Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Naive of Hearts :
How I Conquered the G-8 in Three Movements
Movement : The First
Web Posted Jun 24 2002 10:13 AM CDT
3,000 protesters take over downtown Calgary
CALGARY - About 3,000 people marched through Calgary's downtown on Sunday to protest the upcoming G-8 meetings in Kananaskis.
Protesters carried banners with slogans like "People before Profit" as they walked from Eau Claire to Olympic Plaza.
Demonstrators included members of labour groups, environmentalists, advocates for Third World debt relief and families.
Mark Black came in from Banff for the week. He says the event shatters the stereotype of protesters as anarchists.
"You know, this isn't like some kind of militant activism where people are scared away. This is like, people that live on your street. And that's amazing, because people will see this and wonder what's going on and be attracted to it."
Inspector Al Redford says non-violent protests with the aid of the G-8 security will help activists.
"The fact that this parade was not marred by any violence assists the protesters in getting the message out that they need to get out."
There were two G-8 related arrests made on the weekend. Two American citizens were arrested Saturday night after spray painting on rail cars at the CP rail yards on 9 Avenue.
It sounds awful reading yourself quoted verbatim and seeing how eloquent you are not.
I didn't ever mention anything about anarchists. My point was that people expect to see what they consider fringe elements at protests concerning the G-8 not whole families. I thought that public meetings such as the one I was attending presented a diversity of opinions and people and that made things more accessible to those who most likely wouldn't have given the G-8 or globalization a second thought.
I thought that, but I wasn't really expressing it very well. Sometimes I speak too soon and not very well.
We got up early that morning. I slept in Christina's very comfortable guest bedroom. We had made plans to climb buildings in the night and then check out the G-8 events the next day. I sort of put a crimp in the building climbing plans. We pulled into the parking lot of a very closed pizza place and I refused to get out of the car citing the fact that the rooftop was much too visible from the busy street. We headed out to Heritage Park to do some sight seeing after dark, but I begged off claiming that I could barely keep my eyes open. I think my refusal had more to do with me being scared of getting caught then it had to do with my need for sleep. I'm just a big wimp.
The next morning after touring Christina's mammoth house that had its own 'medical clinic' we drove into the city. We parked at the C-Train station nearest the Saddledome and walked the rest of the way. The city was deserted until about 5th avenue when I started to notice police cars parked along the sides of the streets. More and more packed police cruisers appeared the closer we got to the Bow River.
The CBC reporter taped my comments shortly after we arrived at the Bow River as I stood on a small hill. There were thousands of protesters who looked like they were about to partake in a civic parade rather than a march against globalization. They were surrounded by hundreds of cops who looked like they were preparing for a stand off at a bank. It didn't seem to make much sense.
My own town, Banff, had seemingly turned into a military base overnight. RCMP foot patrols were stepped up, stores were bracing for looting and rioting, and the Army took over the rec centre and deemed it off limits to any unauthorized personnel, this included the terrorist network that had obviously inflitrated the patrons of the rec centre's skatepark. All this 100 kms from the site of the actual G-8 meeting.
I figured Calgary must be under some sort of martial law so I had headed there for the weekend. I wanted to bear witness, but not in any sort of Christian way. I had a feeling that Alberta was on the verge of being a very exciting place. I also wanted to escape my apartment which was on the verge of being a verg aggravating place. Five of us were crammed into a small two bedroom apartment not much bigger than the top floor of Bloomfield house. The brother of one of the roommates used to try to convince me to put out a record of his slam poetry. He cornered me in the closet like kitchen and performed a 'slam' called 'Hands Off the Isthmus' (it was directed to Vincente Fox). Calgary beckoned.
There were numerous unmarked cars dotting the median of the highway from Banff to Calgary monitoring the traffic and watching for any irregularities. Highway exits to Kananaskis were closed to the public. I was expecting Calgary to be a city under siege. Sort of like that battleship in that Seagal movie...you know with DMX and Ja Rule?
YAWN YAWN YAWN
There was movement, there was people, but what was to follow was the most anticlimactic event I've ever witnessed. Cops standing at the ready, preparing to beat back protesters if they got out of hand. They were met with the most vocal of protesters, the raging grannies. All these security measures. It was laughable.
You say that I'm just another boy on this world who's trying to romanticizes the struggle,but I know when I'm talking about love.
Do violent protests that are in full view of spectators and media create a useful beneficial outcome for a movement? In all likelihood, they do not. I am usually in favour of direct action and I most certainly do see that it has benefits, but during a march or protest whose main aims are to educate and spark awareness the benefits quickly decrease, while the drawbacks quickly increase. If I was some sort of math guy, I'd show you some sort of curve that with an x-axis and y-axis that would illustrate this perfectly, unfortunately I'm not. So words will have to do.
Conversely did these street parties in Calgary turn the world or even Alberta on its ear? I understand sometimes that such protests can seem somewhat retrogressive, making the movement more palatable to the masses. The benefits they provide also don't seem to be very quantifiable and if they are quantifiable those results appear to be slow in coming. However, for any real change to occur, that change must be inevitable. An environment must be created in which real change, real progress is an inevitability, otherwise we just exchange one power system for another. I suppose that's why it's necessary to create community structures that demonstrate and symbolize the sort of community one wants to live in. Who am I to speak though?
I know that when you feel like you have no control over your life that the need to seize control becomes greater. We sometimes attempt deseperate acts in order to assert control over lives which seem to be wildy out of our control. We steal, we trespass, we dumpster, we fuck, we love, we write, we do anything we can, some more than others.
I wish I could make writing like this appear a lot more sexy. I did refer to fucking and sometimes that's sort of a sexy act.
Web Posted Jun 24 2002 10:13 AM CDT
3,000 protesters take over downtown Calgary
CALGARY - About 3,000 people marched through Calgary's downtown on Sunday to protest the upcoming G-8 meetings in Kananaskis.
Protesters carried banners with slogans like "People before Profit" as they walked from Eau Claire to Olympic Plaza.
Demonstrators included members of labour groups, environmentalists, advocates for Third World debt relief and families.
Mark Black came in from Banff for the week. He says the event shatters the stereotype of protesters as anarchists.
"You know, this isn't like some kind of militant activism where people are scared away. This is like, people that live on your street. And that's amazing, because people will see this and wonder what's going on and be attracted to it."
Inspector Al Redford says non-violent protests with the aid of the G-8 security will help activists.
"The fact that this parade was not marred by any violence assists the protesters in getting the message out that they need to get out."
There were two G-8 related arrests made on the weekend. Two American citizens were arrested Saturday night after spray painting on rail cars at the CP rail yards on 9 Avenue.
It sounds awful reading yourself quoted verbatim and seeing how eloquent you are not.
I didn't ever mention anything about anarchists. My point was that people expect to see what they consider fringe elements at protests concerning the G-8 not whole families. I thought that public meetings such as the one I was attending presented a diversity of opinions and people and that made things more accessible to those who most likely wouldn't have given the G-8 or globalization a second thought.
I thought that, but I wasn't really expressing it very well. Sometimes I speak too soon and not very well.
We got up early that morning. I slept in Christina's very comfortable guest bedroom. We had made plans to climb buildings in the night and then check out the G-8 events the next day. I sort of put a crimp in the building climbing plans. We pulled into the parking lot of a very closed pizza place and I refused to get out of the car citing the fact that the rooftop was much too visible from the busy street. We headed out to Heritage Park to do some sight seeing after dark, but I begged off claiming that I could barely keep my eyes open. I think my refusal had more to do with me being scared of getting caught then it had to do with my need for sleep. I'm just a big wimp.
The next morning after touring Christina's mammoth house that had its own 'medical clinic' we drove into the city. We parked at the C-Train station nearest the Saddledome and walked the rest of the way. The city was deserted until about 5th avenue when I started to notice police cars parked along the sides of the streets. More and more packed police cruisers appeared the closer we got to the Bow River.
The CBC reporter taped my comments shortly after we arrived at the Bow River as I stood on a small hill. There were thousands of protesters who looked like they were about to partake in a civic parade rather than a march against globalization. They were surrounded by hundreds of cops who looked like they were preparing for a stand off at a bank. It didn't seem to make much sense.
My own town, Banff, had seemingly turned into a military base overnight. RCMP foot patrols were stepped up, stores were bracing for looting and rioting, and the Army took over the rec centre and deemed it off limits to any unauthorized personnel, this included the terrorist network that had obviously inflitrated the patrons of the rec centre's skatepark. All this 100 kms from the site of the actual G-8 meeting.
I figured Calgary must be under some sort of martial law so I had headed there for the weekend. I wanted to bear witness, but not in any sort of Christian way. I had a feeling that Alberta was on the verge of being a very exciting place. I also wanted to escape my apartment which was on the verge of being a verg aggravating place. Five of us were crammed into a small two bedroom apartment not much bigger than the top floor of Bloomfield house. The brother of one of the roommates used to try to convince me to put out a record of his slam poetry. He cornered me in the closet like kitchen and performed a 'slam' called 'Hands Off the Isthmus' (it was directed to Vincente Fox). Calgary beckoned.
There were numerous unmarked cars dotting the median of the highway from Banff to Calgary monitoring the traffic and watching for any irregularities. Highway exits to Kananaskis were closed to the public. I was expecting Calgary to be a city under siege. Sort of like that battleship in that Seagal movie...you know with DMX and Ja Rule?
YAWN YAWN YAWN
There was movement, there was people, but what was to follow was the most anticlimactic event I've ever witnessed. Cops standing at the ready, preparing to beat back protesters if they got out of hand. They were met with the most vocal of protesters, the raging grannies. All these security measures. It was laughable.
You say that I'm just another boy on this world who's trying to romanticizes the struggle,but I know when I'm talking about love.
Do violent protests that are in full view of spectators and media create a useful beneficial outcome for a movement? In all likelihood, they do not. I am usually in favour of direct action and I most certainly do see that it has benefits, but during a march or protest whose main aims are to educate and spark awareness the benefits quickly decrease, while the drawbacks quickly increase. If I was some sort of math guy, I'd show you some sort of curve that with an x-axis and y-axis that would illustrate this perfectly, unfortunately I'm not. So words will have to do.
Conversely did these street parties in Calgary turn the world or even Alberta on its ear? I understand sometimes that such protests can seem somewhat retrogressive, making the movement more palatable to the masses. The benefits they provide also don't seem to be very quantifiable and if they are quantifiable those results appear to be slow in coming. However, for any real change to occur, that change must be inevitable. An environment must be created in which real change, real progress is an inevitability, otherwise we just exchange one power system for another. I suppose that's why it's necessary to create community structures that demonstrate and symbolize the sort of community one wants to live in. Who am I to speak though?
I know that when you feel like you have no control over your life that the need to seize control becomes greater. We sometimes attempt deseperate acts in order to assert control over lives which seem to be wildy out of our control. We steal, we trespass, we dumpster, we fuck, we love, we write, we do anything we can, some more than others.
I wish I could make writing like this appear a lot more sexy. I did refer to fucking and sometimes that's sort of a sexy act.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 12:11 PM 
