In part 1, I pointed out that increasingly, the police have been given two goals which are not always congruent: that of ‘maintaining public order’ and of ‘upholding the laws’. And, increasingly (in ‘the West’), the police have been choosing to ‘maintain public peace’ – even at times breaking laws themselves in the process, instead of upholding them.
This has become very clear during the G8/G20 circus downtown Toronto.
Not only were the police given extraordinary powers to ‘maintain public order’ within the designated, fenced-off area, they had usurped even greater powers for themselves. I use the term ‘usurped’ advisedly, because that is what they did. The police chief admitted he had intentionally lied about what the powers police had been granted were.
Bill Blair’s justification of the lie is telling: ‘I was trying to keep the criminals out.’
It would appear that in this Police Chief’s view, all the people on the streets of Toronto were to be treated like criminals, until proven otherwise – may be! Perhaps Chief Blair thought that he was on a crusade: ‘Arrest them all – God will know his own!’ The police officers under Blair’s command certainly appeared to behave as if they took this adage to their hearts, as they often exercised powers never lawfully granted them – even going well past the police chief’s unlawful claims. (I will return to this later)
Following the ‘event’, the police continued to lie to the public!
The reason for this seems clear: the evidence of police misconduct had been published and publicized, so the police attempted to magnify the ‘perceived threat’ in order to justify their conduct. By displaying ‘confiscated weapons’ (some of which were toys – taken from a gamer who made them safe for kids to play with) and lying about what they were and where/how they were ‘confiscated’, the police hoped to portray the ‘protesters’ as a bunch of lawless anarchist thugs who were a threat to every decent human being. Once this effort succeeded (as it mostly did), they could then dismiss any person who criticized their conduct by tarring her/him with the same brush.
That is a dangerous precedent!
First of all, it is not safe for anyone – law breaker as well as each and every law abiding citizen – to live in a society where the police arbitrarily usurp powers onto themselves and use threats, intimidation, arrests and, yes, violence, while exercising these usurped powers!
Whatever you think about the G8/G20 Toronto thing, just think about the implications of that!
We would live in a society where police are permitted to make the rules ‘on the go’ – and get rid of (through intimidation or arrest) anyone whom they perceive as challenging them…
If you think this is impossible in Canada (or another Western democracy), think again: a few years ago, a study of downtown Vancouver policing practices documented searches, intimidation and various forms of detention of individuals on the fringes of society (least credible victims…) took place without any official records of the events – without these records, no effective legal action could be taken against the police officers.
Yes, the police were in a difficult situation. Still…
While the evidence is very circumstantial, the police behaviour captured on video does suggest that at least some of the ‘violent protesters’ were indeed agent provocateurs – a tool which the police in Canada are known to have employed in past protests. (It evens appears that, prior to the G20, a Toronto Police representative was asked directly whether the police will be using agent provocateurs – only to be told that they are unwilling to reveal that type of information.)
I do not wish to get hung up on this agent provocateur thing. The charges that the police utilized them have been made – along with claims that the worst of the violence and destruction was not committed by the protesters, but rather by the police agents themselves. While I have seen some circumstantial evidence that lends credence to these claims, I am not yet convinced either way.
Why do I even raise the issue?
The police are in a unique position in our society. In order to do their job – and do it right – they need people to trust them. This trust is not a trivial thing – it must be earned, over and over. Yet, having seen so many videos of police misconduct, having read so many reports of it, I fear this trust has been seriously compromised.
Do I believe all the charges against the police?
No, I don’t. A few fake videos, perhaps. A few trumped up charges – I’m willing to entertain that they are not as accurate as the ‘victims’ claim.
But some of the charges of misconduct come from sources I consider reputable (I know some of these people personally and they have earned my trust through their past behaviour).
Yet, I would like to give the police the benefit of the doubt. And… had the police not been caught in so many lies, it would be easier to believe them…
Even if we completely set aside the issue of the agent provocateurs, there are serious problems with the police failing to enforce the law! There are numerous videos (including some I linked above) where the police witness violent or destructive behaviour by specific individuals – yet do nothing to stop it by arresting, or even interrupting, the law-breakers!
That is not right. It is abdication of their duty at best – actively aiding the law-breakers at worst.
Even if there had not been an ‘over-reaction’ by the police on the Sunday and Monday (the arbitrary-seeming arrests of close to a thousand innocent people as well as all the other reported abuses of their powers), the police behaviour on Saturday, their failure to act and to apply the laws (which, according to some sources, came as ‘an order from above’) would be sufficient to shake the public trust in the police.
Sorry – I truly am sorry that this is so – but that is the truth!
Oh – and as for labeling all the protesters as violent anarchists, who break the laws and have no respect for private property or the businesses along the protest route: watch this and weep! Not all protesters condoned lawless behaviour. Some protested, hoping to talk sense into the violent thugs in their midst. Others, like this guy, did more to stop lawless behaviour than the police did!
(Continued in ‘Part 3’)
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
July 9, 2010 at 19:44
Conservatives should know better, pro-life and political Conservatives have been abused at the whim of the political left for two decades whilst drowning out insults like racists’ bigot, hater, fascists, Jesus freaks. We know what it’s like to be persecuted and censored and bullied by the political left politically and in public and via academia, ergo how can I justifiy the police dragging off law abiding citizens for no reason? Would the Conservatives’ “Public voice” be as apathetic if those protestors were pro-life or anti-Nanny Nation activists?
If I’m minding my own business and some cop comes up to me and demands access to my purse without just cause I’ll tell him to take a hike. I respect law enforcement up to a point but in the case of the G20 they were allegedly given excessive power and some cops abused that power. My opinion only.
I can’t stand peaceniks, special interest groups tarted up as activist and I hate anarchist but so what if I’m not willing to stand up for their rights do I deserve the right to complain when the leftards take away my rights via Section 13 etc?
Xanthippa says:
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
July 12, 2010 at 05:09
Xanthippa:
I hate to break this to you, but cops are not what they used to be.
There was time when the RCMP was the most respected police force in the world. And rightfully so. They were highly respected because they were highly respectable.
There was a time when you had to be a man to be a cop. In fact, just being a man wasn’t enough. You had to be an exceptionally big man. Six feet, 200 pounds was about smallest cop you would ever see.
And there was a good reason for that: really big, truly tough guys tend to be good natured and level headed. They have nothing to prove. They aren’t afraid of anyone. If push comes to shove, they can hold their own. Which is important, when the next nearest cop is a week away by dog sled.
But then, in the mid 1970’s, they were told they had to recruit women. By itself, that may not have been such a bad thing, but they were also told to rewrite the entrance requirements and tactical procedures to support the lie that the women aren’t different from the men in any way.
So now we have a bunch of wimpy little shrimps with guns, running around trying to compensate for their small man syndrome and/or penis envy by abusing their authority and intimidating anyone they can. By now, these state-sanctioned bullies completely overshadow the remaining good cops, whose numbers are shrinking at an alarming rate.
In those bygone days, RCMP officers usually worked alone, and thought nothing of it. Bringing armed and dangerous criminals to justice was what they did for a living, and calling for backup was unheard of — they would have been insulted by the very idea.
Nowadays, it takes three squad cars loaded with six cops just to pull you over for a lousy speeding ticket, and even then they’re afraid to let you get out your car to talk to them face to face.
They call this prudence and caution, but those are just words that cowards use to weasel out of admitting they’re afraid. Not only do cowards lie about being afraid, they lie about everything else, too. It’s habit forming.
No wonder people have lost respect.
Xanthippa says: YES!
July 16, 2010 at 15:05
Xanthippa:
There is an even more disturbing aspect to all this.
Here are the security costs of some G20 summits:
London, April 2009: $30 million.
Pittsburgh, September 2009: $18 million.
Toronto, June 2010: $933 million.
What’s wrong with this picture?
We find here that $507 million of it went to the RCMP.
What the hell did they buy with a half a billion dollars?
How much para-military equipment can you buy with that much money?
Who are they going to turn it on, now that they have it?
Why does the Parliamentary Budget Office not publish a breakdown of that number?
Why don’t they even publish the regular annual budget of the RCMP?
Something is very, very wrong with this picture!
Xanthippa says:
I’ve been aware of this and thinking about it.
And while I agree that there is a lot of suspicious stuff there, I am not sure if I am as upset by this as perhaps most people are. Currently, I am still analyzing my reasons for for why I am not so upset – and am at the stage of understanding my reasoning but still tracing the roots of my motivation for reasoning in quite this way…
Some people say I ‘overthink’ things – I say most of us underthink stuff…
Anyhow – there is some validity to the claim that the ‘accounting’ is being done differenly for this summit than for the previous ones, with the costs identified more clearly and not ‘burried’ in other stuff. This is strictly a reflection of the political climates of the different countries…and the absolute ‘love’ of our opposition left parties for anything ‘globalization’ – and their reluctance to dig deep to criticize it.
So, rather than hiding the costs OF the policing effort in OTHER departments, we are seeing serious hiding of OTHER costs IN the cost of policing.
Also, there is a lot of equipment that was nearing the end of its useful lifespan. This was an excellent opportunity to upgrade and bring things ‘up-to-snuff’.
I can totally see BOTH the need for this – and the dangers of it. I cheer the tech spending….and fear its use!
I know – I’m shaking my head, too….
July 16, 2010 at 20:51
Xanthippa:
I suppose you realize that to cheer spending on technology, the use of which we fear, is about as sensible as cheering the economic benefits of hiring men to dig our graves.
And it simply isn’t believable that anywhere near a half a billion dollars was spent on upgrading worn-out equipment.
In any case, upgrading worn-out equipment should be reported to the public as upgrading worn-out equipment, not as G20 security.
This kind of accounting is so misleading it amounts to fraud.
Worse than that, the taxpayers have been told nothing at all about how that half-billion dollars was spent.
What’s more, the taxpayers are not deemed worthy of knowing even how the regular annual federal policing budget is spent.
You are right about the motivation for all this: globalization.
Money is being taken from the people of Canada by force and fraud, and is being used behind their backs to build the chutes through which they will be driven like cattle into the global slaughterhouse of plutocratic oligopoly.
This goes far beyond simple breach of the social contract – the government is trampling its sacred trust under foot and impudently slapping the people in the face with the soiled shreds of the torn up social contract!
End well, this will not.
Xanthippa says:
Codeslinger,
I fully realize the foolishness!
And it was precisely because I recognized my reasoning had been murky (at best) that I have not posted on the ‘cost’ issue. If you had not raised it, I would not have commented on it. But, having commented, I thought it only honest to expose the fault in my reasoning which I was already aware of…
THE problem I see with globalization is the old one of ‘scaling up’: the more people a government represents, the less it represents each person.
But, that is not all…
The WAY the current ‘globalization’ is happening is based on the whole ‘elites know best’. Maurice Strong has had some influence in this…. I don’t know if you know him, but, well – enough said…
End well, this will not.
July 17, 2010 at 17:11
Xanthippa:
Yes, indeed. Power Corp.
Paul Desmarais, Maurice Strong, and their lackeys: Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, …
Not to mention their “elder uncle,” David Thomson, Baron of Fleet, who now owns Reuters.
As for Strong, his interests include Petro-Can, CDIC, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, the Carlyle Group, the UN, the World Bank, China Carbon Corporation, the Chicago Climate Exchange, …
This is the epitome of the grotesquely bloated and corrupt, incestuously intertwined tangle of big government, big business and their bastard offspring, the NGOs.
When you see that much power and influence concentrated in so few hands, things may seem pretty bleak, but here’s an article that shows these guys are beginning to lose their grip:
Sale of Chicago Climate Exchange to ICE Reinforces Weak Carbon Market
That and the rise of the Tea Party shows that the Libertarian consciousness is crystallizing into a viable political force. Right about now might be a unique opportunity to sidestep the above-mentioned plutocrats and import that Tea Party action into Canada.
At the grass roots level, people are ready to hear the Libertarian message. And if there is anything good about the sort of travesty we just saw in Toronto, it is that it drives the message home to people who would otherwise remain oblivious.
Xanthippa says:
KEEP TEACHING PEOPLE TO WANT TO THINK!
That is our best weapon!
July 17, 2010 at 20:18
[…] XANTHIPPA– G20, police behaviour and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’: part 1; G20, police behaviour and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’: part 2 …. […]
July 18, 2010 at 15:29
Xanthippa:
I must post a correction to my earlier post about costs.
Here is a paper, entitled G8 and G20 Summit Costs, put together by John Kirton, Jenilee Guebert and Shamir Tanna of the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. It gives a bit more context to the costs of the Toronto Summit.
It turns out the figure of $18 million I listed for the Pittsburgh Summit was only for local and state police. When you add in the costs of deploying the National Guard, Air Force, and so on, the total cost actually came to about $99 million. Even so, this is still about ten times less than the Toronto summit; the thrust of my earlier posst remains valid.
Of course, the paper doesn’t answer, or even ask, the really important questions that emerge from this event:
How much para-military equipment can the RCMP buy with a half a billion dollars?
What are they going to do with that equipment?
And the wider questions apparently aren’t being asked by anyone at all:
What is the regular annual budget of the RCMP, including CSIS?
What, specifically, is that money spent on?
And, most important of all:
Why is this information not readily available Canadian citizens?
Xanthippa says:
There are, in my never-humble-opinion, three main reasons for this:
One – most journalists don’t think of it. It simply does not occur to them that that is a question they could ask.
Two – they realize this question should be asked, but don’t want to call attention to themselves because they are afraid of the consequences…or, at least, potential consequences.
Three – having a ‘strong’ police force makes them feek ‘safe’: therefore they don’t want to ask any questions which would, in their eyes, ‘weaken’ the police.
July 20, 2010 at 14:50
Xanthippa:
Actually, we can’t blame this one on the journalists.
The real problem is an inherent lack of transparency and accountability in the whole budgetary process.
If you go to the government’s Budget 2010 Home Page, you can download a 2.5 megabyte document entitled Budget 2010: Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth. You would think that you could read this to find out what the government is doing with your money.
Well, think again. It’s all fiction.
After wading through all 424 pages of this monstrosity, you will be dazzled by multi-year projections and forecasts of GDP growth, bond yield spreads, jobs growth, deficit reduction, and who knows what else…
But you will have no idea as to how much money is being spent on what.
On the other hand, if you go to the web site of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, you will find a much shorter, more easily understood document entitled
Assessment of the Budget 2010 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which shows that GDP growth and deficit reduction will likely be much less rosy than the official “budget” forecasts…
But you will still have no idea as to how much money is being spent on what.
The Parliamentary Budget Office was nominally created to provide independent analysis of the budget. Of course, no such analysis can properly take place if the budget is not even published in any comprehensible form. And, predictably, even this pathetic excuse for accountability is too much for the parasites who purport to govern this country:
Put tether on budget watchdog, MPs urge
Parliamentary Budget Office ‘has been starved’
Speakers move to handcuff budget officer
The fascists and totalitarians, who sit in Ottawa and call themselves your representatives, think it is their place to spend your money at their whim, without any oversight whatsoever.
In short, our failed attempt to find out what the RCMP spent its half-billion dollars on is just the tip of the iceberg. We have discovered something much more appalling:
There is no accountability at all, on any issue whatsoever.
They take your money – by force, if necessary – and deny you any way to know or influence what they do with it.
What does that make them?
What does that make you?
Xanthippa says:
CodeSlinger,
I have ALWAYS maintained that taxes MUST be a voluntary thing – like tipping at a restaurant. THAT is the only way governments will treat our cash responsibly.
And, I do not think it is justifiable for governments to be permitted to use FORCE to collect taxes: that is what organized crime does, not what a responsible government does! My neighbour does not have the right to force me to fund charity programs she likes – 20 of my neighbours do not have that right, and nor do 20 or 200 million of my neighbours!!!
But, I seem to be considered ‘an extremist’ for stating what I think is ‘common sense’…
And as for ‘blaming’ the journalists….I think that once I said that some are AFRAID to expose it, it is no longer ‘blaming’ the journalists but rather a criticism of the ‘system’ that makes journalists afraid to do their job. At least, that is how I meant it….
Of course, you have identified an additional problem (with a few facets)…
The budgeting documents are increasingly complex.
In 20 or 30 years, we have seen budget documents go from 20-30 pages written in plain language to documents with hundreds or thousands of pages where one needs to be a forensic accountant in order to make any sense of them….which our journalist are not! And rather than admit this failing (understandable – but not admittable), they ape the words whispered into their ears… willingly playing the role of a useful idiot lest they be revealed for a real idiot!
I will not pretend I have the ability to understand all these documents. I could probably take some time and educate myself enough to do so – but, there are so many other things I must do…like raise my kids and make dinner and and and….live!
Yes – this is precisely what the government relies on… People need to actually ‘live’ – and cannot possibly make sense of the over-complex reports they put out.
Which is why they do it….
Which is why they must NOT be permitted to do anything outside their core mandate – territorial integrity and policing/justice. All other government programs are inappropriate and MUST be scrapped!
And we must realize that a government that has the right to FORCE its citizens to pay taxes, that has made laws permitting it to suspend civil liberties in order to COLLECT TAXES, is a government that has ENSLAVED its citizens!
And we must not stand for this!
OK – now you got me going….
July 20, 2010 at 19:14
Xanthippa:
I like it when you talk like that…
Xanthippa says:
I’m glad SOMEBODY does!
Most people just roll their eyes and start measuring me for the straight jacket…