Choose your words carefully. Let me repeat that one more time: choose your words carefully. To use a word out of context, to use a word indiscriminately is to obscure, and ultimately sully it’s meaning. Democracy was once a word used to describe the beautiful ideal of participation in the political realm. However, after several wars, many ongoing, fought in the name of ‘democracy’, the word has ceased to have a meaning. The word terrorism has suffered a similar fate. If terrorism is everything from the bombing of a building, to the liberation of an animal from a vivisector’s lab and the destruction of logging equipment, the word, like democracy, ceases to have a meaning. The moment a word begins to refer to anything and everything, it essentially means nothing.

In the weeks following the Toronto G20 protests I have been increasingly infuriated by the manner in which the word violence, both within the corporate media and activist circles themselves has been haphazardly thrown around. Before expanding on this idea, I want to make it clear that it is not the intention of this brief ranting to enter into the heated debate surrounding a diversity of tactics. That said, I personally support a diversity of tactics, and consider property destruction a perfectly acceptable tactic within a broader repertoire of potential activist tools.

OK, now back to the question of violence. In the aftermath of the G20 insanity, much has been said of the so-called ‘violence’ of the Black Bloc. Media commentators, fixated on the property destruction that occurred on the 26th have made constant reference to the ‘violence’ unleashed by anarchists on the streets of Toronto. The events of Saturday have been largely framed as a ‘violent’ eruption, a fleeting moment in which the ‘bad protesters’ (to be distinguished from the ‘good protestors’ who followed the designated, state-sanctioned protest route) turned Toronto upside down (or right side up depending on how you look at it).

Towing a similar line to that of the corporate media, many within the Left have also condemned the supposed ‘violence’ of the Black Bloc. The property destruction that occurred during the G20 protests has been discussed and criticized in terms of individuals engaging in ‘violent’ actions. Not only have the actions of the Black...