton from the 80s on that the feelgood around Ontario (can't speak for elsewhere) was too good to last. It was only a matter of time before rightists exploited the multicultural and cosmopolitan ethos of Canada to inject fear and suspicion and get their foot in the door of power. Toronto seemed more tense at night on my last visit in 2008. In 1983 on my first visit, you could have slept on the pavement in Yonge Street on a Saturday night and nobody would have bothered you, not even the OP. Could Canada be a dream that went wrong? I hope I'm wrong. It's a young country and has a chance to change but in which direction?
ReplyDeleteIt seems the whole world is looking for 'direction'.
ReplyDelete