By The Voice of Treason

We must organize with perfect clarity to be utterly unpredictable. When our enemies expect us to respond to provocation with violence, we must react calmly and peacefully; just as they anticipate our passivity, we must throw a grenade.
-Stockley Carmicheal

I know my enemy, and it isn’t the black bloc. It isn’t SOAR, vandals, anarchists or activists in general. My enemy is the same as yours, and countless other human beings around the world. My enemy is the capitalist state

After watching the new fascism emerge in Toronto, with thousands of police brought in from various Canadian cities, and the brave, passionate, and aware people from a spectrum of groups that gathered to face off with the state forces in riot gear in an attempt to encourage the crowds to ‘get off the fence’, I did not come away feeling that these masked comrades were my enemy. That’s right - ‘comrades’. Whether we like it or not, we are all fighting the same enemy and want many of the same things. Are the participants of the black bloc really any less our comrades than the well-liked, articulate liberals who wish to save the staus quo from itself?

Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
- Frederick Douglas

The costs of the G20 protests were enormous. Many of our hardest working and most committed organizers have been hit with charges and restrictions limiting their abilities to continue to serve their communities. As far as I’m concerned, these things can’t be blamed on the black bloc either. There seems to be a liberal tendency to lap up the media portrayal of ‘good protesters’ and ‘bad protesters’, to divide us and separate our efforts. That is the state’s work. The victims of police repression are not the instigators of police violence - THE POLICE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN VIOLENCE.

While I do have some disagreement with some of the tactics employed by black bloc participants, I do see them as a part of an overall combined effort. The property damage done by some was not my main concern over that weekend. The hundreds detained under questionable circumstances, and the hundreds more assaulted, and the tear gas and loss of basic civil rights - these were and have remained my main concern from that weekend.

Some think that ‘The Black Bloc Fucked Us’, and are to blame for an otherwise smoothly functioning and effective march. This is a hopelessly simple outlook on a complicated situation. Instead of recognizing their role in a war whose lines were drawn long ago, and taking their side accordingly, many have shuffled over to the safe side of the dichotomy - using the convenient mantra of non-violence as their moral shield.

The proper reaction to the events in Toronto is perhaps best summed up in the article ‘Supporting the Prisoners of the G20 Police State’ by Peter Gelderloos, in which he writes that “it is impossible to draw a line between the harmful consequences of governmental and corporate policy, the elitist way in which they determine that policy, and the extreme police control that accompany their summits.”

Gelderloos also takes aim at those who would eschew all strategies not premised on nonviolence, when he reminds us that “a great many more banks and cop cars will have to be thrown on the trash fire of history before we can talk about a new world, so we’d better stop getting so upset by such a modest show of resistance.”

And that’s exactly the point.

On June 26 and 27, the political representatives of the world’s greatest thieves and murderers gathered in Toronto. They held their ‘G2o Summit’ in a billion dollar armed camp financed with public money stolen from vital social programs. They threw out some meaningless platitudes and drew up a plan around their real agenda – solving the crisis of their bankrupt system by imposing austerity and poverty on people throughout the world. With the Harper Government hosting the event and standing on the right wing edge of the discussions, plans were drawn up to halve public deficits by 2013. They will not, however, take the money back from the banks and corporations they bailed out. Instead they will gut public services, destroy social infrastructure and launch a war on poor and working people.

Across the world, people under attack and in struggle saw that the Toronto Summit was challenged and that the massive array of police security protecting it failed to silence that challenge. On the 24th, Indigenous people and their allies took to the streets. On the 25th, OCAP along with many community organizations and joined by thousands, came out to fight for justice for communities. We faced police intimidation and attack without backing down and, after marching through the streets, put up a tent city in Allan Gardens that was held throughout the night in solidarity with the homeless and all those being displaced and forced from their homelands here and abroad.

On the 26th, tens of thousands took to the streets and thousands of them would not accept a route well away from the security fence that the trade union/NGO leaders had negotiated with the cops ahead of time. At Queen and Spadina, a confrontation began that continued all through that and the next day. It was marked by firmness and courage on the part of those taking to the streets and by brutal police attack. The largest mass arrest in the history of Canada unfolded. Basic civil liberties were effectively eliminated. The over one thousand who were arrested faced inhuman conditions and despicable treatment in the now-infamous Eastern Ave Detention Centre. People were taken by the cops without the slightest legal justification. But still people filled the streets and defied the G20 enforcers.

By Monday, the sheer scale of the abuses was beginning to cause disquiet in high places. More seriously, it was clear that the violent intimidation was failing miserably. Thousands came to police headquarters that evening to challenge the police state conditions being created in Toronto. They faced a subdued array of cops. Harper’s plan for an austerity meeting complemented by a show of force that would deter opposition had utterly failed.

The cops did not even wait for the events of the 26th to begin their crackdown. A series of raids on homes and buildings offering accommodation to protesters began the night before. People’s doors were broken down, some were carried away in the middle of the night or early morning in unmarked vans, some even at gun-point, with little knowledge of what was happening to them. Our comrades from Quebec were particularly targeted with extreme anti-Quebecois violence. Many vocal and respected community organizers, our friends and allies, were targeted and are still detained.

We are now building legal support and political solidarity with those facing serious charges and attempts to detain them for trial. Antiquated and reactionary ‘conspiracy’ charges are being used by the Crown. It should go without saying that our movement will spare no effort to ensure those facing legal persecution are given all possible support, that they are set free and the politically motivated charges laid against them are dropped. OCAP wishes to show our solidarity with all G20 defendants and we demand their immediate release. This is an attempt to criminalize, silence and intimidate our movements, and we will fight against it.

At the same time as we fight and win this legal battle, we must set our sites for the resistance that emerged around the G20 to grow. We can and must build strong social movements in the fight against the austerity agenda that the G20 devised. This agenda is the real conspiracy that must to be defeated.

As they work to cut vital social programs, attack public sector workers, expand the security apparatus at home and abroad, attempt to criminalize and brutalize poor communities, migrants, people of colour and First Nations communities, we will mobilize to fight back. The International Monetary Fund has called for twenty years of austerity. The elements of that agenda will be decreed by governments and backed up by lines of cops. We have shown in Toronto, as people around the world have already demonstrated, that our resistance can be stronger than their austerity. We will defeat their agenda and create a society where the exploiters and their thugs go on trial while we build a world based on solidarity and equality.

[Statement from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)]

From June 22 to June 27, No One is Illegal dared to dream of a world without fences. As we marched with thousands, we dared to confront the walls erected daily to separate the rich from the poor, the powerful from the powerless. We reclaimed power, we shook the fence, and we broke through the police lines. We challenged the G20’s system of global apartheid as it manifested on the streets of Toronto. We now stand alongside all of those currently caught in the walls of the (in)justice system for daring to envision a world without fences, borders and cages. The people harassed, detained, arrested and charged over this past weekend were migrants, indigenous peoples, people of colour, queer and trans people, feminists, disabled people, anarchists, anti-poverty activists, rank and file labour activists, anti-capitalists, ecological justice activists, and community organizers. They are our allies and our friends; they are the fabric of our communities.

In particular, we stand in solidarity with those who have faced and are currently facing the worst excesses of the repressive police state, including several members of No One is Illegal Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Many of these organizers were targeted not only for their involvement in opposing the G20, but for their ongoing work struggling for communities that are rooted in love, justice and self-determination. They are dedicated, courageous and passionate organizers who continue to be an inspiration within our communities. The state’s attempt to criminalize these individuals is a targeted attempt to silence our movements.

But we will not be silenced. We raged on the streets this week in Toronto. We will rage in the courts and in the prisons. We will continue to rage as we work daily in our local communities. And we will tear the fences down.

The G8 and G20 leaders and their corporate villains erect borders, manufacture weaponry, pillage the earth with industrial projects and profit from war. They push people from their homes and force people to migrate across borders and into situations of precarity. Daily, we stand in solidarity with those who are deemed “illegal” by the colonial state and are forced to live under the threat of detention and deportation. And daily, we organize against the racism and xenophobia that defines the history of colonization and displacement in Canada.

The type of repression seen during the G20 weekend is not only a testament of Canada being a police state, but a glimpse

into the daily reality of indigenous and racialized communities. When the police state indiscriminately turns its batons against ‘innocent’ bystanders, members of the media, and a diverse range of protesters, we see responses of widespread public shock and anger. Yet we refuse to exceptionalize this moment, the largest mass-arrest in Canadian history, at the expense of normalizing the daily violence of police and prisons and the criminal (in)justice system for Indigenous communities, people of colour, low income neighborhoods, street-involved youth, and trans people.

We further reject all differentiation between so-called ‘peaceful’ and ‘violent’ protesters, while the violence that compels us to resist, assert our dignity and struggle for justice – enabled by policies and deals such as those brokered by the G8 and G20 – is callously ignored. Instead, our outrage is directed at the policing apparatuses that are a central part of the militarization of Canada, the criminalization of our communities, and the brutality that defines the prison-industrial complex and the global realities of detention and imprisonment.

Those brutalized, harassed, and violated in the fallout of the Toronto G20 protests now join the three community organizers arrested last week in Ottawa in facing the consequences of a system more interested in protecting property than people. We must be steadfast in our support for those who are being targeted, by mobilizing around the upcoming trials and court battles. We will not allow the courts, the police, or the media to divide our solidarity. We demand the immediate release of ALL our friends and allies who are still being held in detention. We call on everyone to join us in taking back our city from the hands of the security state that has turned it into an armed fortress.

No One is Illegal stands with all of those who were on the streets resisting the G20 and the Toronto police state. They cannot jail our hearts. No borders, no fences! No one is illegal, Canada is illegal!

[Joint Statement of No One Is Illegal Toronto, No One Is Illegal Vancouver, No One Is Illegal Halifax, No One Is Illegal Montreal and No One Is Illegal Ottawa, July 3, 2010]

By Heatscore

“Everybody is an idealist. Everybody has this idea that things should be better and that’s really a non-ideological thing. The fear is that those idealists will become radicals and start questioning the roots of the system, start questioning the power structure. People in power don’t like that. You have to turn these idealists into realists, because once they’re realists, they can accept the compromises that opportunists make - those being the politicians.

And how do you turn an idealist into a realist instead of a radical? Well, a baton blow to the head is one way. Getting wafts of tear gas is another. Yet another is making the radicals seem crazy and criminal. Give the distinct impression through the media that you will be jailed. You will be treated differently and it’s not worth the trouble. As long as idealists stay that way, or even better become realists or opportunists, that’s great.”
- Jaggi Singh

The riots are over. The security fence is long gone. Most of the pigs have gone home – and those that remain have taken off their armored exoskeletons and morphed back into human form.

And yet the scars, triumphs and setbacks of what has been dubbed ‘The Battle of Toronto’ remain with us, and will no doubt continue to cast an indelible impression on our movement during the important years ahead.

In the wider “Western” world, the Toronto G20 Summit will be forever tied to the era of widespread economic shock therapy that it has ushered in – and the violent social unrest that will inevitably accompany the sacrifice of the European welfare state to the alter of “fiscal sustainability.”

For activists in Canada, however, the immediate legacies of the Summit are a greatly expanded police state apparatus, widespread public exposure to police brutality and the cumulative effect of the over one thousand detentions that took place during the G20 weekend – including the targeted arrests of some of the country’s most committed and effective organizers.

Make no mistake… those singled out as the alleged “ringleaders” of the G20 protests have been so targeted because of their articulate, persistent and stirring calls for an end to the injustices of capitalism and colonialism, and because of the respect and admiration they inspire in all of us who struggle for a more just and equitable world.

The trumped up charges laid against these individuals are a vicious, fundamentally shameless attempt by the Canadian state to silence dissent. As Montreal-based anarchist Jaggi Singh so succinctly put it, “conspiracy charges are simply the criminalization of organizing.”

To make matters worse, Crown Attorney Vincent Paris has stated that the so-called “evidence” for many of these charges was collected by two undercover agents operating in Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo and Toronto. These two backstabbing pieces of shit – apparently part of an ongoing joint intelligence operation directed by the RCMP – allegedly infiltrated the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR), which Paris refers to as a “criminal extremist group”, by building up and exploiting the friendship and trust of local activists.

The fact that I have met these individuals and discussed politics with their alter-egos makes me sick to my stomach. But this operation does suggest, if nothing else, that the country’s elite are acutely aware of the continued threat posed to their dominance by anarchist ideas.

And well they should be.

For as capitalism continues its death spiral, and more and more people worldwide are faced with the inescapable realities of advanced resource depletion and systemic environmental collapse, the prospect of a historical reckoning looms large.

The Canadian government’s strategy in the face of this prospect has been to scapegoat those who actively organize to bring about social transformation, and to attempt to turn public opinion against radical anti-capitalists of all stripes – and anarchists in general.

This new McCarthyism hinges on a divide-and-conquer strategy that employs the “violent” spectacle of the black bloc to stigmatize any and all confrontation with the forces of capitalism. While the effect on the population at large has not been particularly surprising, it has been truly shocking to see how effective the tactic has been on fellow protesters and so-called “progressive” commentators - who are seemingly tripping over one another in their rush to distance themselves from the property destruction that occurred during the “Get off the Fence” march.

The major differences between Conservative fundamentalist Stockwell Day’s tirade against “anarchist thugs” and subsequent statements from Judy Rebick calling for the swift repression of black bloc participants are matters of semantics - not of substance; CUPE-Ontario’s statement condemning the “abandonment of the rule of law” posed by the burning of “publicly-owned police vehicles” demonstrates that these union bureaucrats are more interested in the efficient investment of their members’ tax dollars in the infrastructure of working class repression than they are in fulfilling their historical responsibilities as proponents of class warfare.

Joining the enraged moderates in denouncing the black-clad militants has been the Alex Jones “Info-Warriors” crowd, armed with a dizzying array of Youtube videos purporting to prove – often through dubious photographic evidence – that the bloc was, in fact, a cleverly orchestrated government conspiracy. Often dovetailing with the arguments posed by pacifist liberals, these theories range from the suggestion that police officers consciously allowed the vandalism to occur to utterly ridiculous claims that the burning police cars were Hollywood props ignited by undercover agent provocateurs. While many of these armchair detectives disagree over the specific details of the nefarious plot, almost all of them agree that the property destruction served exclusively to justify the criminalization of those simply exercising their Charter rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.

Faced with the angry scorn of their fellow protesters and frustrated by what they perceive as a climate of abject defeatism, many supporters of black bloc tactics adopt a patronizing and hostile posture towards their critics - thereby reinforcing the popular caricature of these militants as dangerous, arrogant thrill-seekers. While the dogmatic adherence to non-violence so prevalent among “progressives” can indeed be frustrating, it is important to keep in mind that not everyone reads Ward Churchill and Gilles Deleuze; rationalizations of property destruction premised on the systemic violence of capitalism mean nothing to someone who hasn’t already deeply internalized the connection between first world consumerism and third world suffering. To the majority of protesters the smashing of windows is a destructive ritual carried out for its own benefit – not a tactic to be employed towards the achievement of collective liberation.

This is not to suggest that anarchists should gear their tactical repertoire towards the appeasement of liberals. It is simply important to understand our role in the state’s divide and conquer strategy – and do our very best to thwart their efforts. It is not possible to bully someone – physically or intellectually - into showing solidarity.

Though we must continue to enthusiastically demonstrate our unwavering support with all those arrested in Toronto and actively resist efforts to scapegoat anarchists or divide protesters into “good” and “bad” camps, we must also be willing to show our good faith – and to demonstrate our solidarity with our more moderate allies in their daily struggles.

Above all else, if we want to be an effective movement, we must learn from our mistakes.

One of the biggest mistakes made in the lead up to the G20 was a failure by the organizers of the “Get off the Fence” action to provide an effective means for non-masked participants to take part. There were hundreds of rank-and-file unionists, militant socialists, migrant justice advocates and community organizers who joined the march. These people were defiant, and vocal in their desire to march on the fence. The fact that the actions of the black bloc inspired many residents of Toronto to come out to the streets (and to further vandalize and torch a second set of police cruisers) clearly shows that many people share our hatred of authority.

Sadly, unlike the “Heart Attack” action that occurred during the protests against the Vancouver Olympics, there was limited co-ordination between organizers and their potential allies; many of those who joined the initial action appear to have learned about the idea to march on the fence from a facebook group. While there are obvious security concerns associated with openly discussing militant actions, it is vital that potential allies know that we respect them and we value their contributions to the struggle. Security culture is important, but its harsh language can be very intimidating to those activists who are still learning about the repressive nature of the state, or for those who don’t identify with the anarchist milieu. In this case, the strategy ultimately wasn’t very effective – since the SOAR was infiltrated from its very inception.

Black bloc participants are respected on the streets because of their acute understanding of police tactics, their awareness of state surveillance infrastructure and their willingness to fight back. These skills can be used to increase the militant potential of a march - such as the “Justice for our Communities” event on June 25th - and should be viewed by their fellow protesters as an enormous tactical benefit.

It is important that this aspect of the black bloc is not lost in a rush to romanticize small-scale property destruction – or what is amusingly termed by many of its advocates as “property modification”. The notion that smashing a glass window can somehow “break the spell” of the public has never held much sway with me. This idea implies that the public is under temporary hypnosis, and just needs to “snap out of it”, whereas anyone with even a basic understanding of psychology understands that people are products of their environments, and are therefore deeply conditioned by their social roles as passive consumers. “The masses” will not be woken up by the sound of broken glass. Those who seek to resist do so because of their own histories, knowledge and personal relationships to injustice. Marginalized and poor communities distrust state authority because they have consistently been brutalized by police officers, not because of a news report about black-clad anarchists smashing out the windows of a Starbucks.

“Property modification” should be seen for what it is – an exhilarating way of venting frustration against symbols of corporate dominance. Its tactical benefits are marginal; it’s essentially a watered-down exercise in “propaganda of the deed”. The idea that a well-publicized riot is going to turn Toronto into Athens ignores the social dimensions that have made that insurrection so inspiring. The riots that blazed through Greece in December of 2008 (and have flared up several times since) did not occur in the shadow of a G20 summit – and the billion dollar police state that comes with it; they were a spontaneous reaction to the killing of a 15 year old kid - and the product of a widespread culture of resistance.

Building that culture of resistance is what we need to be focused on.

We write this statement in unwavering defiance to the ongoing attempt to silence us: those who militantly voice their opposition to this ecocidal, colonial- capitalist state, and the corporations that profit from its systemic violence. The state does not represent us, and we do not consent to its rule or its racist, patriarchal ‘justice’ system, which only serves to uphold the interests of the ruling elite. In regards to the ongoing scapegoating of anarchists in a debacle reminiscent of the McCarthy era: This ‘black scare’ will not work. Nor is it an exception. It is a continuation of the violence our sick society perpetuates every day in attempts to legitimize its existence through the exclusion and brutalization of other bodies including those who resist its non consensual domination. Nor is the brutal police repression of this past week an exception. On the contrary, this repression is an illustration of the continual injustice marginalized communities face daily at the whims of the capitalist state. We have not forgotten Junior Manon, beaten to death by Toronto’s 31st station cops but two months ago yesterday.

Police, crown attorneys, corporate media, and most recently, the justice of the peace, have portrayed us as ‘masterminds of mayhem, chaos and violence.’ They refer to Saturday’s expression of rage as ‘the gruesome culmination of the fruition of our machinations.’ Never do they mention the real perpetrators of ‘the trail of carnage that turned Toronto upside down’–Uniformed thugs armed with guns, batons, sound cannons, tasers, and 1.2 billion dollars of other experimental toys of repression. This state-sanctioned mob, with a monopoly on the ‘legitimate’ use of force have been engaged in the beating, harassing, detaining, disappearing, and sexually assaulting of anyone in the streets fighting injustice, anyone so much as even bearing witness to this struggle on the Toronto streets, all the while they claim to serve and protect.

An aversion to these armed, dangerous and blatantly unaccountable forces of the corporate state has been framed in court in the language of mental disAbility. According to the courts, those who hate cops are engaging in anti-social and mentally unstable behaviours. We find this ludicrous. Hating cops is a perfectly valid and celebrated response to systematic, organized thuggery and repression.

To dissent by any means necessary against the systems that oppress us is not a sign of mental instability. Rather, this dissent is a brief glimpse of sanity in a world clearly gone insane. Building constructive alternatives is of course fundamental, but so too are the acts that tear down all that collaboratively oppress us. Shattered banks and police cars engulfed in flames, far from being a scene of carnage, are truly beautiful things. They mark a crack in the facade, a weakness in the dam that attempts to hold us from bursting through in an expression our overflowing love and rage, waves that nourish our communities in expressions of true freedom.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has asserted: “You won’t recognized Canada when I get through with it.”

We make the same claim. Until we were are all free, none of us are free. The state can neither silence nor stop us. We will subvert the dominant order and the countless systems of oppression on which this order rests.

–The Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR)

P.S. Cupcakes literally refer to baked goods, not incendiary devices. Jokes are neither threats nor actions. Your treatment of this so called evidence makes a mockery of your own system of ‘justice’.

FREE OUR FRIENDS: JUSTICE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES

During the G20 Summit, thousands of concerned individuals took to the streets to exercise their civil rights and voice their opposition to the meetings. We showed our power in numbers and in the strength of our convictions. The challenge we posed to the oppressive policies of the G20 caused their billion dollar bodyguards to wage war on all those who voiced their dissent. Thousands of us experienced extreme police violence and intimidation. Hundreds of us were arrested and detained under abysmal conditions. Many of us are still in custody. We will not let them convince us that some of our comrades are less deserving. We will not assist them in dividing our movement, in scapegoating our people, or in attacking our organizations and allies.

No one is free until we are all free.

The atrocities of this weekend were not isolated incidents but a reflection of the intimidation that members of our communities face every day. We stand in solidarity with ALL the G20 arrestees and any person taken off of their streets by oppressive and unjust forces. We will hold the police and the colonial Canadian governments responsible for stealing the freedom of all people who rightfully resist them.

The more they try to keep us down, the more we will rise up.

Please support our legal efforts

All money goes to supporting those facing legal proceedings as a result of the G20 protests in Toronto, with priority given to those in most need.

Toronto Community Mobilization Network is asking all organizations, collectives and individuals to to hold independent fundraising events to raise money for the legal defense fund. Transfer information is also in the “support us” section of our website.

Let us know by email what you’ve planned and what you’ve raised.

Email: events.g20solidarity@gmail.com

For legal information:
movementdefence.org or g20legaldefence@gmail.com

Ways to donate:

1) Transfer funds to:
OPIRG York
transit number 00646
institution number 842
account number 3542240
Use your online bank account or contact your bank directly to transfer funds. Please put “G20 legal defence” in the memo.

2) Write a cheque
Cheques (payable to ‘Toronto Community Mobilization Network’ OR OPIRG York, with ‘G20 legal defence’ on the subject line) can be mailed to:

Toronto Community Mobilization Network
360A Bloor Street W
PO Box 68557
Toronto, ON M5S 1X0

3) Donate by PayPal
Make sure to put ‘G20 legal defence’ in the “Add special instructions for the Merchant” section.

Paypal Link:

Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 London Chapter *Part 1*
Part taken from: The Great Dictator 1934 Charlie Chaplin
Content owner: DashGo/Audiobee
By Mike Roy
WeAreChange London
CAPP London
CEP Union Local London

Criminal lawyer, daughter of a police officer, and Parkdale resident Riali Johannesson was one of dozens caught up in a mass detention outside the anti-G-20 convergence space. She tells us about how the experience of having watching her community’s rights temporarily stripped has increased her empathy for her clients from more marginalized communities. With police giving them no explanation for the mass detention, residents of Parkdale gathered in huge numbers to pressure the police to leave.

Produced by Jesse Freeston

Our friends at Submedia have conjured up a lovely new interpretation of Walt Whitman’s classic poem “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”