Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Police Brutality in Canada: I'm Not Making This Up

The brouhaha in Winnipeg on Sunday was a people's uprising against police brutality.

It's an annual affair, organized by Montreal's Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COPB). That's right: annual. Apparently the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality sees Canadian police as so constantly brutal, that they have to schedule regular protests.

This isn't, I think, entirely unrelated to the War on Terror. Canada is one of the nations in the coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime. You know, that "unilateral" invasion by America?

And I've noticed over the decades, that the same people tend to be socially conscious activists against both war and police brutality. To hear the more enthusiastic coffee shop philosophers, back in my college days, "police brutality" was a redundant term, since police were brutal: by their very nature.

Let's see what impression the socially-conscious Collective Opposed to Police Brutality left, day before yesterday:

"MONTREAL — Seventeen people arrested during an anti-police brutality demonstration that turned into a riot are facing charges including mischief, theft, assault and possession of weapons, Montreal police said Monday...."

The Winnipeg Sun article doesn't make clear, whether that short-range ballistic table counted as a "weapon."

Ramsey Clark's Legacy

That's one of the fuzz, ducking a table, by the way. And it wasn't a cop throwing it.

For raw, out-of-control, violence, it's hard to surpass the dedicated peacnik: or, in this case, socially-conscious activist against police brutality.

I remember the good old days, when then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark decided that the 1968 peace riot in Chicago (or the police riot, or the spot of unpleasantness that didn't have anything to do with the Democratic convention - take your pick) decided that the nasty Chicago police had been brutal to the nice MOBE and YIPPIES.

Forty years later, it looks like COPB is still carrying the torch. Or throwing the table.

More-or-less related posts: In the news:

No comments:

Unique, innovative candles


Visit us online:
Spiral Light CandleFind a Retailer
Spiral Light Candle Store

Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.