Reality Catches Up To Fiction

Project X Haren. It's what they're calling the birthday party gone awry in the Netherlands (Holland) when one girl's party/Facebook event turned into a riot because that poor girl's so-called ''friends'' invited unwanted friends, who in turn did so again, until it went viral and people started making ads and posters and YouTube videos to get the largest amount of people to crash it.

Days later, they are still merely assessing the damage, and the girl is in hiding with her family. They may require the country's witness protection program to start their lives anew.

According to BBC News:

The party had been cancelled and police had issued an appeal to would-be revellers not to come to Haren but at least 3,000 turned up anyway.

Many of them wearing Project X (based on a recent American movie) garb:

On days like this, I kind of envy my grandparents' generation, who still have no idea what the internet is.

Video Of The Week: Jay-Z And Kanye West (Watch The Throne)

For the third week in a row, I'm caught leaving Jon Spencer on the backburner for something that's more ''in the moment''...

In this case, the lead-off single from Watch The Throne, the Jay-Z and Kanye West monster that I still can't listen to in one sitting but does manage to have stand-out tracks you can listen to on the shuffle mode of your favourite music player.

This video for No Church In The Wild was directed by French film director Romain Gavras and depicts riot scenes (pitting protestors against police officers) which have been a mainstay of the past 3+ months in my city, Montréal - which had its 40th consecutive all-night protest last night, its 111th consecutive ''daytime'' protests of an ongoing student strike and general discontent for our provincial government - as well as countless others around the world.

I don 't know if things will change; oftentimes, when a glimmer of hope makes it through the cloud of bullshit that has plagued human history so far, the Powers That Be have either struck down harder or gotten to make The Oppressed believe they are the inevitable link to their security (see: France, May 1968). Rarely have The People bettered their situation for a ''long run'' (say close to a century).

Sometimes The Bullies are replaced by similar assholes (see: Egypt, right now), a weaker link/puppet (Afghanistan 2003-present), visionaries with their hands tied (Barack Obama).

But more than ever, with 6.8 billion people on the planet and the ''1%'' owning all of it being closer to ''0.0001%'', the words Jim Morrison used in Five To One are starting to sound realistic:

  They got the guns, but we got the numbers.
  Gonna win yeah, we're taking over.

 But I digress. I find the following video much better than the song it's supposed to support, nowhere near as catchy as Niggas In Paris, and the lyrical content nowhere near as direct or thought-out as, say, those of Ice-T/Bodycount (Cop Killer), N.W.A. (Fuck The Police), or Public Enemy (9-1-1 Is A Joke, Fight The Power).

It is, however, a good step in a good direction, and if it gets its listeners to think about the world they're living in for even a minute, it will have served Humanity some.

Death Of A Democracy?

By now, chances are you've heard about last Summer/Fall's Occupy movement, and probably this Spring's two-month-strong student protests/strikes. If not, look it up, it's a fine read, students refusing a hike in education costs, defying (provincial) Prime Minister Jean Charest daily, kind of helping us forget how corrupt his government has been - but kind of not, at the same time.

Well, the Québec governing party, the Québec Liberal Party (which, technically, on a left-to-right, liberal-to-conservative scale ironically falls strongly on the Conservative side - picture Mitt Romney leading a Workers' Party) was holding its general council in Victoriaville, far from the rumbling streets of Montréal, comfortably, in the countryside, in a town usually so peaceful they don't even have a jail there...

Well, tons of anti-Charest protesters made the trip, including - but not limited to - busloads of students. Well, as may have been expected, shit did, indeed, hit the fan, and a riot ensued. My crystal ball is hazy from the all the smoke and pepper gas used in the picture gracing this post alone, but I can't wait to see how the media will spin this and how it'll affect public opinion. It can go either way: they may convince people that students are to blame for this and have to be forced back into class right away - or they could realize just how many folks are dissatisfied with this sham of a government.

The cops are close to being in over their heads, stopping and arresting at least 3 buses full of university students on their way back to Montréal - on the highway! - most of whom will likely be accused of ''participating in an illegal demonstration'', which they will eventually be found innocent of, but will spend the night in Victo and will have to go back to stand trial; minor yet irritating inconveniences, worse for foreign students and those depending on financial aid. But they will have to go back for sure, because a non-appearance in court is equivalent to pleading guilty in the eyes of the law.

Amnesty International has already condemned our police force of mishandling the situation - how worse will they look on the international scene? How will this affect tourism in our city this summer? Will we warn tourists to stay in their hotel rooms after 8PM?

One kid lost an eye early in the conflict from a noise grenade to the face, another one did so tonight from rubber bullets, another girl got shot in the face with rubber bullets and had her jaw broken and lost teeth, one kid is in the coma. Half a dozen cops and a dozen protesters are hospitalized, many more were injured but returned home or treated on-site (one paramedic says he treated at least 20 on-site).

This government has lost its legitimacy a long time ago, this is just added, useless bonuses. The student thing? Over a few million bucks, less than the Liberals have handed out to their mafia friends and fundraisers since the beginning of the year. How much more violence do we need before we kick those fuckers out of office? Do we need a cop or a kid to die? Chicago 68? Los Angeles 92?

History will not be kind to you, motherfucker, if you let this fester any longer.

Riot In The Streets

You haven't seen a real riot in Canada unless you've been in Montréal. That being said, last night's ''angry celebration'' in Vancouver was (in addition to being relatively tepid, tame and light): pointless, stupid, and juvenile.

The only redeeming part was the hottie pictured above.

Question: where was that anger when Stephen Harper got elected to a majority government despite having 75% of the population not vote for him?

Riots In Greece

For the record, it's scary as hell being in one. Living in the area where it's happening is even worse; your safety is compromised, and rioters rarely remember the citizens in their environments, much less remember to be mindful of them.

Yet, upon looking at pictures of the recent riots in Greece, and particularly in Athens, I could not help but think that the least few times these sorts of 'events' happened here, it was either to celebrate after a sporting event, or to show disarray after a rock show.

Over there, there was latent tension between the government and the People it should serve, what with a ridiculous unemployment rate and living conditions unfit of a European country in the New Millenium. But the pressure went past its boiling point when cops killed 15 year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on December 6th. And the cop was charged, too.

Here, when police officers kill people, they don't even face murder charges, and the public outcry displayed rarely goes beyond small communities, usually visible minorities. The media talks about it a bit, people express their shame and fear, and we move on to bigger and better things, like waiting 12 hours before seeing a doctor at the hospital for a common cold, and the stories die down.

In Greece, and in most countries where Citizens have more power than Law And Order, when dissatisfaction occurs, it shows. Leaders' heads get chopped off, cops get set on fire, military coups happen.

The Disco Inferno: