Given the abysmal state of things -- with no progress on climate change, financial markets still operating as unregulated casinos and oil continuing to surge freely into the gulf -- it's not surprising that many people feel the world is being poorly managed. Millions respond by drifting into apathy or hedonistic consumerism.
But there are others who are so passionate about the fate of the Earth that they feel compelled to do more than shop. They want to object, to let world leaders know they disapprove. These are the types of people who plan to protest at the G20 summit later this month in Toronto.
If you're thinking they're just violent troublemakers, you've probably been listening too closely to the Harper government, which is hoping you'll succumb to its attempt to lump terrorists and peaceful protestors all together in one giant bin marked scary and anti-democratic.
When I spoke to a meeting of the Canadian Federation of Students last month, I met a number of students who plan to protest at the G20, and they struck me as highly concerned about preserving democracy, indeed more concerned than most people.
It's sad that it needs to be noted that dissent is something worthy; that it used to be considered one of the cornerstones of democracy. John Stuart Mill, one of the giants of Western thought, argued in his classic text On Liberty that dissent is essential to freedom, partly because it challenges the prevailing dogma, which is often wrong.
Yet, rather than being treated as citizens exercising vital democratic rights, the dissenters who show up at the G20 will find themselves facing a phalanx of heavily armed police equipped with the latest assault toy: sound cannons that blast deafening noise of up to 143 decibels -- well above the 85-decibel level considered safe for the human ear.
There's been much well-deserved anger over the Harper government's absurd plan to spend almost a billion dollars on security at the summit (and the G8 summit in Huntsville). For the same price, we could have all ridden the TTC free for an entire year.
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But there's been little anger that a good part of this money will be used to intimidate and terrify those who challenge the status quo.
The University of Toronto, falling in line with this new security-state mentality, plans to lock down its main campus during the summit, forcing the cancellation of G20 related events, including one featuring Maude Barlow, Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein.
It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate response. Universities should be centres of critical thought, where students are encouraged to scrutinize the current orthodoxy and challenge the Establishment. That's hard to do when they shutter their doors at the first whiff of controversy.
There's much that urgently needs scrutiny, starting with the Harper government's use of the G8 summit to score points with its ultra-conservative base by launching a "maternal health initiative" that denies abortions to the world's most desperate and impoverished women.
Last week Rex Murphy used his prominent spot on CBC TV to attack the G20 protestors as fame-seekers, "thirsty for the two-day fame a little provocation or a lot of violence can bring them."
So, before they've even held up a placard, Murphy has maligned people who will have to risk tear gas and deafness to get a fraction of the airtime Murphy gets every week to bellow on behalf of the Establishment.
Linda McQuaig is author of It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet.
I sent the National and Rex Murphy the following messasge:
I enjoy the national and am a true CBC devotee. As a Canadian expat living in China I make the effort to get online everyday to see what CBC has written, am always checking up on the At Issue panel and do, mostly, enjoy Rex Murphy's musings on most things. Rex's most recent contribution to the National "The Billion-Dollar Meetings" had me nodding in agreement. His careful analysis of the pointless and utter waste of money the upcoming G8/G20 meetings had me in complete grievance. But when he turned his sights near the end of his diatribe to protesters it gave me pause. His characterization of summits as "high holy days, the carnival of ritual protest and vacuous street theatre" steal attention from what many protesters are trying to bring attention to. It seemed in keeping with the established view that all protesters are powder kegs waiting for the lit match. It seems that Rex's memory is incredibly short. It wasn't long ago that Prime Minister Chretien had protesters pepper sprayed. Surely he doesn't consider this a reasonable response? Surely he doesn't think ALL protesters are "black masked pseudo-anarchists." I find this rhetoric shortsighted in the least and incredibly stupid at the worst. As a member of the CAPP protests, I was in full view, as were many other protesters, of cameras and was not violent. Nor, for that matter, were any other protests against the prorogation of our parliament. Would Rex prefer we sit on our hands and do nothing? What of John Stuart Mills's contention from his seminal work On Liberty, that dissent is essential to freedom, partly because it challenges the prevailing dogma, which is often wrong. Should suffragettes have simply let the established belief that women shouldn't vote prevail. Many suffragettes threw themselves in front of vehicles and endured rape and numerous acts of violence before they finally were permitted franchise equality. And do I need bring u the entire period of the 1950-60's and Brown vs. The Board of Education? It seems that if Mr. Murphy thinks established principles should be adhered to, then why question at all the amount of money being spent to keep "neither revered (leaders) nor even, in most cases ...interesting" in Montreal for a few days. The maligning of protesters who often get sprayed and (thanks to new technology) deafened is distasteful and should not be affiliated with the CBC for fear of being inexorably linked with the establishment.
Marx is still right. One day we will rise up and take control of what is ours. Keep up the good fight!