I would normally shy away from using remarks that strongly convey an abject opinion. I fear a cementing of subjectivity as fact. Sometimes it becomes a necessity, especially when human behavior breaches through into the undeniably wicked.
I sat with mouth agape as the news reports filtered through on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. It appears that many of the ice hockey fans who had gathered in downtown Vancouver to watch the Stanley Cup final laid waste to the city following the Canucks' defeat to the Boston Bruins.
The images of shopfronts being smashed and looted; cars upended and set alight; police trying to contain the situation; all seemed very familiar. These were identical examples of the mob mentality that has frequently marred many a day's political activism in Central London over the course of this past year.
I find Wednesday's destruction much more contemptible. Regardless of the sinister nature of much of London's recent violence, it remains - in the most part - politically motivated (however stretched this definition becomes). Mass criminality in the name of sporting losses has no justification. It is mindless, and in cases where innocent people were injured: evil. I wholehearted support the sentiments of Gary Mason printed in The Globe and Mail on Thursday.
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