I spent much of February in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games (and my work at such), amid talk of protests the likes of which Vancouver had never seen before. It proved, however, to be a build-up for a whole lot of nothing.
The Olympic Resistance Network was promising to use such tactics as disrupting the opening ceremonies to try and cause unrest at these games, but were stopped short of that by the police, some of which got injured when ORN protesters decided to get violent. That resulted in an arrest.
Of all the demonstrations that occurred, the largest was allegedly by a group from Central Canada referring to themselves as the “Black Bloc”. About 200 of their members marched through Downtown Vancouver, smashed windows and intimidated pedestrians before being stopped by police in riot gear. This resulted in 7 arrests, but these cowards were in masks, which was almost assuredly to keep themselves from getting arrested.
All of this led to a most disappointing showing by the demonstrators, but at the same time, maybe they thought the build-up alone would keep people away.
Boy were they ever wrong.
