Atlantica Protest Turns Ugly

Is it possible that these protests are turning ugly because of hired protest
agitators? I notice that the G8 also had similar people wearing the black face
coverings etc; I notice that there were thousands of protestors but only a few
injuries, arrests and real agitators. A similar situation is reported here. A
peaceful protest which had a few break away and begin to use paintballs etc
against police. Could this be intentional to try to create riots etc and then the
gov can use more force and deter others from protests?

The way the CTV news reported the Halifax event seems to be a bit off, they
are saying the protest is against Free Trade between Altantica Canada,
Quebec and some Northeastern States; however I don't believe Altantica is
simply a trade deal.

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"aaaah and the whisper of thousands of tiny voices became a mighty deafening roar and they called it 'freedom'!"' Canadians Acting Humanely at home & everywhere

Anything is possible, it's been done before, but I doubt it. If you've ever been in a protest there are all kinds of people with all kinds of ideas. That a splinter group would break apart and escalate violence by throwing things isn't surprising. The same thing happened in Saint John and those arrested who were legitimate protestors (and not bloggers) openly confessed to 'getting carried away'.

Atlantica is a trade deal, what is at issue is whether the economy should be used simply to facilitate trade. ACOA spends almost nothing on economic investments, Calgary gets more economic development money than all the maritime provinces. The idea that ACOA is going to spend half a million dollars to 'set up an Atlantica group' is a horrible misuse of money. People are flocking out of the maritimes by the thousands and these guys are only worried about making the region a better highway system so that goods can traverse the area. So it IS all about trade, that's exactly the problem.

As for Maude's statement, she should realize that canadian water is just as polluted as american water, so I don't think there is going to be massive fear about shipping water!

Thanks for the links Dr. Caleb. I note that the MSM reported the use of "pepper spray" in yesterdays headlines, when tasers were used as well. This conservative slant on the extent of the police response is interesting, although not surprising when even the police spokesperson Theresa Brien was quoted yesterday as saying she was told tasers were not used. CTV favored using almost exclusive clips of the black clad protesters clashing with police and gave only a token glimpse of the Raging Grannies and the other protesters who took part peacefully. CBC TV coverage had a better balance in presenting the range of protesters.<br />
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Peter MacKay is intent on damage control and trying to sell himself and Harpers government as our Atlantic saviours in talking about the federal pledge of 33 billion in spending for infrastructure over the next seven years in conjunction with the "Atlantic Gateway" scheme. <br />
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The Herald letter by Peter MacKay, "Ottawa backs Atlantic Gateway" here: <br />
<a href="http://www.herald.ns.ca/Letters/841782.html">http://www.herald.ns.ca/Letters/841782.html</a>

Oh, before anyone gets excited I realize I strayed off direct topic offering a link on the "Atlantic Gateway" when discussing the Atlantica protests. I thought it was interesting, as in exploring just how much prosperity and what brand of economic development we might be buying if this 33 billion in infrastructure spending should ever materialise. Not to mention who will see what share of any resulting prosperity.

"As for Maude's statement, she should realize that canadian water is just as polluted as american water, so I don't think there is going to be massive fear about shipping water!"<br />
<br />
I think they don't really care if ours is polluted or not. They just want it! Besides Iraq, I hear the "battle" in cleaning up the Great Lakes is not being won either. But that won't stop the Yankees from (eventually) pumping Lake Michigan out of the Great Lakes watershed:<br />
<a href="http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/2006/07/quiet-plan-to-tap-lake-michigan-shut.html">http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/2006/07/quiet-plan-to-tap-lake-michigan-shut.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=469909">http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=469909</a><br />
<br />
<p>---<br>"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." <br />
-Max Planck<br />
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Yeah, Catherine, my Mom said the same thing about the Quebec City protests a few years ago. She thought that the 'black masks' that jumped on the fence and tried to tear it down were paid lackeys of the corporate fascists. When this happened, of course, the police felt they had free reign to round up and rough up any protester!

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Dave Ruston

Like I said, it is possible, however, people should take a hypothesis as being a fact. Especially at this website, we see people get pretty angry about the 'corporate fascists'. Well, take your anger, transport it back twenty years or so, and you can easily see that its not always necessary for police to plant people. It's more complicated than that, because police will sometimes put undercover people in, to see what the crowd is going to do. This was a pretty small crowd though. If you are at a protest, see a rock, and the financial symbol of what you see wrong with the world, or a cop car, a similar symbol, well what would you do?

I am always surprised that there is not far more violence. Not everybody is willing to simply let their indignation spill out onto a keyboard, in fact those people have very low opinions of us 'armchair activists' and often they are right. If a police car is a symbol of oppresson, why wouldn't you throw a rock at it?