Of Rioters,Police And Social Media

I’ve had all day to digest the events in Vancouver last night,my first knee jerk reaction was how dare those idiots riot over a hockey game when they should have been peacefully demonstrating for societal change. My stance has softened somewhat as I now feel that while the spark that ignited the flames was a hockey game, perhaps the kindling that fed them came from pent up anger about the glaring inequity in our society today. Now I am sure that the ones doing the rioting don’t recognize this as the source of their anger, they just know that they are angry about many things.

They’re angry about high youth unemployment, huge student loan debt loads ,low paying unfulfilling McJobs to name but a few, they just haven’t made the connections yet. Helping them to make those connections and showing them how to channel their justified anger towards peacefully effecting real positive change is our job.

In the aftermath of the rioting and looting the police, just as they did post G20 have turned to social media for help in finding the culprits. I have a great deal of discomfort with this for a couple of reasons. Those who rule us already own the traditional forms of media, be it print or broadcast, do we really want to voluntarily hand over the one form of media that we control. That is precisely what we are being asked to do by posting pics of the rioters on Facebook and such. We should refuse to abet them in their quest for total control over information.

The other issue is more fundamental. As those of us who have followed the G20 aftermath can attest to, the powers that be have circled the wagons in an effort to make sure none of them ever face the consequences of their actions that weekend. But it goes even beyond that, nearly every day we hear about a cop,politician or political party that has broken the law with impunity. A nations laws must be applied equitably or society ceases to be a just one,becoming instead one of oppression.

How can we in good conscience help those who say the laws of our land don’t apply to them, bring the full weight of those laws down on someone else.