I too read today the news as it unfolded about the police guarding the Montebello Summit arguably being caught red handed seeking to make peaceful protests into violent ones. Red Tory, who was all over this early in the day, posted this same link to live footage on You Tube of these alleged undercover cops. The video makes it seem they were planning to throw rocks and it shows them being "busted" by peaceful protesters.
Since hanging up my blogger activist shingle recently, I am preferring to consider mostly philosophical interpretations of certain situations rather than simply "as they appear" through conventional analysis. As such, my understanding of what is going on "above" and "below" the surface with respect to this situation differs from what I may have written previously about the police. You may recall that my emphasis would previously have been that the police represent one leg of the tripod called the "justice industry".... yada yada yada.
That is neither here nor there. I mention this really to demonstrate that I am still understanding and able to consider the conventional analysis within this broader philosophical framework. For example, it makes perfect sense that the police would need, possibly desire at many levels some justification to test their rubber bullets and tear gas. I also understand the long term macro interpretation that the police continuingly need to justify their existence by protecting against an "imminent threat" that rears its ugly head sometimes, possibly quite strategically. More specifically, I realise that violent protests justify the "big budgets" that have been spent on security in preparation for the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership. Furthermore, a riot would further justify the symbolic need for there to be a partnership in the first place, right? This is sound conventional analysis.
In considering this same situation and the respective motivations of the parties involved from a very different angle, one could elaborate on the subtleties that make activism (depending upon how it is executed) either a mechanism that can lead to fair change, or something that preserves the status quo. According to quantum science, protests as a part of activism need to be peaceful in order to be effective. Meanwhile protests that escalate to violence will by universal law undermine the very basis of the protest. Stated simply, those being protested against will always have a vested interest in a violent protest, since this is when universal laws make it so they are the least vulnerable to change.
How does this relate to protests staged at Montebello over the last few days in response to the North American Security and Prosperity partnership? Whether one is considering this situation from either conventional or philosophical perspectives, the protesters have a vested interest in being "peaceful", while the police, certain political players and our adversarial institutions have an interest in a protest situation that escalates and news coverage to distribute such images.
Both the footage of the event and the analysis that followed demonstrates that it is not implausible that proponents of enforcement and security would want to “stir it up” at such gathering in Montebello. This is perfectly straight forward and logical. What is less straight forward is the philosophical questions I leave you with here…
1. Are the benefits of a violent protest (ie. police testing toys, justifying their large budgets for security the need for a summit on a security) simply by-products resulting from the stimulation of certain universals laws that are far more precise than that of public opinion?
2. Did this alleged attempt by the police to manipulate the escalation of a peaceful protest into a violent protest backfire because of shifting public opinion or these universal laws?
I realise these questions are literally “the chicken versus the egg”. Nevertheless, where conventional analysis of these Montebello protests were represented by “the chicken”, and the philosophical analysis of this situation were represented “the egg“, any absence of a structured philosophical perspective and broader methodology would typically deny that “the egg“ ever existed.
Whether or not the conventional and philosophical interpretations of this situation express themselves via identical outputs (a backlash against process manipulation), we must weigh the order in which we consider those respective interpretations to be of primary or secondary importance (absolute or open to interpretation). Where some consider conventional analysis to be a matter of interpretation, proponents of the “philosophical lens” would consider their interpretation of this situation to be absolute, due mostly to the absoluteness of the methodology driving the interpretation.
My question in considering also the philosophical interpretation is this: were those behind the “provocateurs” (and with a desire to manipulate the protest) counting more on the possibility of swaying public opinion, or the precision of quantum theory to bring them victory in this situation? Conspiracy theorists want to know!
