I Predict a Riot... Gee twenty...

So there is this anti-G20 protest around downtown Toronto over the weekend. I have been following the progress of the protest in Toronto Star blog all day. You can view more pictures in Globe and Mail . I rather read about the riot than watching the slaughtering of Mexico in World Cup Match against Argentina. The peaceful protest turned violent yesterday with the involvement of the anarchist group called Blackbloc. Windows in McDonalds, Starbucks, Nike and Adidas were smashed. Not to mention about 4 cop cars were torched. Suddenly downtown Toronto look like downtown Baghdad eh?

So what are the people actually protesting about? Honestly I have not find any answer to that yet. At first it looked like an anti-neoliberalism protest given the fact that the protest are organized in conjunction with the G20 summit. Soon more and more group with different causes started to join in and the protest turn into a massive and diverse movement that covers issues such as:

1. Worker's Union
2. Homeless and Poverty movement
3. Anti- neoliberalism/globalization. or Anti-big corporations etc
4. Women's right /maternal health
5. Legalization of Marijuana
6. Native rights
7. Some movement of immigrants though I am not sure what their causes are
8. Socialism/Communism
9. Peace movement
10. some group also address Tibetan, Ethiopian political problems
11. Quebec separatist movement
12. One guy tried to protest against the H1N1 vacine
13. Religious movements

14.Gay right movement

15. Anti slavery

and the list goes on...
not to mention the Flower Power and hippies are there too

Can someone please enligthen me with the main reason of the massive protest please. For I do not know. But I believe violence is really not the solution to the problem...with a few words the political authority can easily divide the movement if the wish to. We learn from Gandhi that the key to a succesful movement is civil disobedience (starving oneself, silent gathering, or any other tactics to win sympathies)... and of course Unity. Looking forward to the outcome of the protest and what Harper has to say about this.