Kudos

To the protesters. Without articles like this no one would even know the issue exists. Protesting gets noticed.

@John Greg

There is additionally some confusion of quotation marks with either missing opening quotes, or incorrect closing quotes.

I've just fixed this paragraph...

-snip-
There were about 30 police in the beginning. The officers formed a perimeter around the bus and, Wallia said, "...started shoving their bikes into people, pushing people down, stomping on people's feet. Within 10 or 15 minutes, they brought in 40 more cops, more cops than people, and just charged everybody, mostly young women. They didn't say anything, didn't say 'Move.' They were dragging people in the street."
-snip-

...and scanned the rest of the story. Let me know if there are other places you see problems.

Thanks!

Is this what passes for 'investigative journalism'?

I wasn't there, so I'm not going to try and tell anyone what happened. I don't know.

What I question, however, is the press release being touted as "protest porn" and this persons view is presented--uncriticially--as sound testimony...it raises more flags than it quells.

Wallia's presentation of events is often unnecessarily inflammatory, skewed by an obvious agenda, and often off-topic. This is not advocating for the 'press release', but I hardly see a reason to give her view anymore merit.

As with several commentors here, I agree that the Tyee is a good source of information. What I would not agree with is that the Vancouver Observer is. I don't think it's in the Tyee's best interest to be 'showcasing' the VO--in fact, I think it does the Tyee a disservice. The VO's standard of reporting is rudimentary and amateurish at best.

Protest Porn Indeed

I think that "protest porn" is a very insightful phrase to describe the quality of reporting we get in most media outlets about events such this. And Harsha Wallia is the perfect person to coin such a phrase, being one of our community's leading creators and manipulators of protest porn. Ms. Wallia has never seen a cause she couldn't appropriate for her own purposes or a protest she couldn't endorse, whatever the level of violence.

We now have two very unreliable assessments of what happened at the Fairmont, and those of us who weren't there may never know anything more than those contrasting pieces of propoganda.

Such ridiculous bias

This so called showcase feature would be outrageously bad journalism if its biases weren't so blatantly obvious. There is utterly no balance, no coroboration and no viewpoints from law enforcement. I know the Tyee desperately needs content, but it shouldn't be shilling for the Observer and Vancouver's professional protesters. It's fine to be left leaning, but act like professional journalists. This feature is terrible, and truly as McKeown says, "Protest Porn."

Of course the protesters wanted to enter the hotel and cause a scene and harass the G8 delegates. If not, why did they walk around the hotel perimeter, testing police lines?

It takes two parties to incite violence and the police only react to violent protesters who seek to provoke the riot squad. Vancouver's protest movements are flanked by violent cells that hide within civil protests. And they are tolerated, encouraged and protected by the peaceful protesters.

You ever notice why most of them are white people? What is it with middle class white kids who are filled with self-loathing and seek to intimidate citizens, set fire to banks and toss trash can through store windows? You don't see immigrants showing such disrespect to the country because they are too busy working.

The loss of credibility of these troublemakers was strongly evident during the silly Olympic protests. The general public's disgust was so palpable that no one cares about your silly causes- including the foreign media. The protesters forgot that homelessness is a problem everywhere, Vancouver's situation is nothing special, hence foreign media doesn't think it's newsworthy. And trying to pull down capitalism, make everybody eat granola and love whales and insult taxpayers and businesses is counterproductive. Without the public's support, Downtown Eastside will be gentrified.

To be truly effective, either these protesters need to win public support by engaging in sensible dialogue and demands or scare the hell out of the public by going Al Quaeda.

Protesters Heros for fighting for democratic rights

I'm with "Frank":

To the protesters. Without articles like this no one would even know the issue exists. Protesting gets noticed.

Not many of us have the guts to stand up and be counted. Democracies don't just happen. Someone has to be the gatekeeper and protest when our leaders forget who put them where they are.

Our Gov't is supposed to listen to us, it's citizens, not the other way round.

Video and Photos

Where are they? Any good links? Maybe I shouldn't have put my camera away.

I too, am with Frank...

Biased reporting? Here is ample opportunity to discuss the direction our universities are taking - OUR universities because a great deal of our money is spent on them - and more impportantly, because OUR universities are a symbolic, as well as actual representation of a nations' hopes and dreams and aspirations - and much of the commentary is directed at bashing the writer. I am sure there are many sides to this debate, but why fault the writer for presenting a voice that hasn't been heard much? Indeed, why should the voice of the VPD be given more credibility?

When the institutions of the country become venal or corrupt, or perhaps in this instance simply tawdry and uninspired, we as citizens ought to be taking notice for many reasons. I certainly have a bias, as a graduate student not yet finished with over $50,000 worth of student loan debt - and with a growing despair over the quality of the education I am receiving. 'Education' is said to be the cornerstone of a healthy, vibrant citizenry and economy...and I fear we are in trouble. It seems to me that focusing the commentary on what the protesters are protesting may be the only cure for this disease.
As others have remarked, it is absolutely essential to a democracy to hear what dissenters have to say.

"Without articles like this...

no one would even know the issue exists. Protesting gets noticed."

Although there is turth to this SOMETIMES, it is hardly true most of the time.

Equally as often while protesters are out there venting their anger instead of focusing it (although, truth be told, some protesters do both) there are many, many people effecting actual change instead of just drawing attention to issues.

There is an inherent arrogance in thinking that it is the protesters and protesters alone that effect change. This is, more often than not, absolutely untrue. The people who create change are the ones who sit down with as many stakeholders as possible, trusting that most people--irrespective of their job titles--want to do the right thing.

Secondly, the idea that drawing attention to an issue does anything, let alone something necessarily positive, is equally naive. On the one hand, protesting paints almost everyone on one side of an issue as radical and, therefore, dimissible. On the other hand, it feeds directly into the sensationalism that media wants, thus drawing attention away from the nuances--unless, of course, you think the issues are black and white which is, again, naive.

Harkening to George Lakoff, if your only aim is to 'get noticed' then you are leetting someone else--here, the media--frame the debate. You are a pawn.

I'm not--in any way, shape, or form--saying 'no' to civil disobedience. There are times when it is necessary, and even required. But this is not what this article is about...

The Tyee editors decided to include this in the news as though it were a good article: it is not. It is, in fact, nothing more than ranting propaganda. This, in a sad turn, does more disservice to the issue than anything else.

Another disservice is people believing--naively--that the protesters stand alone, at the forefront, and effect change: that is just wrong.

VivianLeaDoubt

Because protest means instability, and instability is a threat that rocks one's cushy (albeit boring and stress-laden) existence. The police symbolize all that is familiar - therefore "safe".

yes, RickW, too true...

By the way, I meant to thank you for an informative link a few days back...

It is not just 'protesters' who represent instability - ask anyone who has been a lone dissenter at a boardroom, or institutional, or even a kitchen table. There are always many sides to any debate, but the ones who brave the wrath of the majority deserve a respectful hearing, at the very least. But these days, who knows what passes for a majority view? The percentage who bothered to vote?

Meanwhile, our universities, once our pride, are reduced to shilling and lobbying and pandering to corporate interests to get the funding they need...and the student debt of Canadians approaches astronomical amounts.

Police

[OFFENSIVE COMMENT REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]

A Meaningless Group

Hiding behind any and all causes they can dream up and letting violent troublemakers use all of the groups as camoflage, people like Ms. Wallia are merely poverty pimps. By raising enough noise they only hope to get a quick handout or govt programme from the govt. This only perpetuates their lifestyle.

Indeed, you can make a career and lifestyle out of protesting. Many of these white kids- and they are mostly white, are angry at their families and filed with self loathing. They assume the mantle of being the leading edge of democracy when all they do is make an incoherent noise. They can't even make a cohesive statement. And then they implicitly support violent protesters among them hoping to scare or intimidate the rest of us.

As the Olympic protests show, these protesters represent no one but themselves. Their 15 minutes, no 15 seconds of fame is gone. Their support base has vaporized.

Mikemah: You CANNOT take police into custody

The law you are referring to allows citizens to arrest someone in the midst of a crime and hold him or her until a peace (not police) officer arrives.

The YOU MUST relinquish any jurisdiction because at the moment the peace officer arrives he or she is responsible for any breaches of law (and, thus, enforces it).

Furthermore, NO YOU ARE NOT aloowed to use deadly force: at all, ever. If you kill someone to protect another it is in self-defense of another and does not fall under so-called 'citizens arrest'; it is, in fact, a completely different set of laws.
Your comments are utterly baseless and misinformed.

I understand the sentiment, but there are mechanisms in place to deal with police transgressions. Spare me the cynicism about how they don't work: they ain't perfect, but not only do they (usually) work, they are your ONLY recourse unless you want to be arrested for interferring with an officer carrying out his or her duties. A potentially serioud offence.

Again, I understand and support your sentiment, but your position is wrong and dangerous.

If people don't think the procedures in place are effective this tends to be because people can't be bothered to use them (in part); alos, if you don't like the law petition to have it changed. A long, slow, a unlikely method, but an appropriate and legal one.

In the end, Mikemah's comments are absolutely inaccurate in regards to the law. No offence, bud, but it's too misguided and dangerous to let slide.