Why do you protest the G20, G8 ? Would you prefer that the powerful nations did not communicate openly? Would you prefer no communication? War?
Capitalism is our system, it is not perfect, but here in Canada unlike East Africa you likely wont die from the flu, you you wont get a 4000 year prison sentence for an act of homosexuality in public, and you certainly have the right to protest… Why not hope Canada can meet with other powerful nations and spread our opinions and influence? But hey, that’s just my opinion and you have every right to your own.
Here’s the part that you gotta work on:
Throwing bricks at store windows only makes your whole cause look like a joke. Next time these people come to your protest to fight police and damage hard working Canadian’s property you should let them know, as a majority, they are not welcome. —Amaturetest
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.
shit yeah, let’s start a war somewhere, oh sorry, thought we were the u.s. there.anyway, whjat the hell can you or i do about world p[overty, grief, murder, injustice and/or anything outside our own doorstep. yeah sure, it would be nice if there was no war anywhere, even for one fucking year, but not with those idiots stateside.too many places to stick their fucking noses, and get a lot of innocents killed, because of it. that makes me so fucking mad, i could spit spikes.let the fucking leaders duke it out, best man wins, no go betweens and no more needless fucking death. maybe the militaries should be nailed with a claas action suit for wrongful death of these people.canada should learn to just say “fucking no way”, for a change.
The people who did that stuff, ie “The Black Block”, openly declared themselves to be an anarchist group.
Anarchism has no cause other than chaos.
Not surprisingly, the anarchists are cowards who hid themselves within the multitudes who went to the G8/G20 to peacefully protest.
The reason legitimate protests occur is to remind the people in power that their mandates are weak or that they have no policy at all on a particular issue.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but let’s be sure we separate who’s there for a good reason and who’s there just to cause trouble.
*Note: Look up ‘agents provocateures’ on Wiki and you’ll get an idea where at least some of the violent protestors come from.
Hunger and poverty?
During the last three decades the IMF and World Bank and more recently the WTO have promoted and imposed policies which have resulted in MORE hunger and MORE poverty in other parts of the world – not less.
These unelected bodies have imposed policies on developing nations that have forced farmers into the global commodities market, where instead of growing food for themselves they grow food for export and sale to international agribusiness. Because the small farm model doesn’t work well under these circumstances, many of these farmers are driven into debt and eventually off their land and into urban slums.
The purpose of these unelected international bodies is to develop markets for large transnational corporations. It has little to do with alleviating poverty and hunger.
Meetings of the G20 and G8 are a sideshow compared to the work of the WTO and IMF and World Bank. They make for great theatre, but the substantive discussion and negotiation, if any, is done by government functionaries long before the leaders show up. I’m astounded at the decision by our Conservative government to spend $1.3 billion on security alone for such a pointless exercise in headline making.
“Anarchism has no cause other than chaos.”
I’m in no way an anarchist, but this statement is not true.
I feel sorry for whoever has to clean up the American Apparel mannequins. They had police horse poop smeared all over. YUCK!
OP, please stop for a moment and think how these “powerful” nations have become “powerful”, how they stay “powerful”, and how they make sure they will keep that “power” in the future. Power is not only a “thing” that can be “possessed”, it is also a state that can “be” and an action that can be “exercised”, and there is a whole lot that goes on between the “powerful” and the “powerless”.
I didn’t say it well, but what I meant was, the issue of “power” is deep and complicated.
I see coffee shops advertise fair trade coffee. If it’s not about poverty, what is it about?
For these coffee shops to rake in the dough selling their “fair trade” coffee for 3-4 times that of coffee in other places and the poor sod that picks the beans still get shit for wages.
There’s a venue for dialogue between not only powerful nations, but nations of all sizes and influence: THE UNITED NATIONS
The G20/G8 undermines the truly democratic United Nations.
I’m living in Toronto ATM and the majority of the protestors were peaceful, despite what the media would lead you to believe.
“I’m living in Toronto ATM and the majority of the protestors were peaceful, despite what the media would lead you to believe.” QFT
Not only peaceful, but good people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CKkLYYczdM.
That made my day Three. It gives me hope for some people.
Can’t wait for hoodie-boy to file a lawsuit about the violation of his human rights by an obvious police agent provocateur.
…that too is part of “Civil Disobedience 101”
“Why do you protest the G20, G8 ? Would you prefer that the powerful nations did not communicate openly? Would you prefer no communication? War?”
Why don’t you try to answer these questions yourself? You can start by looking into the economic policies that are tossed around during these g8/20 meetings, and ask yourself whose interests these policies serve (especially austerity measures). Powerful nations do not communicate openly, they do the bulk of their “communicating” behind closed doors. Would I prefer war? I would not, nor would the people in countries that have been invaded by the US for natural resources. E.g., Iraq for oil, Afghanstan for lithium…
Oh. so now it’s about Lithium is it.? What happened to the mythical natural gas pipeline. As if anybody would seriously consider trying to run something as vulnerable to sabotage as a pipeline through some of the roughest terrain in the world. Not to mention through a country that has never been pacified by a central government for any meaningful length of time. If you believe that you’ve been indulging a bit too freely in Afghanistan’s “other” export.
Of course the only reason Canada is involved is to spread the hegemony of a certain chain of coffee/donut shops through the developing world.
“First we take Kandahar/then we take Berlin.”
Rumor has it that before it closed the folks at the Tims on Barrington were downright envious of their counterparts at KAF. Better security.
And here’s your useless trivia for the day. Of all the coalition troops operating out of Kandahar, for some reason the biggest fans of Tim’s French Vanilla are the Brits.