It makes me feel strangely conservative to be angry at the protesters who seemed to have no other goal than to smash property. I don't have any lofty goals of owning property and becoming a bloated fool in a tight suit whose veins bulge at the thought, much less the sight, of something I own being damaged or destroyed. It's just the senselessness of it - no capitalist system is going to be brought down by a few broken windows and balloons full of excrement, but it will annoy the piss out of those who are paid (in many cases, poorly) to clean up the mess. It's like breaking someone's things at a house party, or the stupid kid (or adult with problems) that gets a DIY punk show shut down, or can't handle their own aggressive tendencies and ends up punching someone in the face (which only happened at the one show that I ever played in Chattanooga, TN). Black Bloc, or slavery to hipster-approved "alternative media": it's all just garbage, a phase for some kids to pass through until they get hired by the same entities that they rail against, perhaps then writing something like this instead. Maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't stuck in the mortgage industry for three more weeks (as I'll be putting in my notice tomorrow) and was in a position to be in dialogue with others about it in another setting, but for now, it's another reminder that there's little room for subtlety to get any attention in the world, what with all of the screaming. How do the quiet make their difference?
Utah Phillips once quoted Ammon Hennacy as saying "an anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do." Maybe not, but this world is full of worthless people who rape, kill, torture animals, and lie (nothing like a nice catch-all at the end), and the police continue to exist because of those people. Not every police officer is a Pinkerton descendant and not every protester is a saint, much less someone I'd like to have a drink with. The news stories from the Toronto G20 lay bare just how complex the issues and reactions are, with no one side able to claim victory, but all able to come away dissatisfied - if they choose to.
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In lighter news (also known as "the time when Jen and I weren't watching CP24 in the hotel room watching the G20 protest inflammation"), we had a wonderful time in our newly adopted soon-to-be home, getting to know the neighborhoods and the GTA to the tune of 300 km of driving and a fair amount of walking (with plenty of the latter at the Toronto Zoo on our last day there, leaving the grounds just as the rain decided to fall). I caught a break when I checked the hotel's Internet and found that my school was keeping the 2010-2011 the same as it had been for the year previous, but with no disbursement of loan funds, finding an apartment was not going to happen. I'm hoping to get that from the school soon so that I can kill the visa and residence birds with one financial stone, since I want to have Jen's faith in the financial aid system coming through for me (since it did for her when she studied in London), but my past dealings with the INS in a prior career have my suspicions on alert, since we STILL need to get a quote from a moving company and need to throw a dart at the August calender to see when we should schedule the movers.
I feel like a bit of a sleepwalking zombie, wishing I was there already, but I have a number of people I still want to see before we leave, and I'm trying to cherish it. I've already broken my eggs for the omelet and don't expect to make everyone happy, but I'll do my level best, and the sun will rise and set regardless.
(Hell, I may be singing like a schoolgirl just 24 hours from now, after I've quit my job and had some time to savor it... who knows?)
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