Naomi Klein to police: "Don't play public relations, do your goddamned job!" (Rabble TV)

This is exactly the way our intellectuals should act. Toronto in this incident and canada in general doesn't have strong minded intellectuals actually standing up in these same protests, helping the regular canadian citizen out with the intimidation they feel for doing that little bit extra and participating in politics but fears facing that wall of injustice.

What we need is more public figures who we respect, putting themselves out there in difficult times against many other centrist and right leaning newspaper journalists and reporters who are otherwise spamming the public with a whitewashed and hegemonically approved message. What we need are thought provoking individuals like Naomi who are willing to step out of their comfort zones and address hypocrisy as it is going on rather than just this scholastic shelved away nonsense that pats us on the back for having critical thoughts that we don't challenge the current institutions with.

Erosion of Canadian Constitutional Rights....

Submitted by Toronto Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 12:30.

The conversation over the past weekend among Torontonians, pro and con, just illustrates that the average Torontonian is uninformed about the dedication and hard work of the ''protesters'', who they are and what they are attempting to accomplish. They don't get it that they must speak out, speak up and let there voices be heard - loudly.

The following famous passage from a Protestant clergy, Martin Niemoller of the nazis, demonstrates just how easy it is for the powerful and the privileged to erode the human, civil and constitutional rights of the citizenry and how important it is to engage in civil activism.

"First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Finally, they came for me and there was no one left to speak out."

Klein, you don't undestand becuase you were not there.

Submitted by stimulator on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 21:24.

The police didn't use a water cannon and did not stop the black bloc because they couldn't get there fast enough. For those of us in the middle of this milieu, we witnessed time and time again the police were scared, outnumbered and disorganized. We need to look at this for what it is. A flexible decentralized cell moving through the city cannot be predicted even with all the police intelligence in the world. As misguided as Judy Rebick's comments to CPB 24 were, she's right in the sense that the only way these brave folks could have been stopped is if they would have mass arrested them at the beginning of the march. But in theory, you can't arrest people before they commit a crime which is what Rebick suggests, sadly enough. It was anybody's guess where the bloc was going to head and once they did their thing, the police were too late. Later the cops attacked anyone who they perceived as protesters because they failed and were embarrassed and needed to save face. To cops only acted when they knew they could win.

Here are some links for context:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iaG1H0pDxY
http://www.counterpunch.org/simons01082010.html
http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/judes/2010/02/breaking-windows-not-r...

overall not as bad a speech

Submitted by darby crash (not verified) on Sat, 07/10/2010 - 18:09.

overall not as bad a speech as some other reformists have made regarding the G20 protests, however Klein's demand that police 'do their job' is obviously problematic in that she is essentially calling for the police to carry out their oppressive/repressive functions against the population, and by implication against our comrades in the black bloc etc.

reformists need to 'Get Off the Fence!'--what side of the battle are you on? Will you work with the police? If so, then no alliance or unity can be made with you, end of story.

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