Sunday June 27. Photo by Ariel Estulin
Queen and Spadina: protestors blocked in
VIDEO: Toronto Police Attack Peaceful Protesters and Journalists at G20 Protests by Brandon Jourdan
VIDEO: Saturday June 26: Unarmed protestors attacked by police
VIDEO: Eighteen-year-old detainee recounts experience of being held inside G8/20 police cage for 26 hours by Tor Sandberg
Photo above by Jonas Naimark
VIDEO Sunday June 28 Queen’s Park Protestors Attacked By Police, nowhere to go
VIDEO Police Open Fire on Protesters at the Eastern Ave Detention Centre
…….
And from the “OMG It Has to Be This Bad and Experienced By A Toronto Sun Reporter Personally Who Of Course is Also a White Guy For a Right Winger to Take It Seriously” files:
This Time, The Cops Were Out of Line, By Joe Warmington, Toronto Sun
In other news, 25,000 marched. Nothing in the mainstream corporate news about this.
VIDEO: What the media ignored: 25,000 peacefully demonstrate against G20 policies in Toronto
……
The police out in full force
Prelude
I was born in Lachine, a suburb of Montreal in the province of Quebec. My family moved to west Etobicoke, Ontario in 1974 when I was 7 years old. I moved out when I was 20 years old, but it wasn’t until I was 23 that I moved downtown, where I’ve remained. For almost 20 years I lived within the boundaries of Bloor/Christie/St George and College, with a brief stint on Brunswick Avenue a few blocks north of Bloor. In 2007 I moved to Cabbagetown, east of Yonge for the first time. I fell in love with what’s known as West Riverdale, and I’m here to stay for a while.
This is my city. Especially the downtown. My various workplaces over the last 20 years, where I went to school (ah, OISE), my volunteer gigs, my credit union, all within this relatively small space in the larger city that I love so much.
Art, culture politics. In the late 1990s I read my written work for the first time in my life, to an audience as part of the Mayworks festival, at a venue on Church Street.
Why this preamble? Because today this was not my city. Today my city was taken over, today, I saw Toronto in a way that I have never seen it before, and it wasn’t good.
Saturday June 26, 2010
2pm
There are no streetcars running on my stretch of Carlton Street, so I walk to University Avenue. I pass Yonge Street and see my first set of police, standing around, not doing much, their riot helmuts dangling down one leg, and a large pouch strapped down their other leg. What’s in the pouch? Tear gas canisters? Extra rubber bullets? I will never know.
I arrive late to the march and rally, and join it in progress at University and College.
Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto Star article, June 18, 2010
Her death sent shock waves through the city — and across the world — prompting heated debate on the hijab, the challenges of integration for newcomers, and whether her death was Toronto’s first crime of honour or a horrible case of domestic violence. …. Media in Toronto and around the world immediately reported and continues to report that Aqsa was killed because she refused to wear the hijab. But it was much more complicated than that.
Her death sent shock waves through the city — and across the world — prompting heated debate on the hijab, the challenges of integration for newcomers, and whether her death was Toronto’s first crime of honour or a horrible case of domestic violence.
….
Media in Toronto and around the world immediately reported and continues to report that Aqsa was killed because she refused to wear the hijab. But it was much more complicated than that.
You know, if one were to never pay attention to feminists, including Muslim feminists, one would be rather perplexed about the horror, fear and isolation that Aqsa had in the last moments of her life, being killed by her father and brother. Nobody in any of the regular state intervention machines (her school, CAS, the police) did much of anything to help her, to listen to her about what she needed.
And since her murder (why the media keeps calling it her “death” is beyond me) the white establishment has been desperately trying to “understand”, from the mealy-center of the Toronto Star to the hard-core right of the Globe and Mail.
“What I Learned from Preston Manning and William Shatner”
Given that I’m neither a father nor a son, my understanding of issues facing fathers is pretty miniscule.
But yesterday, Friday June 18, the Globe and Mail featured two articles, one written by Preston Manning, the other about William Shatner. As my more devoted readership would already know, reading the newspaper almost always enrages me, and no good can come of it, except maybe a new blog post.
1.
So, first, Preston Manning’s father-worship piece.
Deep cleansing breath.
I haven’t read such an emotional, yet fascinatingly cold-hearted suck up/ praise/ celebration of white ruling-class masculinity in a very long time. Certainly not something at least mediated by quotes and footnotes and a feminist/ anti-racist/ post-modern critique.
This undiluted stuff is pretty harsh, astringent. Like Old Spice mixed with Liquid Drano. Basically, a bio-hazard.
Preston mentions, rather off handedly, that he was one year old the year his father was first elected premier. What follows is a sad, disconnected piece praising his father’s political “achievements”, but demonstrating nothing about who his father was as a person, since of course, Preston doesn’t have any access to that information or experience. Nor did he care to, apparently.
This post has been a long time coming. I’ve had to sub-section it, in order to parse out my rage. Let’s see how well I do.
1. The Cost: Over One Billion Dollars
Are you fucking kidding me?!?
If we needed proof that the Harper government’s priorities are completely fucked up (and to be clear, we do NOT need proof) this is it on a gold-plated fucking Muskoka chair (I’ll get to the fake lake in a moment).
No improvements to health care
No much-needed funding to public education
No national child care program
No national drug/medication program
No increase to the anti-violence against women sector
No national affordable housing plan
No college/university tuition freezes, or free tuition altogether
Noooooo! All those are…what? What are they? TOO EXPENSIVE?!?!?!
But over One Billion Dollars for a 3-day party for the world’s elite is SOOOO worth it. Why? Because it’s who Harper cares about, and who he’s always cared about. Could there be any better proof than this?
