That really helped the poor and downtrodden. Must be wonderful to be so self righteous and yet such a burden to have to go back to mommy and daddy's Shaughnessy and Point Grey mansions. 

what a bunch of misguided losers these protesters are. 

Right and then after the police boxed them in they felt the need to smash a bunch of windows..... 

Your comment Relexis, makes you sound like an asshole. I know it's the internet but maybe you should put more thought into what you're saying. 

Oh great. All it takes is a couple of inconsiderate self-righteous kids breaking windows and dragging newspaper boxes around to:

A) Make all Anti-Olympic protests appear directionless and juvenile.
B) Give the police the perfect excuse to use excessive force on all protesters from now on.
C) Have an average underpaid worker clean up the mess (i.e. broken glass) after them.
D) Make it even harder for peaceful marches, such as the non-Olympic-related DTES Women's Memorial March to be received without conflict. An annual memorial when people sometimes dress in black to commemorate the murdered and missing women, not antagonise unprovoked police violence.

Good job. I guess I can't wear my black hoodie for the next two weeks, since I'm a low-income visible minority and under thirty. Thanks. What a revolution. You really tore down the walls of The Conformist Machine.

P.S. Some protesters cover their faces to protect their jobs and families if their employers or schools are not particularly forgiving of exercising the right to peaceful freedom of speech. 

Poor fools.
They should have had more manpower.

**Ooops, sorry!!!!**

MANPOWER is soooo SEXIST!!!!!!

I AM SUCH A SEXIST!!!!! BAD BAD BAD!!!!!!!

I guess this whole thing is defeated before it even got started.
 

Best part about all the protests and the chant is that everyone involved all live on this "stolen" land. Maybe they should look at themselves and realize how hyprocritical they are of themselves. 

Useful idiots, helping to bring on the NWO / One World Government.

Trotsky would be proud of you all. 

I have no sympathy for the idiots that get clubbed by the cops now. What the hell are they thinking? Being against the games is fine. Being opposed to the NWO, corporate bullshit is fine as well. But to go out and act like that.....total idiots. I realize not all the protestors were being violent but then why didnt they try and stop them?  

Gordon Campbell called some of the protestors cowards, when in fact some engaged in obvious criminal activity. Why not just call them as they are -- criminals? 

The silence from Shaw, Eby et al is deafening. 

When you brush people and problems under the carpet for so long.. eventually there's going to be a bump..there's a good chance that eventually your going to trip on that bump in the carpet and fall flat on your face. Case in point..very angry people.. 

This mob was not from Shaughnessy or Kerrisdale..the folks from that area were attending the Olympic events & supporting our athletes..This group is organized crime whose goal is to disrupt..anything, everything.. and to cause chaos. Primarily anti government, democratic governments. 

They use similar tactics to the Brownshirts before their rise to power in Germany. They're 99% white. The Black Bloc are Nazis and criminals and they better stop what they're doing because a lot of legitimate protesters like me are getting pissed off. If I see one of these fascists start violence I will personally restrain him for the police to make an arrest, then pick up my protest sign and continue trying to make a point and hoping that I can convince the public to build some social housing. By showing them that I'm not a freak and that real protesters have actual humanitarian concerns I think I stand a better chance than breaking windows, threatening families and assaulting cops. The VPD have done the best job in the history of Vancouver protests of showing restraint in the face of provocation, protecting the peace and respecting the right to protest. The VPD should thank the Black Bloc for giving them the best PR they could ever wish for. 

not a whole lot of ethnic minorities represented by the "black bloc"... maybe it's because they are too busy working the olympics and providing a decent living for their families and don't have time to whine and bitch about their arts funding being cut...  

Lets stop focusing solely on the messengers and the style of the message. Let's see if there might be a message we are missing.
Anarchists are part of society. They have their philosophy and their viewpoints. Yes, their language is crude and methods primitive, but in some way, they are the most moral of us all. Listen to their concerns for a change. They are animated by a fervent conscience.
A few of them feel justified, in view of the almost inconceivable crimes committed routinely by our government, institutions, and society against millions of people both at home and around the world, to try to draw attention to the apalling dishonesty, hypocrisy, and callousness of our mainstream social dialogue -- by expressing their utter contempt for this veneer of civility which is primarily a cultivated reverence for private property, privilege and power of the tiny elite. The mentally servile masses are trained like seals with promised rewards of petty pleasures like witnessing exploited athletes on TV and petty, meaningless ceremonies like "torch runs" representing nothing but the hypocrisy of the governments and corporations. In the conditioned minds of these mental minions the destruction of private property belonging to sociopathic corporations is the ultimate evil, whereas torturing, murdering and imprisoning hundreds or thousands of people for being in the way of the grand chessboard agenda of the invisible elite is something to cheer about and defend. When was the last time you heard any of our MP's or the corporate media acknowledge the horrifying plight of Canada's native population, the direct and deliberate result of a government and church policy of cultural destruction? Why did the Taleban eliminate the poppy crop, and the US government installed Northern Alliance restore it in only one year to record output, and climbing yearly? When was the last time you heard any discussion about Canada's role in illegally supplying most of the uranium the US military has distributed throughout Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, indirectly murdering millions of people and sickening more over millions of years? Or Canadian government support for Monsanto's terminator genes, likely to further decimate small scale local agriculture worldwide, forcing urbanisation and driving millions into servile poverty?
Let's honor these rough hewn hooligan heroes for the gold medals they hold in their hearts, for though they generally possess little assets or education, and know of no better way to express themselves than a couple of well chosen broken windows, thrown bags of paint, and overturned newspaper boxes, if our society refuses to take honest moral stock of its behavior, and closes its heart to the plight of large numbers of people for whom it ought to be lovingly responsible, and continues to be hoodwinked by corporate shell games like the 2010 Olympics, then the people least constrained by social conventions will necessarily become the only outlet for the messages from within that we constantly suppress and drown out with our crassly self serving social dialectic. 

Your actions are your message. Destruction, assault have no place. If you commit a crime you deserve appropriate punishment. The social contract protects us all. 

They are all a bunch of kids trying to have a brawl. Anyone wearing a mask should have been shot with rubber bullets and put in lockup. 

These little goofs deserve nothing more than to be bashed with a riot shield. Why hide your face if your doing something you believe in? I like nothing more than seeing some little puke getting schooled. Lets find a reason to vandalize stuff! Hey lets says its for native rights!...no wait...lets say its for low income housing!!... Yeahhhh Whooo hooo! Lets just smash stuff! Ive lived here my whole life and theres never been a shortage of these little tools. What a joke. Grow up and wake up! 

What happened to the good old days when you could curb stomp criminals like this in public. The only way they will learn to behave is with a good old fashioned punch to the face. A hundred years ago these turds would have been shot dead where they stood. Think how much $ the taxpayers would save if there was just one Wyatt Earp instead of 500 police.
It would work like a charm , the slime that was left standing would have a better chance of getting that free condo downtown that they hopin for. 

The society that closes its ears to any of its voices is the poorer for it. Note that the Black Bloc have an ethical basis for their actions. They are not essentially criminals or terrorists. They are socially engaged citizens. To not be able to make this distinction is a symptom of how brainwashed our society is.

Some may be government paid agent provocateurs, or professional patsies of the police / corporation complex being manipulated to provide justification for the insanely bloated 2010 Olympics security plan. But the majority of this small group are younger Canadian citizens with a sincere commitment to challenging the norms of our society that are too infrequently challenged in our customary social discourse.

The rationale of the Black Bloc may be invalid, and their methods counterproductive, but they do have a coherent message. For instance, I know that "authorities routinely ignore the medical emergencies of poor or houseless individuals". This is but the tip of the iceberg.

I don't think the Black Bloc are calm enough to elaborate their thesis properly, but they know the sting of poverty, and the weight of living in a generally selfish, materialistic society that rationalises its lack of compassion and justice with nasty ideologies invented by corporate think tanks and programmed into the upper classes by a compliant media. The hostility, violence, and intellectual bankruptcy of the "me generation" yuppies is more than apparent in the steady flow of vituperous comments that flow through these threads, comments that generally:

1) demonstrate self-absorption and absence of compassion, sympathy, or a social consciense
2) show little or no interest in understanding the concerns of the young militant protestors
3) strongly condemn civil disobedience, even though civil disobedience has won us many of our most treasured rights
4) are incredibly callous and mean spirited
5) demonstrate a proclivity for the kind of vicious vigilante and state violence that animated the Klu Klux clan and Nazi brownshirt movements.

As undisciplined, anarchistic, and misguided as the Black Bloc and its supporters may be, they are human beings, and members of our community, generally young, angry and hurting. They represent part of the younger generation. We should care about them, and those they represent. And we should be willing to listen to their concerns, whatever we think or feel about their behavior.

Those that don't have a middle class job and university education, who don't share the concensus privileges and lifestyle, and who perhaps choose to pursue different goals in life, are still members of our society. They are not worthless human beings just because they dress differently or think, feel, and act differently than us. The parts of ourselves that we condemn and calumnify contain gifts, and their reintegration constitutes healing. This is true on both a personal and social level. They are a part of the whole, and contain a part of the wisdom of the whole. In a way, they are the N'avi of Vancouver - the urban indigenous whose existence is closer to the primal elements of food, shelter, health care and community.

Did you know that if you are poor, that social assistance and free dental clinics will pull out a tooth, but won't fill a cavity?

The Black Bloc make some valid points, and if we were interested in being responsible citizens in a democratic society, we should be interested in understanding their perspectives in case there is something we can learn, and some course corrections we should be making in our lives, both individually and collectively. It is easy to dismiss an uncomfortable message by denigrating the style of its delivery, or the complexion of its messenger. But we are only the poorer for it.

"The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry."-Ralph Waldo Emerson