Matt, I like you, honestly. You’ve always seemed like a nice guy and we grew up in the same neighborhood. But all I can tell you is that you’re facing some steep learning curves.
I don’t want to sound patronizing, but quite frankly you seem to have a fairly dilettante attitude for someone who wishes to persue a lifetime of dissent. Do you think the protesters in Kabul or Beijing or Seoul go out marching with the expectation that the police whose brutality they are protesting will respect their civil rights? These protesters march knowing that the police they will be facing have used violence against them in the past, are prepared to use it today, and that they are placing their life in serious danger.
As for your belief that police are more dangerous than criminals, you should consider yourself lucky you don’t know any real criminals. I’ve been working with them for about as long as you’ve been alive and trust me, they’re not the romantic outlaws you seem to think they are. For your next protest, try crashing a meeting of the Crips, the Hell’s Angels, or some “Italian businessmen” (make sure there are no evil police around to inhibit the fun) and see what their reaction is to your protest. I’ll bet it’ll be a lot more severe than being chased a couple of blocks.
And finally, you seem to be caught up in the fallacy that it is possible to simultaneouly live the slogans “Love Everyone” and “Kill the Pigs”. In case it escaped your notice, the police officers you saw were human beings too. They don’t take their job to be willfully evil; you might be surprised to learn that most of them consider themselves to be decent human beings who are contributing something to society. If you insist on prejudging every police officer based on the actions of the worst among them, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they decide to prejudge every protester based on the actions of the worst among them.
Did you miss something? I’ve said a few times already that I knew they were probably going to attack us. But I was holding them to the standards that they’ve set for themselves (a.k.a. the law) and when they violated that, not to mention common ethics, I reserve the right to be disgusted, if not surprised. What, since I expected it, I’m not supposed to have any feelings about it?
I might note also that this is the first time I’ve actually come up against police brutality personally. I’ve heard about it and seen the big bad cops at other demos, but this is the first time I’ve actually been chased/felt afraid for my health at a demo. So I do have some emotions about it, which I wanted to share. Bite me.
I might note in passing that your comparisons to Kabul and Beijing are, one would hope, specious, since I’m not protesting in the third world under a military dictatorship. At least I hope I’m not.
Oh, you know very well you’re taking me out of context. I said that in the same paragraph as I mentioned that I’m friends with a lot of non-violent “criminals”… pot dealers, prostitutes, homeless people, and one guy who conned a large corporation in order to leave the country to escape his sadistic parents. I know this is a fairly short and possibly giggle-inducing list; that’s kind of my point. Of all the people I know who have broken the law, not one of them has ever done so in a violent way, or even in a way as violent as the police did on Wednesday or at Concordia.
sigh did I say “Kill the pigs?” Did I say “Love everyone?”
It’s not escaped my notice that police officers are human. It has not escaped my notice either that a large number of them in this city use their position to be unethical. (It goes both ways, like the guy on the SQ who was on the news the other day for falsifying a breathalyzer report for a colleague’s daughter, who was drunk-driving and caused an accident.) I’m going to protest that. Note too that I’m also human, and when people chase me down the street with batons I’m going to have a severe emotional reaction, and it is very difficult, sometimes, to remember that every police officer is not corrupt and does not hate the poor and the young when I’m being attacked with clubs and/or in hysterics thereafter. Forgive me.
I find it frightening that you have such low expectations of the police, whose job it is to serve and protect. Look at what you’ve said: be glad you don’t live in Kabul, and why is it any different when protesters criticize the police versus when police attack protesters?
Analyze these thoughts. You already do not expect police in a major city in a first-world democracy to behave any more ethically than thugs under a military junta, nor in a more organized, coherent, or calm fashion than a bunch of protesters (not the most organized people, let me tell you!).
You’re not holding the police to very high standards, it seems, which is frightening considering you pay their salary. Perhaps too many years of police brutality have lowered your expectations to the level of cynicism.
Matt: apparently what you missed was the definition of “incitement to riot” and “peaceful assembly.”
By your own admission, you and your crowd were not peaceful.
That is unless your definition of “student” is different than the rest of the planet’s.
oh, my mistake; I guess you didn’t mean to say above that “Students didn’t do that. Four students did.” Gee, that means students did it, in your observation of the event.
Like it or not, once the riot began, you were part of the riot. And the police did their job of protecting society from the likes of rioters properly.
Police brutality is another issue; and it certainly isn’t what you’ve described above.
FYI, I was caught in a riot in another country. The bus I was taking home from my job had to pass through Yeoido Plaza in Seoul. The news reports the next morning estimated the crowd that attacked all of the public transit passing through that plaza at one million.
You want change, fine. Agitate for it. But do it lawfully and peacefully. And make sure everyone in your crowd understands that it’s not lawful or peaceful to start chucking bricks or overturning vehicles. Or you can just go ahead and bitch about it when the police do their job when the rioters don’t understand that.
Matt, you missed the point on my quote. In fact, you missed several points; all of them sailing over your blissfully unaware noggin.
I wasn’t talking about petitioning against police brutality, hotshot; I was talking about petition drives as an alternative to protest marches. You mentioned several different protests. And the petition campaigns can prevent explosive situations with the coppers in the first place.And if the first petition against the cops doesn’t work, are you so lacking in spirit or courage that you won’t try again?
Are there no lawyers in the world who do Pro Rata cases? That is , donating their time & services to help people who cannot afford it?
And as for your cites of cases in which justice is misscarried; what about the thousands of cases in which it is not misscarried? Are you saying " The system is totally corrupt–so let’s not try"? It sure sounds like that from where I’m sitting.
Of course they do; and will continue to do so until people get involved. Saying “the rich have power” is like saying “the sky is blue & the grass is green”. It’s too obvious to impress anybody.
If a crowd of thousands cannot afford $10 each to pool for an ad in the paper, then I guess that your friends aren’t dedicated enough to sell some of their things to come up with the money. I’ve done that; both for my own needs and for charity. Other occasions, I’ve done without things I’ve needed or wanted to achieve my goals. I suggest you & your friends learn to suffer a few hardships, if you intend to carry on with your mission to change the world.
**My point, you callow youth, is that there are many ways to create social change. Protest marches should be the last resort, not the first one.If you START with a protest march, you end up looking like a bunch of whining , spoiled brats on a temper-tantrum spree. **
Recently, a cop drove up to me on the street & started hassling me for “being suspicious”. I didn’t wait. I went straight to the police station & complained to the watch officer. The officer assured me it would not happen again. I’ve seen the cop who hassled me several times since then & he ain’t said “boo”. Stand up for yourself or you’re gonna be a doormat for the rest of your life.
But Matt, I don’t think you’re gonna do that. You don’t sound like a guy who really wants to make the world a better place. You see injustice, but you won’t try to change it unless it’s safe.
Goddamn crybaby.
Rev. King got shot, Ghandi did too. They chased some Prophets across the desert; they crucified others. You aren’t cut from their cloth; that’s for sure.
My point was that the way the Gazette reported it, it sounded like every single student at the march was out of control, which needless to say was not the case.
Let me put it this way. Suppose there’s a crowded shopping mall, swarming with people, all there with one purpose: to do Christmas shopping. And suppose someone heaves a brickbat through a display case or steals someone’s purse. Now do the police seal off all the exits and come charging in pepperspraying people indiscriminately? Or do they restrict their focus to the offender?
Incidentally, in Canada a gathering is not a riot and they have no right to treat it as such until a peace officer literally reads the Riot Act.
You know, at the march on Wednesday, the one against police brutality (let’s keep our protest marches distinct here), the organizer of the march DID tell everyone to be non-violent and got a rousing cheer. And you know what? I didn’t see a single act of violence by protesters during the march. And if I had, I would have told people to stop being violent and not lower themselves. I’ve done this in the past.
You don’t know anything about my situation. We’re not talking about the first petition. We’re talking about the first through the twenty-ninth, with intervening assaults, murders, pepper-spraying, repression, and arbitrary arrests leading to a general air of irritation.
Obviously there are a lot of cases in which justice is not miscarried. Just like there are a lot of politicians who are not corrupt. But when we see ones that are you bet your bippy that we are going to be in the streets about it, whether petitioning, handing out newsletters, postering, or marching.
I have donated my money before. A fairly good quantity, I might add. That’s because I’m not homeless, like a good number of people who came to the demonstration on Wednesday.
What do you think that I and Citizens Against Police Brutality and Amnesty International and everyone have been doing all this time? Arm wrestling?
Citizens Against Police Brutality have been there and done that so many times it’s not even funny. There have been people assaulted at gatherings who have been hassled again when they went to the station to check officers’ names against their badge numbers. Why do you assume that we’ve done nothing but protest? Why are you making all of these totally unjustified assumptions about what we have and haven’t done?
Look, yutz, you don’t know me at all. AT ALL. You don’t know anything about what I’ve done other than what I’ve mentioned. You don’t know what I do and do not do. You don’t know how much I’ve restructured my own point of view, how much I’ve contributed of my time and effort. Stay off of my ass until you actually know me other than in cyberspace, you know my life story, and you know what I’ve done. Callow or not, I have done more for social justice in the last twenty-four months than a lot of people do in their lives. So I do not want to fucking hear your snotty assumptions about someone you don’t even know.
Because I have emotions, and because I get flustered when I get chased down the street?
Did I say I was? On what basis do you impute this kind of arrogance to me? I am well aware that I’m not a Gandhi (spell it right, please) or even a John Ralston Saul. But I’m neither a complacent yutz like some people nor the whiny dilettante you make me out to be.
I can accept criticism from people who know me and who have some idea of my life history. But not from some schmendrick on an internet message board who reads about me on one thread and presumes to describe my entire character like some kind of berzerk phrenologist. Gracious Goddess.
Incidentally, if you’re wondering, the most recent thing I did against police brutality was to put James in touch with a CBC reporter so he could tell his story and play his evidence against the MUC police on the air. (We’re talking about the strikebreaking attack at Concordia.) The journalism continues apace, though no word yet as to when it’s going to air.
Holy crap, what the hell is going on in this thread ??
Matt obviously was scared shitless by a police charge and wanted to share that with us. Next thing you know everybody is talking about him like some idealistic dreamer whose clouded vision will not change the world because he’s using the wrong means to try and do so.
WTF ???
Other means aside, have you guys ever heard of the right to protest ? I’m for the moment assuming that this applies to Canada as it does to most civilized countries (and yes, you may correct me whan I’m wrong), but if the protest march was authorized by the relevant authorities (say, the mayor or the head of the police department), the cops were WAY out of line arresting and chasing people who were protesting peacefully.
I don’t care about the subject of the march, nor do I care about what other means Matt or his fellow protesters have used to get their points across. All I know is the OP, and I sure as hell can understand why this guy is upset.
What’s the use of getting into all sorts of symanthics (SP?) debates when the poster obviously did NOT want to lead the ensuing direction into that direction ? It appears to be done solely because of a disapproval of someone’s lifestyle / personal beliefs.
And that’s just sad.
Thought I’d put these thoughts in, you do whatever you want with it.
Does the concept of public awareness mean nothing to you? And there is also something to be said for a visible show of support.
Because no one respectable or with a real job has long hair!
WHERE did he romanticize criminals? Please show me. What I understood his point to be was that police you encounter everywhere, and they do their brutal actions out in the open, without fear of repercussions. Dangerous criminals are much less in-your-face, less public, and aren’t part of “accepted” society–which the police seem to be.
Now you’re just making stuff up.
Could you please tell me what the lotto numbers will be, since you seem to have such a strong psychic ability that you know everything? Because I didn’t see enough info up there to know what these people had or hadn’t done in what order, etc.
What kind of jumping-to-conclusions idiot are you, anyway?
I dont understand why the personal attack on Matt. I saw three different news reports on our Canadian television stations. It was very very clear to me regarding the homeless demonstration that it was a quiet and organized protest until the police got out of control with their tactical squad and pepper spray. That is MY observation on what happened and as a person living in a free country therefore gives me the right to express my observations and opinions.
What the hell ever happened to freedom of speech? If you wanna batter Matt over this… open a thread in the pit. This one isnt about whether or not he is an adult, has long hair or screws goats in the park.
<font face=“arial” size=4>You good and mad at me now, Matt?
Good.
I wanted that. And you needed it.
Now that you’re over being scared, & back to being mad—get back on that horse. Don’t stop trying to change things.
And no, this isn’t sarcasm.
And yes, this is what I was shooting for from the first post. Showing you sympathy would have softened your resolve. When a boxer gets hurt, his trainer isn’t sympathetic; he reams the boxer out for being careless. Sympathy would make it too easy not to get back into the ring; make it too easdy to quit.
Round 2, Rocky. Start swinging.</font>
Is an appreciation of beauty a function of the human soul?
Now that you’re over being scared, & back to being mad—get back on that horse. Don’t stop trying to change things.
And no, this isn’t sarcasm.
And yes, this is what I was shooting for from the first post. Showing you sympathy would have softened your resolve. When a boxer gets hurt, his trainer isn’t sympathetic; he reams the boxer out for being careless. Sympathy would make it too easy not to get back into the ring; make it too easdy to quit.]] D. Bostaph
“Yeah, that’s the ticket … I was, umm, gettin’ you fired up.”
Gee, I suppose I could say I was just trying to fire you up too, Matt, but actually I meant what I said. It appears though that some of it was misunderstood so let me try again.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t protest for what you believe in. I’m saying you should however be aware of the possible consequences of your actions. You have my sympathy for what was obviously a traumatic experience, but it might have been less traumatic if you had anticipated it.
You also misunderstood my opinions of the police. Personally, I wouldn’t have compared the police in Montreal with the police in Kabul or Beijing or Seoul. But I don’t live in any of these cities. You were the one who was marching in protest of local police brutality so you must have believed the local police were capable of brutality. I’ve also been in riot situations; from the other side incidentally, and trust me, it’s just as frightening. One of the most important keys to survival, both physical and mental, is to understand the situation you are entering.
I continue to disagree with your beliefs about the police. You apparently hate police brutality. So do I. So undoubtedly do the majority of the police in your city. But what you said was that you hate the police. I realize that there are police officers who abuse their authority and I’d be glad to do what I could to remove them from that authority. But I believe the majority of police officers are good hard-working men and women who deserve our respect and support. You condemned the police because they treated all of the protesters by the standards of the few violent ones among them, but you did the same towards them. Keep in mind that one of the main reasons you don’t worry about the threat of criminals in your life is because the police protect you from them.
As for my comment about simultaneously “loving everyone” and “killing the pigs”, OplaCat was wrong in saying I made that up. I stole it from P.J. O’Rourke who was describing his own early years as a student protester. O’Rourke incidentally went from being a self-professed Maoist revolutionary in the 1960’s to a self-professed Reagan Republican in the 1980’s. So don’t think it can’t happen.
You’re right. I am angry. AT YOU. That’s possibly one of the least sympathetic actions I’ve seen someone commit towards me. Jesus murphy, there’s this thing called tact and fellow-feeling that you may want to look up sometime. It’ll prevent people from perceiving you as a fucking bastard. It’s too late for my opinion of you, but you may be able to change other people’s minds.
For the third time, I did anticipate it. That didn’t stop it being shocking. It’s the first time I’ve personally been attacked/chased, rather than seeing it happen or hearing about it on the news. That’s why it was shocking. sigh Got it now?
Well, I’m sorry, all right? I was hysterical. Now I’m calm. (draws breath) But police brutality and corruption is an endemic problem here! As it probably is in most places. So you’ll please excuse me if I start to get a little bit pessimistic when every time I mention the police, someone I know mentions bad experiences they’ve had with them.
Oh, bullshit on that, matt! Police corruption may be endimic in Candada; but brutality?! Hardly endimic; although, according the news it does happen. Hell, it happens in the US too.
That definitely doesn’t mean ALL police are corrupt and it certainly doesn’t mean all police, including those corrupt police, are brutalizing the public.
You, by your own admission above, have declared all police in your town to be brutal and corrput but are just basically bitching about them doing their lawful duty in controlling a riot in which you took part! Gee, that’s not brutality–it’s protecting the rest of society from those who are running amok–you!
Coldfire: butt out. Or at least take your obscenities to the BBQ pit.
Matt- It is more important that you dont give up trying than anything else. You are going to hear a lot of crappy things in this world. Many of them will be far colder & lack a great deal more heartless than anything you read here. You must be able to keep going, if you want to change things. And the World never promises to be kind or fair. Instead of being kind or fair, concentrate on being right. & you are right–morally right.
As For the rest of you–FLAKE OFF!
If you baby him with too much sympathy, you will hurt him, not help him.* “Whatever does not kill me, makes me stronger.”* This event could become a turning point in his life. He can take this as a reason to give up, or as a spur to drive him onwards.
When someone suffer a random misfortune, I can sympathize. But Matt is entering into a form of political struggle. He is becoming a kind of fighter. His opponents will try to hurt him. He has to come to terms with that.
My point is that if The Link says he wasn’t resisting arrest I’m 90% sure he was.
Also, even if they guy was in the Hall building couldn’t the cops have kicked him out because of a request from the administration? Maybe that’s why they didn’t arrest him right away, they had to get permission from the administration…
Ooooooohhh… Coldfire used the ‘F’ word. Now I’m very shocked all of a sudden.
Funny response coming from a guy who is trying to “help” someone by debilerately getting them angry. “Because the big bad world out there is like that”, or words to that effect.
Leave the issue of protest for a while, Matt only asked for similar experiences in his OP regarding what he defined as “police brutality”. He did not ask for anyone to re-define it, nor did he ask for anyone to comment on his legally entitled means of voicing his opinion. If I then see people REPEATEDLY do just those two things instead of really adding to the value of this thread, hell yeah, I’ll throw my 2 cents in. And if an aggrevated ‘F’ word comes up in such a response, consider it heat of the moment if your sanity is still with you.
But obviously, since it seemed to call for an explanation about where to use profanities, here AND through a private e-mail I might add, I’m sure there is little point in me trying to explain the “Don’t be a jerk” rule to the person who got so upset by a single profanity.
Sure Daniel, take it to the pit if you feel inclined. I for one am not going to waste the energy in starting a Pit Thread for your personal amusement. Because that seems to be your thing, judging from the connotation of your posts in this thread.
Go ahead matey, flame away. If it’s coherent, logical, and in a 12 point font, I might even read it.