Londoners Riot For Justice!

. . . it'd be nice to see some of that british protest moxy in canada. remember the vancouver stanley cup riots back in '94? oh man that was so sweet. that was the way to do it!

. . . the resisters shaking up the g8 conference in london's financial district have it right. all these government crooks handing out all that easy taxpayer dough to deadbeat bank pigs in the middle of a worldwide depression, including our own government . . .

. . . then prime minister harper goes on british tv and says everything's stable with our financial system. yeah right! every country in the world gets hit with a banking crisis EXCEPT canada? complete bullsh*t. we know damn well that mark carney and the bank of canada is quietly handing out billions of dollars in bailout cash to the canadian banks to keep them afloat. what world does harper live in? just check out the bank of canada website, it's all there. billions and billions of bankruptcy protection money for the canadian banks. it's clear harper doesn't give a flying f*ck about reality . . .

. . . england should have denied harper entry into canada like the harper government denied that british mp entry last week . . .

Comments

Submitted by Doug on April 2, 2009 - 8:43pm.

Sometimes I think so, but then again the London protests do leave something to be desired. I thought this column expressed it well:

This sort of protest makes it easy. A protest that aggregates such a raft of different issues - not all connected - ends up being about nothing. What about people who support Israel and oppose climate change? Or people in favour of a command economy, but keen on keeping the troops in Iraq? What would there be, but a scratching of heads, if President Obama were to stride out of the G20, address the crowd, and declare: "I agree with you!"

If the protest march is supposed to be a communicative act, it's reasonable to ask what it is intended to communicate, and to whom. Is it pressing the G20 heads to take a certain direction in their deliberations? Or telling them it hates them? Or simply having a nice day out with a placard and perhaps a bit of a fight with a banker?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/02/g20-protest [3]

Submitted by Cueball on April 2, 2009 - 8:52pm.

Right. So uniforms. A strict party line. Set slogans, and so on. I getcha. Since when did the issue of Israel imperialism, US imperialism and the neo-Liberal/neo-Con agenda become necessarily severable and distinct?

Perhaps some people are aware of the fact that trying to treat these issues as distinct from each other is part of the shell game.

Submitted by Jacob Richter on April 2, 2009 - 10:03pm.

The revolutionary social democracy of the late 19th century and early 20th century necessarily had a "party line" during strikes and what not. As for "set slogans," I don't think they had any. What they had instead was a revolutionary programme.

Submitted by Unionist on April 2, 2009 - 10:08pm.

The people took to the streets and cried, "We hate everything you're doing to our society and our world!"

That kind of general statement makes some people uneasy: "There's no single issue here. How do we divert it? How do we co-opt it? What the hell do they expect us to do? Give up power!?"

Submitted by Doug on April 2, 2009 - 10:09pm.

I like uniforms. But no, they're not a good idea for a demonstration usually - though I think an all-suit demonstration would be kind of fun, killing the usual stereotype.

What people wear isn't really the point, though. The incoherence of message is.

Submitted by Cueball on April 2, 2009 - 10:25pm.

On that last point, you failed to respond to the critique of the assertion that the message is incoherent. It is coherent, you are just buying into the idea that Neo-liberal/con policies and the war in Iraq, and the Israeli colonial project are not part of the same thing.

Where in your article is there any evidence that the people in the demonstration felt misrepresented? There isn't any, what there is a couch potato pundit, who likely did not even participate in the demonstration ("did you see her, on Newsnight") making up a strawman complaint for an imaginary person who is "in favour of a command economy, but keen on keeping the troops in Iraq?"

That is a joke isn't it? What about a the KKK member who wants to invite Jews into the clan?

If such a person exists, they represent such a tiny demographic that they are irrelevant, as he basically proves when he states his own opinon:

Quote:

There are problems here. Gangster capitalism has knackered the world's economy. Our attempts to save our own necks have condemned our children and grandchildren to worse. And if we don't get carbon emissions under control, scientists seem to agree, the entire race will be facing problems that will make trillions of dollars of debt look like a bagatelle. I'm even going to stick my neck out and say that I thought the Iraq war was a bad idea.

WTF is his complaint about anyway, if this is the summary of his views?

Submitted by darwinus on April 3, 2009 - 8:03pm.

I, for one, think there is considerable coherence in the following response by political economist Robin Hahnel to the predictably ignorant gripes. I also know that Hahnel and a host of others that are very serious about offering alternatives can back up both their criticisms and positive suggestions coherently and to the slightest detail.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/...