Big ups to Neo-Conservative Alliance member Stockwell Day, for not pursuing an investigation. Wouldn't want to start something you know would only lead back to yourself!

CORRUPTION

Responding to revelations that police at the SPP Summit in Montebello had planted Agents Provocateurs at the protest, the Globe & Mail’s Editors began “In years past, it would have been dismissed as the sort of conspiracy theory that professional protestors are fond of" (Blown Cover, August 24).

Dismissed by whom?

By editors of corporate “news" outlets, of course, who increasingly seem to think that investigative journalism is something to be found only in history books, not a central concept to be practiced.

This statement, as well as the implied suggestion that “professional protestors" are some sort of irrational reactionaries, are very enlightening, and a great example of the well-documented (1) and consistent mistreatment of protest movements by the media.

The timing of this Disinformation (2) was rather ironic because, on the same day the video came to light, the Italian media was reporting on an investigation into police misconduct at the 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa (3). Italian Police raided a school housing protest organizers, alleging that protestors were making Molotov cocktails for use against the police. The report states that police had actually planted several petrol bombs in the school after the raid was completed, and used this “evidence" to justify their detainment of 93 prominent activists. It also found that police used brutal measures against protestors throughout the summit, and a reported knifing, used to paint a picture of protest-created chaos in the streets, simply never happened. One activist was shot in the head, and then backed over by an armoured vehicle. The police later justified this by citing the “widespread violence" of the protestors, but it now appears to have been the sad result of a corrupt process. This, coupled with the Montebello revelations and reports of police misconduct (the most common are of illegal mass arrests, used to clear the streets) at other such summits, presents a clear pattern of repression at events where politicians meet behind closed doors to negotiate questionable policy agreements, collectively referred to as “Globalization".

Honest leaders, who respect the democratic process, do not act in such a manner.

I hope that these revelations will cause the media to begin investigating and acknowledging this pattern, and take protestors’ (whether “professional" or not) concerns more seriously in the future.

But if the Globe’s editorial is any indication, I guess it would be unhealthy for me to hold my breath.

Here's the Globe & Mail's editorial:

Blown cover

1) See: "Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media" by Michael Parenti

2) 25 Tactics for Truth Suppression
Tactics used by Disinformation Agents
http://alaskafreepress.com/msgboard/disinfo/index.html

3) Genoa Police 'Admit Fabrication'
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?5981S