Canada lawmakers ban masks at protests
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 7, 2023 16:32
VIEWED: 2841
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OK Niki, so without a restatement, here's the best I can make of your post, along with remaining questions
Quote:
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
What do you mean "equate"? "Equate means "to make equal". You're right. Destroying hundreds of millions of jobs, homes, and lives and poisoning people with radionuclides is far more serious than banning masks. So in what sense are you using the word "equate"?
But they ARE "related". Mask-banning is a direct response to major demonstrations in Canada. Yes, polite bucolic Canada.
Canada has had number of peaceful demonstrations it would prefer NOT to have had, such as the G20 demonstration in Toronto which turned violent when police charged, maced, and jailed peaceful demonstrators and bystanders alike.
http://pushedleft.blogspot.com/2010/09/toronto-star-is-right-theres-no
.html
And Montreal had 100 days of peaceful student protests against fee hikes, only to have the government attempt to squash even that by passing "Emergency Law Bill 78" requiring permits for all gatherings. That Emergency Law also resulted in a demonstration... a peaceful protest made completely illegal by the new law
So, let's see... you can't buy a gazillion hours of advert time, you can't make your views known especially if the press might be coming through or you get relegated to some distant "free speech zone", you can't hold peaceful protests, software exists for facial (and soon to be gait) recognition to pick people out of a crowd.... people who may be doing nothing other than exercising their right to free speech. After a while, will it be illegal to do anything other than stand like sheep for the police to collect up? Seriously, Niki, don't you see a problem of creeping fascism?
Quote:Yanno, protesters are talking about how to foil face recognition software. It IS part of "total surveillance", because if you don't agree to being totally surveilled then you're automatically guilty.
nor do I consider such as "total surveillance"
Quote:Well, it seems to me that maybe you SHOULD relate them. First of all, I guess I'm a little ... somewhere between amused and irritated... that you would draw the line at ILLEGAL DAMAGE.
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.
GOSH! ILLEGAL DAMAGE! HORRORS!
So, is "legal damage" better? Less dangerous and less consequential?
And the banning of protests and masks, the "free speech zones" and the surveillance state that we have become... isn't THAT part of the clusterfuck? Shouldn't you be protesting that as well?
So, I guess I'm still puzzled by your response. It seems to be somewhere "mask-wearers are assholes anyway because they want to do illegal damage" and "mask-wearing won't do any good anyway".
I presume that you still believe that civil disobedience is the way to go. But wearing a mask... like sitting on the wrong seat of a bus... is just another form.
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For some reason I read this title as 'Canadian lawnmakers..."
Weird.
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Our intelligence agencies are our greatest enemies. Strange as it sounds, except for morons hand fed by those same intelligence agencies into thinking that they can destroy a bridge with laundry detergent, the Black Bloc Anarchists are a necessary force, distracting the police brutality from the average citizens and better prepared to make that stand.
That said, while most of the time the people busting windows are cops, it's important to keep your friendly Anarchists at your protest on task. They're a little bit like cats, wave a laser pointer in front of them and they completely forget what they were just doing.
I concede, however, that silly ski masks, Guy Fawkes masks, scarves, and glasses are a pretty weak showing. You want to conceal your identity, fine, but there are better options for masks that can do that. Such as gas masks, ear muffs, and full body protective gear.
That's right, I said it. Protests need their own riot-gear wearing front line. And they need their own back of the crowd surveillance and subterfuge team. No protest is complete without a covert ops remote controlled weather balloon.
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Quote:
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.
There's a reason the original Boston tea party was wearing Indian outfits when they boarded those ships and dumped the cargo into the harbor, folks.
EDIT: Ah, I see Kwicko anticipated me.
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So if people are forced to protest without masks in very cold weather (I understand that it does get cold in Canada) and get frostbitten noses and faces, is the Canadian government liable? I know Canadian citizens might be covered by Canada Healthcare, but what about U.S. citizens going to protests there?
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For protection from viruses that may be in crowds.
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KIKI- BRILLIANT! I know that wearing surgical half-masks is very common in Asian cultures. Hell, if you go into a doctor's waiting office during flu season with flu-like symptoms, they'll often hand you one. So wearing one in a crowd COULD just be self-protection against the flu, or perhaps even protecting others from something YOU have. And those masks have a quasi-official status... they have to do with doctors, nurses, and contagious diseases. Yeah, wow. I wonder what would happen if people started wearing surgical masks instead of the Guy Fawkes masks, ski masks, or scarves??? What would it look like: The March of the Hypochondriacs??? What if people marched wearing full surgical scrubs? Would police hesitate to beat one someone who COULD be an ER doctor or nurse treating THEM tomorrow?
MAGONS- DAMN your eyes! Now that you mention it, that's all I can see: Canadian lawnmakers. Yes, you have to watch out for those lawnmakers... always underhanded and underfoot.
NIKI- On reflection, I think I see your point: The presence of the Black Bloc makes any demonstration potentially more dangerous for those who simply want to demonstrate peacefully. It's easy for me to cheer from the sidelines, because all of the demonstrations I've ever been with have been peaceful. But now, as a woman of advancing years with a sick husband and a disabled daughter, the thought of a real physical tussle, the possibility of injury and arrest, the time away from dependent loved ones ... those are serious considerations.
And once the batons start swinging the police don't distinguish between peaceful and provocative, demonstrator or bystander.
I think, though, that even peaceful demonstrations are quite often not tolerated, and those that are the most well-tolerated are also the most ineffective. I recall a huge march in Washington DC approx 1977... estimated at 100,000 women in support of the ERA. They marched, they spoke, they picked up their trash after themselves and got a back-page picture of two women cooling their feet in a fountain (Must be lesbos, *wink wink*) and caption in our city paper. And, funny, but equal rights for women never WAS voted into the Constitution, was it?
http://www.pbs.org/pov/brotheroutsider/march/pastmarches07_era.html
To some extend, I judge the effectiveness of an activity by the amount of effort that that right-wing puts in to countering it. That's why I see the VOTE as so important... if it didn't matter, they wouldn't be spending so much damn money on it. Same with communications: Must be important, or advertising wouldn't be such a big sector. Big demonstrations which engender no response are a waste of time.
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Believe it or not, surgical masks are already semi-affiliated with gang culture in other countries, not the least of which is Japan where it is a staple of "Yankees" - this is often spelled differently to distinquish it from the slang term for Americans, and the gang in question is something akin to our biker types.
And a certain tactical issue has been raised, but there's a certain chicken-and-egg confusion to it, I think, regarding black bloc operations.
See, they tend to show up when they know a protest is GOING to turn violent, and while not always dead-bang easy, as a rule it's not too hard to tell the difference between actual black-bloc'ers and police infiltrators - it's actually rare for anarchists to initiate violence, and even rarer for it to be senselessly destructive, functionally ineffective and maliciously provocative... you see some asshats in masks doing that, start looking for standard issue police footwear.
However, when violence DOES start, no matter who started it, they will move to the fore, and there's a reason for this - anyone familiar with MMO gaming knows what Tanking is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_%28gaming%29
Reason behind this is to allow both ordinary protestors and innocent bystanders to get the hell out of dodge without being kettled(1) and trapped into a beatdown, and provide a solid line against the aggressive police brutality which tends to spiral out of control since they're usually better prepared for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling
Thing with that is, due to the uselessness of conventional protest, these days, which more or less amounts to painting a bullseye on yourself and standing around waiting to be stepped on while the media ignores you, they've been less and less willing to engage over the past couple years, and despite the running jokes there *is* a certain amount of organisation amongst them (how else you think they get 30 of em to show up at once, ehe?) so when no bloc is formed, and a bunch of folks in masks and black outfits start senselessly trashing things in a way that does minimal damage but provides a handy excuse.... it ain't hard to make some guesses about who they may be.
If you ever DO find yourself stuck in a protest by design or accident (say as a bystander), it's worth trying to actually SPEAK to the Bloc'ers and see if they'll detail you an escort or help you get out of the conflict zone before things go south, and they'd generally do it, unless, yanno, they're the other guys.
-Frem
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Figured as much. :)
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