Rex Murphy Hates Protesters

I initially read this and was shocked to say the least. Rex Murphy, the person who connects to all of Canada every weekend on his radio show, thinks protesters are merely violent, black masked anarchists out for their fifteen minutes of fame. The link can be found here. I found Rex to be reasonable and accurate in describing the summits as useless and the leaders as uninteresting. I also found his commentary on the expense to be necessary given the expense that the Canadian tax payer is having yanked out of their pockets. What I found distrubing was Rex's blatant maligning of protesters. He says that the spotlight will be on them and degrades protesting to a sideshow, "a circus" where people are merely looking to get fifteen seconds of fame at a time when all lenses will be focused on them. Mr Murhy is not a stupid man, so I assume he has forgotten the pepper spraying of protesters upon the orders of former Prime Minister Chretien. And he must know how much women suffered to get the vote. And certainly he must be aware of what it took for African Americans to be included in civil society. Did Rex miss that lesson, or perhaps did he call in sick for twenty years. I was not alive in those days, but I know that it took lots of protests and lots of standing up to the establishment for people to get the respect they deserved. Protesters, most of them, are not out to cause violence, wreck havok and cause hundreds of dollars in damages. It happens, however, that a few people get so caught up in their feelings, their beliefs and moral values that they lose themselves. I'm sure many of them are ashamed afterwards. This is, however, no reason to write protesters off as masked villans whose only aim is face time.