MAKING SENSE of the TORONTO G20 - Part 1 - Dress Rehearsal for the CLAMPDOWN?

This is a brief, first instalment toward a series of personal insights and analysis. The goal is to learn from our experience--as activists and organizers, educators and advocates, and otherwise active and concerned citizen--and to utilize what we have learned toward our future actions and strategies. I welcome any comments, contributions, or criticisms. Any slanderous diatribes will be duly ignored.

-- DRESS REHEARSAL G20 --

This G-20 Summit was but a rationale to use $1Billion+ taxpayer dollars to fund a DRESS REHEARSAL in militarized urban crowd control:

--New surveillance toys and strategies, new weaponry and tactics--all keepers!

--Practice converging different police and security regimens (ie. ISU=OPP, CSIS, and various regional police forces from ACROSS CANADA, etc.) and when they're all done here they get to go back to their respective bases to debrief and share the tricks of the trade from experience.

--Procedures and practice with take-downs, captures, detainments, arrests, and processing.

--Even a chance to try out public response to a secret and controversial "decree" accommodating executive state-police powers.

This explains why they chose the country's most populous city, during the height of summer season. Knowing full well that they faced little if any real threat. Knowing full well that, with AUSTERITY MEASURES coming down the pipes, they will face a real and growing threat. So better to get in a dry run now, before the going gets real and tough.

They did exactly what they were ordered to do. They achieved what they set out to do.

They completely misunderstand the nature and profile of contemporary anti-capitalist dissidence, but that is a flaw in their intelligence, both operational and personal.

However it would be a serious mistake to believe that they "lost control" as some would have it. Or that they weren't doing their jobs. Their job is to follow orders and not question their commanding officers.

Further, it would appear that those in command maintained the following two, simple imperatives throughout their operations:

A) To IDENTIFY & TARGET DISSIDENCE. Here it is important to note that, by their standards, taking to the streets for a rally and peaceful assembly is categorized as dissidence.

B) To INSTILL FEAR and PROVOKE INSECURITY in those who would be dissidents. Ultimately the goal is to TRAUMATIZE.

Top down orders from above, surely. From how far above? See Heil Harper photo, attached. McGuinty and Blair are but foot soldiers. What more to expect from politicians and civil servants who rise to the top? (Answer: They become rich and creamy.)

Sometimes the serendipitous and synchronistic point to a truth that is greater than coincidence. In this case let's consider:

A spectacle of police brutality, performed for the lap-dog media, who will duly BROADCAST this message around the world:

"The G20 leaders have decided what is right for us. We need to cut our deficits. Austerity measures will be put in place. No matter that this comes on top of the latest wave of recession and cut-backs. On top of mounting inflation and personal debts. On top of employment freezes and massive job losses. On top of an increasing, general awareness and understanding that our policies are pathetic, that our leadership is inane, and that we have collectively contributed to the greatest period of economic instability that contemporary societies have ever witnessed.

Nontheless, this is the path we will be taking. It won't be easy, so expect even harder times ahead. And if you should be entertaining any thoughts of rising up, or assembling in protest, then think again. Look at what we can and will do to you. Take a good look. Because we won't tolerate dissent. We'll take you down. Grannies and girls, journalists and bystanders, radical bandana-toting, tree-hugging punks--any of you who even dare to step outside of the boundaries that we declare to be safe and sound--you will be punished for your pithy insurrections.

The state has spoken."

Mission accomplished.

Recommended viewing/reading:

They're not just pigs, by Denis Rancourt

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/they%E2%80%99re-not-just-pigs/4030

Sharmeen Khan - Toronto Community Mobilization Network

http://vimeo.com/12924983

Amnesty International Report: "Peaceful protest suffers amidst heavy security measures and acts of vandalism" June 27, 2010

http://www.amnesty.ca/resource_centre/news/view.php?load=arcview&article...

Medics at G20 protests speak out against police brutality

http://rabble.ca/news/2010/07/medics-g20-protests-speak-out-against-poli...

The Story of My Arrest & Detainment Police strangled me, punched me in head, manhandled me