Wow. It’s been an eventful 2 days. A young man dies on the luge track, rain and mild weather postpones a bunch of the outdoor sports, and protest groups erupted in violence.
Today groups in Vancouver were protesting the Olympics being on “stolen native lands”, poverty, and some typical hippie nonsense (not that I’m saying there aren’t things to protest over, because there are, but anti-globalization? seriously?). Anyway, one group became violent during their 2010 Heart Attack: Clog the Arteries of Capitalism protest, destroying public property (tossing newspaper boxes, breaking store windows, spray painting stuff, etc) and shoving people around. In balaclavas. Assholes.
“This is what democracy looks like“, one protester yelled. No it doesn’t – that’s what anarchy looks like. That’s what violent idiots who give governments and organizations an excuse to limit liberty look like. That’s what it looks like to give people an excuse to ban mary jane ’cause it leads to violence (so the opposers allege) – it was suspected that some protesters were high due to a waft of the distinctive smell near the group.
Protest what you want to protest, no matter how stupid and uninformed it may actually be. Even protest for the sake of it because you aren’t sure what you’re actually protesting. Whatever floats your boat. But the moment you start trashing property and assaulting people, then you’ve gone way too far. That’s not protesting – that’s just plain violence. The cause your protesting for doesn’t need “help” like this.
Yeah, I know right? What a bold stand for me to come out against violence. I’m so brave. [/sarcasm] I know. But apparently it still needs to be said, or this stuff wouldn’t happen in the first place. I wonder how many of these idiots will look at their arrest with pride because they will believe that they were arrested protesting “the man”… Except all they did was piss in their own backyard. What was gained?
Here’s what a protest looks like:
This is how it’s done. Effective or not (work in progress – time will tell) at least it was a peaceful demonstration with a clear message.
skeptigirl 