At the G-20 summit, this is what left-wing violence looks like
When I wrote a book a few years ago about rural conservatism, I pointed out that the modern “homelander” movement — a term which, like my book, failed to gain much traction — had been largely peaceful.
Despite sometimes militant rhetoric — and a few exceptional cases of violence — the small-town right that dominates the Republican Party makes its arguments in political campaigns and wins its victories at the ballot box.
This is a dramatic change from the 1950s and 60s, when the Right often resorted to bloodshed in the U.S., murdering civil rights workers, bombing churches, and assassinating liberal leaders from John Kennedy to Martin Luther King.
I also pointed out that America’s leftist movements have had a comparable record of resorting to violence.
My argument sparked outrage from a few liberals reviewers, who insisted that even in the 1960s and 70s social movements were almost universally peaceful.
They were factually wrong. And as this week’s protests at the G-20 summit in Toronto demonstrate, even now political violence is hardly a danger exclusive to the far right, or to religious extremists.
As CNN reported, “at least four police cars went up in flames and smoke during hours of confrontation.”
Protesters left behind broken windows and graffiti…police used tear gas after warning a group of protesters “engaged in acts of destruction” Saturday.
Pundits on the left have been apoplectic — appropriately, I think — over tea party rallies that include threatening posters and placards.
It is unacceptable in a democracy for political groups to suggest that if they don’t get their way, they will resort to the gun and to bloodshed.
But all sides should be even more outraged at the spectacle of left-wing activists actually engaging in violence, hurling bricks at police, destroying businesses, and torching cars.
As is usually the case, it appears that the violence in Toronto has been carried out by a relatively small faction.
The Toronto Star has a fascinating profile of the “Black Bloc mob” who use guerrilla tactics to infiltrate peaceful protests.
Factions within that group, however, appeared to just relish the mayhem. As the protest marched up Yonge St., they became more indiscriminate in what they damaged.
Two young activists sprinted onto Yonge-Dundas Square and battered the tourist information booth, sparking jeers from some crowd members.
On College St, a pack of masked protesters began to vandalize an empty BMW 4X4. A civilian car, albeit it an expensive civilian car.
“Stop it. They’re not our enemies,” one protester shouted.
The other retorted: “Yuppies are our enemy.”
It has become a habit in our culture to see this kind of liberal mayhem as youthful excess, regrettable yes, but nothing on par with more worrisome forms of political violence.
I disagree. Democracy, debate, and legitimate protest are made impossible when the bricks start flying and the cars start burning.
Legitimate protesters have a responsibility to self-police, making sure that extremists aren’t piggy-backing on non-violent passion and activism.
Those who do resort to fear, destruction and intimidation to make their arguments should be arrested and prosecuted aggressively.
As always, your thoughts are welcome.
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spot on as usual, brian.
Is there a profile of those who are being violent? Are these guys from Toronto or are they these backpacking anarchist’s that seem to show up at these events around the globe? Maybe the reason that they don’t get the attention that right wing violent guys get is that we really don’t take them seriously. The right wing violent actors seem like crazy older people who are training the woods with real guns and real bunkers.
These guys in Toronto seem more like losers who have taken a couple of poly sci classes and are living in their parents basements with superman wallpaper and a lot of teenage anger; “all yuppies are the enemy” give me a break.
But maybe not maybe we need to take them far more seriously.
The link to the Toronto paper will fill in some of the blanks. I agree that a lot of their rhetoric — and their political ideas — are juvenile.
But when you start setting fire to things, and pummeling police with bricks, you stop being a goofy teenager and become a felon.
–Brian, NCPR
Violence is violence. One cannot justify it based on beliefs. Regardless of our respective beliefs your freedom ends where my nose begins and vice-versa.
Exactly, Mervel. Radical chic.
And nowhere near as dangerous as radical chic, rich-kid movements of the past, like the Weathermen or the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany. The only one that’s accumulated a body count in recent years is Al Qaeda, and that’s a weird radical-chic movement, with all of the strange religious fundamentalism in play.
Brian, I think you equate a bit too much. These G-20 things have become almost ritualized, like soccer violence in Europe. A way for troublemakers to cause trouble. When they pull off an assassination or blow up a building like McVeigh did, I’ll worry about them on days other than the ones when I might accidentally be traveling to a city hosting a G-20 or World Bank meetup, and have to deal with traffic.
It is misleading and irresponsible to call this vandalism “left wing.” The perpetrators mostly self-identify as anarchists and have nothing but contempt for liberalism and the left in general.
Another fundamental point that needs to be noted in discussing the difference between their nihilism and the violence of the right is that left-leaning politicians and media are not encouraging it with winks and code words the way that right-wing radio and even politicians like Palin routinely do. Palin, almost daily, vents alarmist and utterly baseless venom about Obama being a crypto-Nazi. The moronic among us take this nonsense seriously, add to their gun collection, and occasionally shoot people.
Moreover, I see you use the expression “liberal mayhem” to refer to the Toronto violence. That is simply bad writing–thoughtless, facile, glib, and misleading (unintentional, no doubt). What possible defense can you offer for using the word “liberal” in connection with criminal acts? Rush Limbaugh would be proud of you!
But wait now violence is violence and we had what most would consider a left wing march and there was violence along with that march. I think Brain was pretty clear that most marchers were not violent. But the fact is some were violent and they seem to get away with this crap as acceptable they get a pass in my opinion and they shouldn’t. I give them a pass because as I said above they seem like juvenile losers to me, but I shouldn’t that is wrong.
But at the same time the media often portray the tea party movement as scary or violent or racist because of a few nuts in that bunch. But the tea party marches have never ever been as violent as these g-20 protests have been.
I just feel sorry for the dude that parked his BMW in the wrong place.
The problem with this line of thinking is that the Tea Party is not the right wing equivalent of the international anarchists you see protesting the summits.
Calling international anarchists left wing is like calling international religious terrorists right wing. It may technically be true, but neither have any reasonable relation to left or right in the scope of discussions about our political system.
The Tea Party on the other hand, and other “aggressive”, right wing movements in America are actually part of our political reality – a part of our democratic process. They have members in our communities… backing from major political players… large corporate supporters.
These international anarchists, people who travel from summit to summit to cause riots, have no such place in our democracy.
It is apples and pickles.
Gromit –
You suggest that by condemning liberal violence I am participating in a Limbaugh-like smear.
It doesn’t wash logically or factually. Here’s why.
The Toronto article makes clear — and I trust their reporting — that the people perpetrating this violence were allowed to shift in and out of more mainstream liberal groups with impunity.
There is clearly some level of tolerance of this activity within the larger, left-wing protest movement. I think that’s problematic.
What’s more, the bright line that you try to draw between the views of ‘anarchists’ and more mainstream liberal groups is no more distinct than the line that can be drawn between mainstream conservative groups and the more virulent right-wing militias.
Anti-corporatism, anti-globalism — these are hardly alien concepts to mainstream liberals, right?
There is a long tradition of people on the left insisting that groups like the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, or the Symbionese Liberation Army have nothing to do with them.
But the spectrum of left-wing politics is far more nuanced and malleable than that argument suggests.
Former radicals have often run for political office as Democrats, and participated in mainstream liberal activist groups.
The most famous example of this, of course, is the relationship that continued between former Weatherman Bill Ayers (who admitted to participating in a bombing campaign) and Barack Obama for nearly a decade.
That said, I do think you are right that liberal politicians have been better and more rigorous about distancing themselves from left-wing violence than many of their conservative counterparts.
But it’s also fair to point out that my post doesn’t suggest that liberal leaders (in the US or Canada) are culpable for this kind of violence.
I simply argue that the criminals who are perpetrating this mayhem should be caught and punished.
-Brian, NCPR
I might just grudgingly buy “left wing” even though it is odd to suggest anti-corporate anti-government nihilist archaists as being related to big government bureaucratic socialism… but “liberal mayhem”? Liberal is centre-leftism. Capitalists with mild socialist tendencies. You’d be closer calling it Randian mayhem given the anti-institutional nature of the anarcho-tots.
First, I want to say that my first 2 comments are a bit excessive. I like Brian’s provocative posts and am glad he keeps them up.
That said, I still think he’s both dodging my points and fudging the issues. Brian writes, “I simply argue that the criminals who are perpetrating this mayhem should be caught and punished.” Obviously, I think the same. The original post, with its headline, does far more than that. It tars the political left, of which I am proud to count myself a minor player, by associating it with mindless violence. That’s what I object to, and nothing Brian says in his 2:05 comment offers an adequate defense of what he wrote.
Brian writes, “You suggest that by condemning liberal violence I am participating in a Limbaugh-like smear.” It’s not the condemnation I object to; it’s how you characterize the crime. What happened in Toronto is not “liberal violence”? It’s no more “liberal violence” than 9/11 was. Just because they apparently do not trust unfettered capitalism (as I don’t), doesn’t make them liberal. Have you ever talked to people like this? I have, many times; the politics they have the greatest distain for is liberalism.
Brian writes, “There is clearly some level of tolerance of this activity within the larger, left-wing protest movement.” Really? Where is the evidence for this smear?
What possible relevance is there in the fact that a few–very few, I might add–former extremists have run for office as Democrats? It’s also true that former radical David Horowitz is now a right-wing shill. What’s important is what the alliances and connections between people and groups are NOW or were at a time in the past. When Bill Ayers was a radical, he was a radical. If he’s now Democrat, then that’s what he is. It is simply not logical to claim that since he was once a radical his association with liberals and liberalism today tars the liberal philosophy. It’s conceivable that if I associate with Ayers (never met him, in fact) it might mean the way I pick my friends is suspect, but it says nothing about liberalism, as such.
What galls me is using the word “liberal” in any way to characterize the motives or philosophy of the Toronto vandals. It simply does not apply to them. It is the sort of rhetorical slipperiness typical of right-wing pundits like Limbaugh and Beck. They do it intentionally, in a calculated attempt to confuse unsophisticated listeners and promote a politics of baseless fear. It’s obvious that Brian has no such motive. But I strenuously object to the gist of this post.
That is because you can’t see outside of yourself. It is exactly the same; right wing violence or left wing violence; they are morally equivalent and both sides of the political spectrum have participated in using it. Liberals and conservatives are not good and bad or moral and immoral they are simply political platforms. Liberals can be horrible people just as likely as conservatives can be horrible people. Both sides of the political spectrum have been taught that not only are you correct but you are also morally correct and I think this is the problem. If liberals are more moral than conservatives than obviously liberals would not use violence but conservatives would use violence or at least MORE violence and thus when we see that liberals are just as down and dirty and violent and immoral as conservatives it challenges this flawed view and thus we cannot accept it and must use some other reasoning for the violence instead of the obvious.
Gromit –
I’m enjoying the exchange, too. That said, I still think you’re the one dodging.
Liberals are quick to see connections between the ideas and activism of conservatives and right-wing extremists.
But — in my opinion — they are also myopically resistant to the idea that there are linkages between their own legitimate activism and radicals on the left.
This refusal goes back as far as the 1930s, when many mainstream progressives naively embraced Soviet communism.
One famous example was the liberal journalist Walter Duranty, who was Moscow correspondent for the New York Times.
He worked actively for years to conceal the magnitude of the deadly famines caused by Stalin’s collectivization.
(Duranty won a Pulitzer for his work, but the Times itself later investigated his reporting and concluded that it was little more than “slovenly” propaganda.)
To return to the case in the point, you are eager to distance modern liberalism from these hooligans in Toronto.
But what part of their ideas — anti-globalism, anti-corporatism, anti-colonialsim, hostility to the rich and to capitalism — do you disagree with?
You haven’t said.
So far as I can tell, the one salient thing that distinguishes the “anarchists” from the other liberal activists in Toronto is their use of violence.
Let me end with a direct question.
If during one of the tea party protests, a group of black-suit wearing people stormed through a city, setting fire to buildings and police cars would you argue that the event had nothing to do with conservatism?
–Brian, NCPR
PS from Brian:
I’ve just been poking around the various blogs that I look at regularly.
Look at how the popular liberal website Crooks & Liars juxtaposes an image of the riot with their arguments about the G-20 conference.
No repudiation of the violence, no distancing. Just an image of a burning police car — followed by a liberal argument about how the G-20 ministers should act differently.
It’s a curious editorial choice, if one accepts that there’s absolutely no linkage between liberalism and this kind of hooliganism.
http://crooksandliars.com/ian-welsh/g20-confers-how-make-you-pay-richs-blund
This is my last comment: It’s well known and often repeated that plenty of lefties in the 30s failed to appreciate or admit the horrors of Stalinism. But I do not see the relevance of that to this discussion. Nor do I see the relevance of claims of left-wing violence a generation later, in the 60s. We’re talking about today.
Many people, including you Brian (I think), like to say, when it comes to political excess, that both sides to it, and a pox on both their houses. But that just doesn’t add up when we look around us today. Sure, there are left-wing bloggers who say absurdly irresponsible things, but who, really, reads them? The forces on the right that egg on the nut cases are powerful and well placed. And they have access to or control hugely influential media. Just think Fox News, right-wing talk radio, etc.,etc. There is nothing on the left like these. We have Rachel Maddow – smart and incisive, but as mean-spirited as a kitten, with nothing like the audience of Glen Beck.
So when I read this: “Let me end with a direct question. If during one of the tea party protests, a group of black-suit wearing people stormed through a city, setting fire to buildings and police cars would you argue that the event had nothing to do with conservatism?”,
I would have to point out that certain leaders of the Tea Party movement, including Sarah Palin, among many others, actively promote violence, though always with deniability. Now, does the violence have anything to do with “conservatism”? With classical conservatism – Taft’s or Goldwater’s – no. But as with so much else, the radical right has corrupted the word to the point where it has little meaning. (It used to be that a true conservative opposed adventuristic meddling as an instrument of foreign policy, but GWB sure muddied those waters.) Such violence, if it occurred, would very much have something to do with the rhetoric of certain influential figures on the contemporary right.
Back to my original complaint: the post that led off this discussion says, unequivocally and explicitly, that the violence in Toronto is a liberal phenomenon. In the context of contemporary political discussion, that makes no sense. The people committing the violence are not liberals; they were not encouraged by influential liberals; they (almost certainly) hate liberals and liberalism. It is irresponsible to associate them with contemporary liberalism
You make my case.
Brian,
Anarchists at these Gwhatever summits have smashed and set fire to police cars and done several millions of dollars in damage. I believe I have read that the security costs for this summit is $900 billion? Why don’t they just set up some stuff to smash and charge the anarchists a few bucks each to smash stuff?
Sure I’m being glib, but with good reason…sloppy reporting by the mainstream media that you represent. Go back and research the meeting in Italy. Genoa I believe. It turns out that Italian police planted bombs among the protesters as an excuse to knock heads and arrest people. So when I see a few protestors break off from a peaceful march and start burning cop cars I immediately assume they are police plants.
Just ask anyone from some of those 60’s and 70’s left-wing nutball groups and they’ll tell you that when someone started advocating violence everyone else assumed they were the FBI plant. Yes, I know there were a few actual violent actors among the left, blah blah blah…
Sorry, $900 million.
I stand corrected: $1.2 billion on security.
http://torontoist.com/2010/06/police_and_protesters_g20.php
By the way Brain, you show the weakness of your argument when, in probably the most violent society in the civilized world, you have to go back 40, 50 or even 80 years to find examples to prove your point. Now try starting a list of liberal leaders who were assassinated in that time period.
I believe that liberals are, by and large, pacifists by philosophy (though maybe not by nature) and I don’t believe you have shown otherwise.
“Democracy, debate, and legitimate protest are made impossible when the bricks start flying and the cars start burning.”
Okay, but why is it that these people are protesting? At all of these G meetings anti-war and anti-globalization voices are locked out.
When protesters in Iran take to the streets, when lawyers in Pakistan march we cheer them on; but when people in this country marched, in cities across the nation, by the hundreds of thousands in protest of the impending war in Iraq they were dismissed as “a focus group.”
When Critical Mass bike riders take to the street for a peaceful demonstration and police knock them from their bikes it is the protester who is locked up for assaulting the policeman.
Unless you listen to DemocracyNow or some other REAL left-wing news these sorts of stories are buried, not covered, dismissed or slanted by the MSM. Do you remember Amy Goodman being and the DN staff being arrested in Minneapolis?
Have you ever stood in protest of the Iraq war and listened to the verbal abuse, intimidation and threats of violence from fellow citizens?
None of this is an excuse for violence, and certainly there has been violence in the past perpetrated by leftist groups but I don’t trust the media in their reports. Where is the proportionality when ELF burns down a ski-lift in the Rockies and they are charged with being terrorists? There was no danger to anyone.
If a tree falls in the forest are you afraid of it? Only when the media tell us they are terror trees.
This discussion is really interesting and helpful for me. As a conservative leaning person I view the media doing just the opposite of what you are saying knucklehead. So it comes down to where we start what our lens we are looking through is filtering. It must be shocking for liberal leaning people to actually see that violence is also part of that movement and thus it is minimized as it might not fit the liberal narrative. What this does though for me is to make me take a harder look at if I indeed minimize violence on the conservative side? I probably do and I need to examine that.
Gromit and Knuck- How’s it feel to be me? You see things one way, seemingly everyone else here see’s it another way. Welcome to my world!
Brian Mann- The “right” included Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray? The “right” included all those Southern Democrats (like Al Gore Sr.) that fought the Civil Rights Act, etc.? Huey Long too I suppose?
Here’s something for you to look into- violence at those crazed right wing Tea Party events. It’s not right wingers creating any problems.
Extremes (violent behavior) exist on both sides, and the middle, and is not exclusive to any group.
Brian as a journalist what makes better copy for television, a kumbaya circle or a burning car?
I went to school with Amy Goodman and actually she was a pest to have in class.
The comments from some here today should have the “Twilight Zone” theme playing in the background. Thanks for the entertainment.
“It must be shocking for liberal leaning people to actually see that violence is also part of that movement”
Mervel, the problem some of us are having with Brian’s post, and the discussion that has followed, is that the violence taking place in Toronto is NOT liberal violence in the way being suggested. This is a mis-categorization of what is happening up there. The international anarchists who follow these summits around so they can riot, have absolutely nothing to do with left-wing politics or the liberal movement in our democracy.
It is a wonky comparison. A serious stretch. It would be like writing an article and using the Taliban as an example of right wing violence. Hey, after all, they both contain religious fundamentalists…
So if the point everyone is trying to make here is that there are fundamental lunatics inhabiting each of the political extremes… well, der. Of course there is.
But Brian’s post and this discussion is trying to go father than that… it seems to suggest that what is going on in Toronto has some relation or connection to politics and violence in our democracy. This is just inaccurate.
And the Tea Party comparison’s are outlandish. The Tea Party is an actual political movement – in our country, it is encouraged by very high ranking politicians – in our country, it receives monetary backing from corporations – in our country. The Tea Party, and their aggression, is a part of our actual democracy. What is going on in Toronto, is not.
Nuts are nuts, be they left or right or nutty fans.
Note: fan is short for fanatic.
Personally, I’ve never cared for protesters, peaceful or otherwise.
Vote your protest, write letters to the editor (signed) and to your elected representatives.
I never pay much attention to the “my demands are” people. They tend to complain about special interest groups and lobbyists, while failing to see they are what they complain about.
“But what part of their ideas — anti-globalism, anti-corporatism, anti-colonialsim, hostility to the rich and to capitalism — do you disagree with?”
Wait a minute, here, Brian. You’ve put up a straw army.
How many liberals (not radical leftists or anarchists, but liberals) are anti-globalism or anti-corporatism, or even hostile to the rich or capitalism?
Free trade is actually a liberal idea. Completely unregulated trade, I’ll grant you, is something liberals are against. But that’s hardly anti-globalism or anti-corporatist in the sense of G20 protesters.
Obama and Clinton sure hate the rich, I’ll tell you what.
And isn’t anti-colonialism kind of, you know, 50 years out of date?
Pardon the snark, but c’mon.
Anon –
If you think concerns about colonialism are 50 years out of date among liberals, you haven’t been paying much attention to liberal thought over the last fifty years…
And yes — from citizens groups that oppose Wal-Mart in their communities to unions that oppose the sending of jobs off-shore — anti-corporatism and anti-globalism are key parts of the liberal movement.
Snark back –
Brian, NCPR
Mervel, Check out DemocracyNow for a different take
http://www.democracynow.org/
I appreciate many of the comments here. Some of you feel that this is the flip side of the kind of things being said about conservatives you feel are unfair.
I appreciate that you don’t want to be lumped in with Tim McVeigh. You’re right, you shouldn’t be.
I like what Dave has to say.
And I agree with Anon 12:50. Brian, I think you’re smart, fair and I really enjoy your posts here, but I also think you’re all wet in your assessment of the left’s anti-globalism, anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism agenda.
What the left wants is fairness in all those things. capitalism is great as long as it is regulated so that we don’t have the types of bubbles we have seen that destroy the economy. Globalism is fine as long as jobs created in third world countries pay decently and the people are treated fairly…not just as a way to drive down the price of t-shirts. Anti-colonialism, okay, you got me. I’m agin it. Do you have something good to say for Colonialism?
But back to the protesters. Have you heard what they are asking for? Do you know why they are protesting? Before and during all of these kinds of summits business leaders get a chance to talk with all the finance ministers, etc. But the People are locked out in “free-speech zones.”
These people have serious issues that get no redress. Look at Bhopal, India. Union Carbide is responsible for the deaths of thousands, the destruction of the environment around the plant, ongoing health problems for people who were exposed and for their children. But Union Carbide walked away. Men like those who ran Union Carbide can get in to these economic summits and get the ear of the leaders but the maimed and injured wouldn’t be allowed to stand within 15 feet of the security fence.
Let the people in to redress their grievances and there would be no protests.
I love it! Hey guys, keep this feeling in mind the next time I spit and sputter over some of you labeling any anti-tax types, TP types, conservatives, etc. “right wing nut jobs just looking to bomb a few buildings and bring back slavery”.
Face it, not all liberal/progressive/Marxists are anarchists, but many anarchists are liberal/progressive/Marxists. Same way on the other side, Tim McVeigh was an aberration not the normal everyday pro-Constitution Tea Party type.
We could all learn a lesson from this thread.
Bret, I’ve never lumped you in with anyone. I’ve always considered you unique.
“And yes — from citizens groups that oppose Wal-Mart in their communities to unions that oppose the sending of jobs off-shore — anti-corporatism and anti-globalism are key parts of the liberal movement.”
And no, they’re not. They’re opposed to giving away welfare in the form of PILOT programs, and tearing down zoning regs that Wal-Mart doesn’t want, and keeping a say in how their communities look. If that’s anti-corporate, yeah, you got them.
And yeah, if unions that are against seeing their jobs moved to places where slave wages, sweatshop conditions and zero environmental oversight prevails, got them there, too.
You’re usually a shades of gray guy, Brian. Why not here?
Brian –
I know this note is very, very late, but while looking at something else I came across this.
http://carlosmiller.com/2010/06/30/toronto-cops-accused-of-rape-and-torching-police-cars-during-g20-summit/
best,
Scott A.