[mobglob-discuss] Towards freedom: The G8 and beyond

[Dave Havard]

Dear Graham,

While agreeing with your request not to indulge in gratuitous name
calling, I would like to clarify a point of information.  In Calgary
there was a group of about 7 local people who were very drunk and high
on drugs.  They tried to pull down a Police fence on the Tuesday night
and were annoyed that the crowd would not support them and that people
asked them to desist.  2 days later 4 of them picked a fist fight with a
group of protestors.  I think it is unfortunate that we were not able to
include these people in our movement but I think it is important to
distance ourselves from these kind of actions by people who seem to have
little idea of the issues around the G8 and were just looking for any
pretext to create trouble.  Personally I don't find "yahoo" an unkind
word for this kind of violent behaviour.

Democracy is not about allowing any individual to dictate to the
majority and to determine tactics for the whole group.  One of the
successes of Calgary was a good discussion of the limitations of
"diversity of tactics".

In peace,
Deacon Dave

>The marches and protests were successful in defeating public opinion
about
>protesters and violence. For the entire duration of the these events
the
>media wasn't able to report any violence, except from the odd isolated
act
>from yahoos,


I was in Ottawa for the 'Take the Capital' actions.  The only 'yahoo' I
saw
there (at least within our own ranks - the forces of law and order were
a
whole other stripe of cat) was the individual who was spouting off about

'nonviolence' while at the same time fingering people to the cops.

Let's refrain from name-calling and value judgments about our own, at
least
while in public spaces. It isn't helpful.

                                                          ***
                                   Graeme Bacque gbacque at colosseum.com