G-20 in Toronto

Hello World,

Like I said a few posts ago, I went to NYC a few days ago and had a BLAST (minus my allergies, and long bus ride). When I left the G20 and the G8 just started. Prior to me leaving everyone was talking about it at work, on the papers and elsewhere. Mostly about how much money was chosen to be invested for security (something like a 1 BILLION DOLLARS).

When I came back into town (the last day of the G20), everything was crazy. COPS everywhere, streets blocked, and apparently it was crazier (my cab driver told me that there were a few cars lit up on fire, stores down on the main shopping districks broken into, starbucks trashed and all kinds of other madness. I also found out that there were a HIGH number of arrests.
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I've posted a link before in regards to police brutality in Toronto, and I've expressed how ANGRY it makes me feel. Had I been in Toronto at the time of the summit, I think I would've wanted to be in the rally involving first nations in Canada... but anyways. Because I wasn't there it was a bit hard to envision how exactly it must've been like to be there.. on the streets, in the middle of all this chaos. But thanks to youtube, I've watched a few clips that were able to give me a general gist of how everything went down.



... I think the older I'm getting the more I don't like cops lol. There's not much of a criteria that's necessary to be a cop from what I know. No education necessary, not much training. ... To me cops are essentially people that are the beneficiaries of a particular hierarchy/group of people that society gave the right to give the license to kill. (not sure if that makes sense). All of which on paper is deemed acceptable if it is within "reasonable grounds that co-sign with laws of the state". But I think in actuality, they can do whatever the hell they want, and they can get away with it.
This is not to discredit the fact that there are good cops around and that cops are necessary sometimes, but it's the bad seeds, and the overflowing prison population (a LOT of which consists of racialized (alot of which are black) people (coincidence? or not??), and the money invested in having more prisons (instead of investing it somewhere else like ...I dunno decreasing tuition fees? fix the welfare system? help people? fix schools? pay teachers more? create programs to get kids off the street? to ACTUALLY HELP single mothers??) that make me question the whole structure of it all. ... not to mention the ability of that person who went through the prison system to find a way to live afterwards, and get a job, is almost impossible.
I don't understand how investing 1 freakin' billion dollars in security for 5 days and to create an inconvenience for a whole city by blocking streets (creating a loss in business for some people), subways systems, highways for this makes any sense. I think it's all politics. I think it's a way for Toronto/Ontario... or ultimately Canada to show off. To look good. To make it look like this is excuse my profanity: 'exclusive shit' that only 'exclusive people' can have. This by all the more creates this kind of barrier and increases the gap between world leaders and ... the rest. How can you relate... ultimately trust these people?

(sidebar: this is one of these rants that always make me question why I decided to study political science... lol... I question if that's how I can be successful with my degree? to be one of 'them' ... I dunno if I could ever do that... or be one of 'these' people... ever.)

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(but I digress)
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so my question/reaction to this overall G-20 thing is.... WTF?

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We as a people should be holding these state actors accountable. We should have the right to be able to protest, to question government, to make THEM WORK FOR US... NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

UUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
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k (that is all.)
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STRANGE FRUIT.