Originally Posted by britb

Mississauga It's busier than usual in the malls, I guess people are trying to stay away from the city as much as possible.

Chef says 75 arrests today, thus far.
http://www.macinsiders.com/macinside...es/biggrin.png
Union, the UofT area hospitals (Sick Kids, General, etc) are still in lock down. :( Same with Eaton and Queen and the other streets.

The Jazz Festival is still going on at Nathan Philip Sq, and a bunch of "protesters" are going to be going right through there on their way to Bloor. Yhe jazz people are just gonna let it floooooow, unless they get kicked out.


BTW, what channel has everyone got on? I was watching CBC and CP24, but CBC got boring so I'm just on CP24 now.

Im watching CTV, they are doing a pretty good job with it. They are broadcasting live.

Originally Posted by britb

Mounted officer just fell off his horse, looks like he was hit with something. Hope he's okay (or she, I dunno). They trotted forward after that and pushed everyone back.

This is ridiculous, honestly, why is everyone milling around down there? Someone's gonna get it, and then it'll be the police's fault.

The cops are being way to flexible. Not to talk about her without her reading this, but could you imagine if Cheri was a cop? lol.

She would've given some ass whoopin fooh shhuuhhh to all these anarchists.

Originally Posted by mcmastergcdb

Yea man, it just irks me seeing people breaking sh*t for no reason! And we are the one who would have to pay for all the damages

To be fair, I don't think taxpayers will have to foot much of the bill. Almost everything is covered by insurance, or was private property (hopefully they also have insurance). The huge cost of a conference where next to nothing will get done anyway is the real thing to be angry about.

Originally Posted by feonateresa

I know it's selfish, but WOW, I am so glad I left for Hamilton yesterday and avoided all of this mess. Things were super tense down there yesterday, I can't even begin to imagine what it's like now. I just don't understand what the point of all of this is. To be honest, this is just weird for Toronto in the first place, where were these crazy people hiding?

I think a majority of them came from other areas just to protest.

Originally Posted by Lij

Most news agencies aren't exactly helping to dispel the notion that all protesters are violent.

I would disagree only with this point; many of the Toronto-based news groups are saying its only a small number of protesters who have been committing acts of violence.

I'm not sure how I feel with them linking it to black bloc though. Granted, all of the people who removed their clothes to blend in with the rest of the protesters earlier were wearing balaclavas and black.

Originally Posted by lorend

I would disagree only with this point; many of the Toronto-based news groups are saying its only a small number of protesters who have been committing acts of violence.

When I was watching in the afternoon, one of the CBC news anchors kept on saying "the protesters are rioting" and referencing the whole crowd. He was probably distracted by everything going around him though.

Glad they're clearing things up though.

Originally Posted by Marlowe

To be fair, I don't think taxpayers will have to foot much of the bill. Almost everything is covered by insurance, or was private property (hopefully they also have insurance). The huge cost of a conference where next to nothing will get done anyway is the real thing to be angry about.


I think a majority of them came from other areas just to protest.

You're right about insurance but something tells me it all comes out of our pockets in the end . Plus, you can't really hurt billion dollar corporations like Starbucks and banks by smashing a few windows. You are only hurting locals and small business if any damage is done to non-corporation property.

The $1bn tab on this is unacceptable, how do we put up with this? It could have gone to lowering our tuitions or something more useful.

If they didn't seal off subways/go trains, I bet more would have joined protests. Good or bad, depends on your perspective.

Originally Posted by Lij

When I was watching in the afternoon, one of the CBC news anchors kept on saying "the protesters are rioting" and referencing the whole crowd. He was probably distracted by everything going around him though.

Glad they're clearing things up though.

Bill Blair had an excellent press conference and most things were cleared up. Apparently police identified Black Bloc members/leaders and when they went back to Queen's Park to change into regular clothes, many were arrested.

Originally Posted by macsci

The $1bn tab on this is unacceptable, how do we put up with this? It could have gone to lowering our tuitions or something more useful.

A few of my co-workers joked about how the money used for security was used to provide social assistance (e.g. reducing the cost of low-income housing, improving living conditions on Aboriginal Reserves, etc) then there would be fewer protesters to worry about.

Honestly, downtown Toronto was like a zoo because of cops in the days leading up to G20. The cops that they brought in did jack shit. They just sat around by the side of the road and probably raked in overtime hours doing nothing. Waste

lol macinsiders don't understand insurance and are more worried about windows than anything.

If everyone (and everyone does) thinks "violent protests detract from the real messages", well then then everyone has seperated the two groups, and you're only being arrogant to think you've separated them and no one else has.

Originally Posted by macsci

Honestly, downtown Toronto was like a zoo because of cops in the days leading up to G20. The cops that they brought in did jack shit. They just sat around by the side of the road and probably raked in overtime hours doing nothing. Waste

I think the situation had the potential to be a lot worse if cops hadn't been brought in. It wasn't a waste at all I don't think (while 5k cops is a little overkill I admit). No innocent civilians have been injured as far as we know, and the situation didn't get really ridiculous.

Violence begets violence.

The only legitimate movements are ones built from compassion, peaceful resistance to force and mindfulness.

The angst of youth drives us into the arms of animalistic violence and violent tendencies. From some of the pictures on television to some of the posts on here, its clear we are not ready to engage in a non-violent movement for change.

Fight for change. The challenge is fighting without anger...without rage...without violence.

Originally Posted by c.erl

Violence begets violence.

The only legitimate movements are ones built from compassion, peaceful resistance to force and mindfulness.

French Revolution, go read about it? Lots of movements out there in the world we live in. Violence should be a last resort!

Originally Posted by feonateresa

I think the situation had the potential to be a lot worse if cops hadn't been brought in. It wasn't a waste at all I don't think (while 5k cops is a little overkill I admit). No innocent civilians have been injured as far as we know, and the situation didn't get really ridiculous.

I suppose.

Harper should have chosen a random location in cottage country. Our politicians sure make great decisions!

I have a friend working for security at G20 (not as a cop, she dealt more with training them and with admin stuff), and she says it's surreal...some places that are shown on the news in a riot are totally deserted 20mins later, and vice versa. I'm wondering if it's quite as bad as it seems on the news--it's kind of giving the impression of rioting everywhere, but she was saying it's more just people moving around. There's a ton of cops everywhere from all over the country, though.

Originally Posted by feonateresa

...(while 5k cops is a little overkill I admit)...

lol, it's actually more like 20,000 cops.