Repressed Again for the First Time

An RCMP Security Consultant says that 'changing tactics' by activist groups pose a security threat to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. This page says what we have here is a failure to communicate. Tom Quiggan's warning doesn't come as a surprise, given that it's wrapped in the usual fear-mongering over-reaction marked by the right-wing ascendancy. Remember how the B.C. Lieberals turned panhandling into 'Aggressive Panhandling'? According to Quiggan and the Mounties, Protesters are now 'Violent Protesters'. 'Security' doesn't mean the prevention of harm to the life and limb of the general public, it means that the undisturbed hegemony of the 'Olympic Family' and their corporate and government lackeys must be preserved at all costs, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms be damned.

People concerned about the Environment, the rights of First Nations, or the embarrassing lack of Social Housing in Vancouver have the right to be heard, and should not be on the same RCMP agenda as Al-Qaeda or Islamic Jihad. Based on this page's protest experience at other international gatherings, the real threat of violence surrounding activist groups comes from the agents provocateurs used by the police to infiltrate and stir things up, allowing the Jackboots to justify their head-cracking existence.

Quiggan says that "usually fragmented, single-issue groups are converging and organizing in ways never seen before". This is the security consultant that the RCMP has on their taxpayer-funded payroll? Where was this guy during APEC in Vancouver? The WTO in Seattle? The World Petroleum Congress and G8 Summit in Alberta? The Summit of the Americas in Quebec City? The SPP meetings in Montebello? Either Quiggan seriously needs to get out more, or he's a genius when it comes to fabricating a threat out of a handful of peaceful demonstrators: Everything seems scarier when you tell people it's never happened before.