Monty, in his daily “Financial Briefing” post, has his own G20 protest:
The meeting of the G-20 is the big news, but “big news” in this case means no news, really. The whole point of the conference appears to provide world leaders with an opportunity to frown and look concerned. What other purpose it serves I don’t know. The peaceful hippies seem to be enjoying themselves, though. Toronto cops arrested about 500 yammering idiots, but failed to heed Mayor Daley’s advice to lump them up a little bit before letting them go. (That would be Richard J. Daley, who viewed beating up hippies as vigorous and healthy outdoor exercise, not his pissant kid Richard M. Daley.)
But hey, on the bright side: everyone agreed to “cut debt”! Yay! It’s just that easy, apparently! Monty, a financial-industry gadfly and obscure vulgarian from some trailer park in Jesusland, heckled the gathered august personages by shouting “You incompetent, moronic, cheating, lying, prevaricating, thieving, low-down, whiffle-headed, asshole spendthrift fucksticks!”. He was forcibly removed by security. When reached later for comment from his jail-cell, Monty said that his remarks “[W]ere delivered in the heat of the moment, but do accurately reflect my beliefs.” He also invited President Barack Obama to come to his cell and kiss his ass. President Obama could not be reached for comment.
The arrest count reportedly went over 900, but the most frequent allegations of police brutality were from some of the media people who were arrested. Jesse Rosenfeld, a Guardian reporter, was observed being punched by police while they were handcuffing him. The National Post had two of their photographers arrested, while all the newspapers seemed to have encountered police discouragement to them filming or photographing events after the violence broke out.
The Toronto Star notes that search warrants are for pussies, not real police officers:
John Booth said the officers, who entered through an unlocked door, sidestepped repeated requests to show him a warrant. He said they alternately promised to produce it later, claimed to have showed it to someone else, or simply said no.
“At first I actually said, ‘This isn’t a joke, right?’ Because I honestly couldn’t even understand where this was coming from,” he said. “They understood, as the interaction went on, that it was looking less and less likely that I had anything to do with what they were talking about. They were inadvertently discovering — ‘Oh, okay, thanks for telling us that there’s two apartments,’ like that was so enlightening. Yeah, well, you should’ve known that before you came into my house.”
The Booths say they will not sue. But they have filed a complaint to the province’s police review office in an attempt to hold the planners of the raid accountable; John Booth said he does not blame the junior officers who conducted it.
