Canada lawmakers ban masks at protests
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 7, 2023 16:32
VIEWED: 2841
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Quote:
OTTAWA — Parliament passed a ban on wearing masks at riots that punishes violations with up to 10 years behind bars in a bid to crack down on radical groups. The measure, adopted 153 to 126 on the Halloween holiday that sees revelers walk the streets in masks and costumed, aims to target the "growing threat" of vandalism and violence, said Parliamentarian Blake Richards, who sponsored the bill.
Lawmakers are especially targeting the Black Bloc anarchist group, whose members dress in black, their faces hidden by glasses, scarves and hoods. They have sometimes showed violence during massive student protests against plans to raise university tuition costs in Quebec. The bill sets 10 years in prison for people who wear a mask during a riot without legitimate excuses, and five years if it is an illegal protest.
-AFP
WTF??? Seriously???
Let's see if I got this right... the financials bombed the world economy, the military-industrial complex pre-deployed dirty bombs everywhere in the world (in the form of nuclear power plants) just waiting for something to go wrong, much or our world has been turned into wasteland, and the answer to all of these problems is total surveillance because somebody somewhere might object to the clusterfuck that is become our society???
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/three-nsa-whistleblowers-back-effs-
lawsuit-over-governments-massive-spying-program
WHO are "they" protecting us from? Kids in masks? Rioters throwing rocks? "Terrorists"??? Yanno, if they're going to surveill anyone, who not poke their noses into hedge funds and tax evaders and banks? Why not look into whose pockets are getting lined at the government level? Who is the bigger threat to me?
Yeesh.
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I find your reaction somewhat simplistic.
I think an up-to-ten-year sentence for this infraction totally incredible.
Personally, I'd have LOVED it if our own Black Bloc hadn't been allowed to wear masks.
I believe the article said "masks at riots", and had nothing to do with Halloween.
I don't like the idea of banning masks at protests, given how that has been utilized in other countries
And lastly, to return to my first point, I don't think there's much comparison between the things you listed, and I think there is a far better chance of stopping people who are smashing windows and burning cars than there ever will be in stopping hedge-fund managers from stealing people's money. Just sayin'
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
And lastly, to return to my first point, I don't think there's much comparison between the things you listed, and I think there is a far better chance of stopping people who are smashing windows and burning cars than there ever will be in stopping hedge-fund managers from stealing people's money. Just sayin'
And therein lies the problem. While one may be more visible and make a better soundbite on the evening news, the other is far more destructive and costly.
Until a riot or protest costs over a trillion dollars and crashes the world economy, I doubt I'm going to be convinced that protests are what's wrong with the world. Unless they mean NOT ENOUGH PROTESTS!
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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"Masks at riots". Tell me, Niki, when should a cop use a taser? Only when shooting a gun isn't possible?? How many times has that been trangressed? Similarly, when is a demonstration a riot? When the demonstration doesn't have an official permit? When the demonstrators refuse to disperse? This is going to be a very gray line that police will step over time and time again.
"The people"... the average person, Jane and John Doe... are individually too weak to be a threat to... well, anyone. Jane and John Doe can't crash the world financial system; Jane and John Doe can't site a nuclear power plant and skimp on safety; Jane and John Doe are not about to waste an entire forest or redline an entire neighborhood. So I have to ask... again... who is the bigger threat, some people in masks or the head of Goldman Sachs? It's the people in power who ARE the bigger threat, simply because they HAVE power.
So in Europe we see banks controlling (supposedly) democratic governments, crashing the nations' economies while people riot in the streets. Same thing in Japan: colluding to keep information from people who are being literally poisoned by radiation.
And what is the response??? Surveillance and detention for those who protest with the only tool they have available- their bodies. The one-sided response... disinformation, surveillance, detention for the people; cozy solicitude for the wealthy few (the source of most of our ills).... it just made my head spin.
I got this from my hubby, I think he says this better than I can:
Quote:
Democracy can only exist among people who have nearly equivalent power. All else is myth. We live in a society controlled by a few unaccountable individuals. They determine the means and form of our existence. Yet we persist in denying this since to confront this situation we would have to face these individuals in a confrontational mode and they hold all the power. So rather we behave as if we had some form of control over our environment ourselves. We pretend that we can change this situation by changing our behavior since we are terrified of what we really have to do and that is to change the behavior of those who actually do control our world.
along with a quote from Slavoj Žižek
Quote:
This readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game's outcome.”
I would not feel guilty for wearing a mask. Cautious, maybe, but not guilty. Mask-wearing didn't cause the problem.
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Given the current reaction to advocates and whistleblowers, I am all in favor of masks, severely so - hell my whole smoke and mirrors gig kinda started while reading about The White Rose Society and what HAPPENED to them when their identities became known.
Look at Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Sioban Reynolds, Sibel Edmonds, and so on and so forth, for what the cost is gonna be, and for those without media and popular support, without political might to defend them, its far worse, you'd just fuckin dissappear - welcome to the new america.
No, wearing a mask is not an act of cowardice, but a statement that GETTING IT DONE is more important than credit for it, ego or vainglory, that it matters now HOW or WHO, but essentially WHAT and WHEN, and it allows joe sixpack to have his say without retribution from the powerful.
Our forefathers understood this themselves, there's a reason your vote is private, or at least intended to be, that "mask" exists for the same damn reason.
Will people misuse this, sure - people can and will misuse anything.
But as an excuse to strip them of a right I feel is necessary to speak truth to power I find their rationale wholly inadequate.
-Frem
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Quote:
Posted by Frem:
Our forefathers understood this themselves, there's a reason your vote is private, or at least intended to be, that "mask" exists for the same damn reason.
Also why they wrote the Federalist Papers and anti-Federalists under assumed names, and why they disguised themselves before carrying out the Boston Tea Party...
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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Sigh...yes, Sig, I knew I was poking your sacred cow and I'd get a response pretty much like this. We all have our biases, I just don't happen to share yours to the extent you do. Having been in protests both peaceful and violent, for me there's some perspective.
I'm afraid I don't equate the financials having bombed the world economy, the military-industrial complex having pre-deployed dirty bombs everywhere in the world as actually relating to the idea of demonstrators not being able to wear masks, nor do I consider such as "total surveillance", nor do I relate the wearing of masks (in America, largely because the person wearing it intends to do ILLEGAL DAMAGE) to the millions of somebodies out there who object to the clusterfuck that has become our society. The majority of those I have seen wearing masks at protests aren't objecting to the way things are, they are using the excuse to run amok. Some of them unquestionably are serious protesters, who probably are much like you in their beliefs and feelings, but not the majority of them.
I don't LIKE it, mind you, I just don't see it as world-shakingly as you do. And I certainly don't see how wearing a mask in any way connects to the intricately--let's say PROFESSIONALLY--executed actions of banks, etc.
In my OPINION, if I'm not willing to show my face to express my beliefs by protesting, I don't anticipate too many people taking me seriously and I would expect it to do my cause more harm than good, especially if I use a mask to hide my identity while being violent.
If the day comes in America where it's not SAFE to protest (and no, I don't mean the occasional infractions which unquestionably affect the individual involved's freedoms, I mean were it to become like some other countries where merely showing one's face at a protest could cost one their life), I'll feel differently. Right now, the only ones wearing masks do so to cause harm. So I stand by my originally-stated OPINIONS.
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Can you rephrase your comment? I have no idea what you're trying to say.
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If I were to do some mind-reading I think her response is deeply emotional and due to the presence of masked folk at Occupy Oakland. She seems to think disruptors generally are the reason why the Occupy movement more generally failed, and blames them rather than TPTB for the repression across the country.
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