In the early morning of Thursday July 1st, we smashed windows at the Wells Fargo on Stone Road. Wells Fargo puts money into prisons, such as detention centres for migrants. This action follows the arrest of three people, accused of torching a Royal Bank of Canada branch in Ottawa. It also follows the arrests and incarceration of anarchists accused of conspiracy regarding the anti-G20 black bloc destruction. To us it's clear. They are not the only ones who will rob our robbers and break those who try to break us.
In the anarchist tradition, following the resistance to the G20, we continue to bring destruction to the banks and their project of a prison-world.
-Anarchists
Originally posted to http://anarchistnews.org
I don't want any "anarchist" or anyone else damaging property as an act of solidarity with my G20 resistance. Smashing windows as protest is infantile and lazy and does nothing effective to the target and alienates the general population.
During the G20 in Toronto, many of the businesses which were damaged were owned by individuals not corporations which are the supposed targets. Use other means of protesting, which takes more intelligence, thoughtfullness, creativity, effort and long-term committment, such as picketing the offending business with signs and distributing flyers and or pamphlets that express your grievances and educate others about them.
smashing corporate targets is braver and more compelling then designing tacky and tasteless nazi paraphenelia with g20 or harper worked into it, which is what grim reaper has so far posted here.
I was there, were you? I posted a series of pictures I took, have you? Have you done anything other than posting rhetoric? Appears not! Your criticism of me is an example of the fallacy of personal attack and censorship, exactly what the G20 protests were against.
wow your logic makes no sense at all. By the way, last time I checked the G20 protests were against capitalism not "personal attack and censorship." Get a grip dude.
Your ignorance is due to your disability to comprehend because of your limited intelligence.
Makes sense if you understand the English language and logic.
These acts don't help anyone currently being held. They may actually hurt them by making it that much harder to find jury members from the community that have some sympathy for our cause.
Toronto is most best city in the world with tons of free speech and human right. Dont let a few ruin it for the rest:
http://www.torontotourismboard.com/
grim reaper.... the indy stores that were attacked (one indy store was lightly damaged by flames but not specifically targeted) were no doubt targeteed for their content. an indy jewlery dealer still has blood diamonds on his hands, a leather store is violence, and a strip club perpetuates patriarchy and called on g20 leaders to meet inside their walls, profiteering collaborators. there is an article from an indy business owner who knows why his store was safe - as he has the existance of all communities at his base.
as for the PR hack - truetoronto, get a fucking life.
Dan,
I understand why there's anger about blood diamonds, factory farms and meat processing, exploitation of women in strip clubs, etc., but I think violence against individual store owners does a lot of harm to those who are against those things because the general public, who's support is necessary, is alienated from providing that support when they see small/family businesses being vandalized. That violence caused the majority of the public to accept Toronto turned into a fortress with an outrageously expensive police state even though the police did nothing to protect private property. There are other, peaceful, methods which can be effective. Mahatma Ghandi used passive resistance which freed a nation from colonialist rule.
One problem with the Black-bloc is their anonymity due to their "masks" which also protected police infiltrators from being recognized. The "masks" also unneccessarily increased fear in the general population consequently feeding into the characterization of the Black-Bloc as a criminal conspiracy. I believe that covering one's face, which none to few of the other protestors did, is an act of cowardice. To be truly revolutionary, one must have the integrity and bravery to bare one's face to be identified and recognized as one who is committed to their cause. The Black-Bloc were cowards.
"an indy jewlery dealer still has blood diamonds on his hands,"
What evidance do you have that the jeweller dealt in conflict dimonds?
"strip club perpetuates patriarchy"
What a paternalistic and condescending statement. You know, a lot of progressives count sex workers as our allies, as many of them fight to have sex work recognised as real work and have their livelihoods de-stigmatized and in many cases de-criminalized. To bad you didn't get the clue when the crowd started chanting "Sex work is real work!" as the Bloc attacked The Zanzabar.
And how exactly do you rationalise the damage to a medical clinic and the restaurant on College St?
i think that enforcing your views and avenues of resistance on anyone is just as authoritarian as anything else. if someone feels that throwing rocks, or burning a car is an appropriate tactic, let them do it. if someone feels that bowling up a pipeline or fire-bombing a bank is the thin to do, let them do it. if someone feeels that picketing, talking to folks on the street, and letter-writing will forward the movement, let it happen. we are trying to work together to destroy something bigger than a few individuals, but not something bigger than all of us. we do, or should, all know that. a window and a cop car are minor details. .... and honestly, we've been "educating" folks for years, and it hasnt created a critical mass yet.
@Grim_Reaper
Property Damage is not violence (such that the damage does not cause indirect violence to a person).
Mahatma Ghandi had an incrdibly radical militant wing involved in his revolution, the popular sentiment of %90+ of the population of his country before doing anything there and an incredibly lucky break as his timing was lock step with communist fears and an exaustion of military might due to world war. Ghandi helped a great deal in Indias independance but attributing the entire thing to him as your words suggest is disrespectful of the millions that fought along side Ghandi.
In reply to the mask comment I would refer you to "Torontonamo bay" (the film studio turned prison) where regular protestors and some bystanders rights were trampled upon. Perhaps these "cowards" in masks didn't want to endure passive torture. When is the last time you stood toe to toe with riot police? It would have to take a huge amount of courage to face down a wall of fully armored thugs like the Montreal Riot Police. It is easy to romanticize other peoples actions when you don't have battons hitting you in the fucking face for chanting in front of police.
Property damage is violence and it does direct and indirect harm to people, directly to those who were targeted and indirectly to those 900+ arrested people and others.
As someone said "Timing is everything.". Mahatma Ghandi's timing was fortunate for India and he is credited by Indians for freeing them, by peaceful passive resistance, from their colonial oppressor. The violence achieved less than nothing for India, only repression, which Ghandi understood.
The cowards in masks are cowards because they hide their personal identity to avoid responsibility and "credit" and personal consequences for their actions. They hid behind masks then, using the non-violent crowd as cover, removed their costumes and blended in which probably provoked the police to retaliate against everyone and arrest so many innocent people to, hopefully, find the few (like you?) who were responsible for the violence and destruction. Others, the innocent, took it on their heads and bodies with batons and other physical violence and were arrested because of the perpetrators' (your?) acts. Back-in-the-day as they say, in 1968, I was part of a huge demonstration, against the Vietnam War, in front of the U.S. embassy. There were many police on foot and a barricade in front of the embassy and many mounted police and buses packed with police on standby. While most people were standing passively on the median in the center of University Avenue I was between them and the consulate, peacefully picketing, when the police attacked. I didn't run, I stayed in the midst of the police which included mounted police with batons who were clubbing people over the head, trampling on them, beating them up, and arresting them. I was taking photographs to record police violence. Back then, cameras were not nearly as ubiquitous as they are now, they were relatively rare, which made them noticeable and a picketing/protesting person with one became a target of the police. That happened to me, as I was taking pictures, a mounted policeman galloped over with his baton raised to smash me and my camera. The only reason I noticed was that his horse appeared in my viewfinder. I had the presence of mind to immediately take a picture of that cop as his baton was coming down towards me and ran into the crowd which opened up like the Red Sea did for Moses. I wasn't wearing a mask and knew that I would probably get hurt and arrested but, luckily, it didn't happen to me. Afterwards, my photographs were used by the anti-war movement and in defense of those arrested. We were all protesting peacefully, unmasked and took full reponsibility and credit for our actions and what we stood for. I also participated in many other protests which didn't turn out as badly for the protestors because the public was outraged at the behaviour of the police and we didn't provide them with an excuse for their abuse by being masked, or violent, or destructive. As well, because we were identifiable, so that everyone knew who we were and what we stood for, the cops wouldn't (and didn't) attack the passive crowd observing us. The anti-Vietnam War movement grew ever larger and prevailed because we were anti-violence and the authorities were not which the general public saw and, consequently, joined us in peaceful protest to the point that we were so many the authorities couldn't attack us without suffering negative consequences politically and legally. I also tried to go to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the one where the cops did cause a riot (There's similarities with that and the 2010 G20), but was rejected at the border by U.S. border agents (they probably knew about me). When I returned to Canada, the Canadian border agent stated "You were rejected by the U.S. because you're too good for them, welcome back!" If you want to be effective, change your behaviour to get the support you need even if that means getting identified, bashed and arrested.
wow - this is way off. painful to read....really historically whitewashed and self-aggrandizing.
Ghandi was a great leader but not the only leader Indians looked to. Nor was he politically an absolutist in regard to nonviolence. I think decolonization in India had, also, a little to do with WWII and then Britain being engaged in violent anti-revolutionary wars all over their colonies (including insurgents in India).
Your Vietnam story is disgusting. Frankly I thought, judging by what you've written here and elsewhere, that you were really young. Crazy. To think that you've been picturing taking all these years and are still so ideologically attached to it that you fill the boards with posts condeming our friends in action and jail, reasoning in tune with the media and police.
Just like a video of Rebick, standing on a car, yelling to a crowd about the virtues of protesting, saying "we stopped the war in vietnam." Disgusting. Protests of any scale on took place in the late sixties, early seventies: the war was waging years before that and for years afterwards.
The war ended more likely because, while there were protests, there was also a large and growing segment of the left that was engaging in more direct action campaigns. Including bombings. Moreover, they were in contact with internal national liberation movements like the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement. These groups were all severly targeted by the FBI and also, sadly, by many priviliged white middle class "allies".
The end of the war, and this is just a guess, may have had something to do with the violent resistence of the Vietnamese to the foreign occupiers - the French than US. That's just a theory though - maybe their intense and violent resistence had something to do with the US troops pulling out...
Or maybe it was the armies own soldiers starting to get the feeling that they'd rather shoot their own commander. That started to happen, and that is hard on morale.
But, I suppose you want the story your way. That way we can pat ourselves on the back, job well done fellow freedom fighter. we know how to do it, yes we do, time to educate others there no need to be angry, no need to break a window, no need to destroy police property, come, let them beat us as we sing, they'll eventually stop, you'll see.....
You haven't got a clue. Ghandi was greatly influence by Tolstoy regarding peaceful protest and, yes, WWII did have a lot to do with his success too because Britain needed India onside against the Japanese. There's nothing disgusting about what I experienced regarding protesting the war in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's, but your characterization of it is absolutely disgusting. As well, The Black Panthers and the A.I.M. were mainly their own issues about racism against them but, for the Black Panthers, also included the large numbers of blacks fighting and dying in Vietnam. The U.S. government was prepared to continue the Vietnam war and escalate it further but anti-war public opinion had a very great deal to do with it ending.
Facts plz grim reaper.
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