You know the scene. At gatherings of the world’s elites, mostly nonviolent protests against war, against globalization marginalizing more and more people suddenly turn violent. While there are some on the left who do not exclude damage to property, even the most militant know that the police provoke violence in order to frighten away all protesters. And so most miiltant activists are careful not to give the police an excuse to crack heads. Sits downs, disciplined but non violent civil disobedience, Yes-Men style spoofs designed to embarrass the elites, and other means of disrupting without provoking bloodshed-these are the arsenal of even the most militant of protesters nowadays.

When the police crack heads, the mainstream media is enthralled as it gives them a chance to paint the protesters as a bunch of mentally disturbed miscreants, even though the huge security itself is designed to create a fortress-like atmosphere that incites violence and discourages protest. Never mind that the Elites willingly support violence against the poor in Iraq and Afganistan, or engage in it directly. Never mind that they feign indignation when BP’s reputation is beyond salvation, even as they go on to promote offshore drilling and awarding lucrative contracts that enable BP and friends to continue to savage the earth.

But the media isn’t interested in violence BY the elites. They choose to focus on that done by the protesters, even though almost no-one involved in these activities has ever had any contact with the people singled out by the police for acting violent. They are on the fringes, but the media seek to make them the center and thus discredit the entire movement. Or worse, they are not even real protesters-they are the police themselves. Such was the case in Quebec a few years ago where an undercover policeman with a rock, when exposed by real protesters who were not acting violently, pretended to hit a uniformed riot officer to maintain his cover, yet neither he nor his fellow fake violent protestors were arrested or had the rock taken away.

Of course, the police don’t aways act so methodically and engineer violence in the hopes of discrediting protesters. In Toronto, they were sourrounding peaceful protestors and inflicting violence to intimidate or perhaps provoke an incident. But they made the mistake of attacking journalists who further exposed their game.