G8/G20
Activist Communique: Toronto rally reminds police and politicians that activists won't forget the G20
| January 12, 2011The G20's symbolic violence
This week's mass processing inside (and outside) a Toronto courthouse helped clarify June's Jailapalooza festival during the G20, the largest mass arrest in our history. Of 1,100 detained, all but 227 had the charges dropped or were never charged. Most had no links to burning police cars or battered bank machines. They were picked up while protesting peacefully or looking on.
Why? Police say they wanted to prevent recurrences, after the dramatic events. Some intimate they were embarrassed by criticisms of their earlier inaction, and overreacted. Why had police gone missing at the crucial time? There's been no clear answer. One possibility: to justify the vaulting security costs via shocking images of violence.
Canadian government adopts America's fear economy
Since the Second World War, the U.S. economy has been built around what you might call the fear sector: its military-industrial complex, its crime-prison complex and its homeland-terror complex. We're now seeing the first attempt by a Canadian government to follow this model.
In the U.S., the military portion has been the healthiest (economically speaking). It made weapons the government could sell abroad and employed a work force with unions that were able to bargain medical and other insurance, taking pressure off governments to provide those. Its budget is 43 per cent of what the rest of the world spends militarily and as high in the Obama era as before.
20th anniversary of Oka and the continuation of unearthing human rights at the G8/G20
Video after video, photo after photo, story after story came pouring in this weekend telling us about another friend or another relative who had been unlawfully arrested, beaten, spit on, psychologically, physically, and emotionally abused and relentlessly harassed by the police in Toronto. All this and more unearthing of human rights happened to the people for demonstrating, protesting, taking action and speaking out against one of the most undemocratic and unethical convening's of the world's largest superpowers -- the G8/G20.
G8's failure dashes hope for climate and development
As evening falls on this "G" of a day, all the action has been on the streets. Among the leaders it has all been photo-ops and handshakes. Right now, the first plenary of the G20 is only just beginning with the official opening reception featuring leaders and wives.