violence

For people sitting at home and watching TV news last night, Toronto was burning.  The same police car on Queen St W. burned and blew up over and over again.  The same image of a young man very violently smashing Starbucks windows appeared over and over again.  Windows smashed all along Yonge St.  None of us had ever seen Toronto like this.  It was shocking. 

Lucas Oleniuk, Toronto Star

This is an excellent argument against the fire bombing of an RBC branch in Ottawa in protest of the RBC 's financing of the Olympics and the Tar Sands, and one of the best critiques of "diversity of tactics" that I have seen.  Originally published The Bullet, published by Socialist Project

There was a pause, and an eerie silence, just before he did it. A green scarf masking his face, the man held a large piece of scaffolding above his head and, surrounded by photographers, eyeballed the unprotected window of the Royal Bank of Scotland's branch on Threadneedle Street.

In that split second, one voice amid thousands in the crowd broke the silence. "Don't do it," she screamed. He did.