G20 Protest: Battle in Seattle, Turmoil in Toronto

In case you missed it, the twin protests of the G8 and G20 summits recently held in Toronto, Canada were rather violent given the relatively quiet anti-globalization protests of the past few years. Even after spending massive sums on ensuring summit security, Toronto or "New York Run by the Swiss" as some of its adherents call it was hit hard:

The site of the weekend's Group of 20 leaders' meeting was rocked by some of the most violent protests to hit a global gathering in recent years, despite one of the most lavish security outlays in summit history. Bands of activists ran through the city's downtown Saturday, bashing windows and setting several police cars ablaze, halting public transit and prompting officials to lock down hospitals and a major shopping mall. Police responded with teargas and pepper spray, arresting nearly 600 people over the weekend, in addition to 32 detained before the summit began.

The violence had Canadian politicians and police wringing their hands after the country spent around $1 billion on security for the G-20 and a back-to-back Group of Eight summit in rural Huntsville, three hours to the north. Those precautions included a 20,000-strong security force in Toronto and a 2.4-mile-long chain-link fence surrounding a "Yellow Zone" that enclosed the area where the G-20 leaders met.

$1 billion spent on security? I am speechless. But, as the Canadian flag with the maple leaf replaced with a ganja leaf suggests in the clip above, these spontaneous outbreaks of anti-globalization sentiment are still as incoherent as before, diluting the movement (if there ever was one).