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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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30 June 2010 By Stephen Lendman
Established in 1999, G20 finance
ministers, central bank governors, and, at times,
heads of state meet semi-annually to "discuss key
issues in the global economy," the initial 1999
meeting in Berlin, hosted by German and Canadian
finance ministers.
G20.org calls its itself "the
premier forum for our international economic
development that promotes open and constructive
discussion between industrial and emerging-market
countries on key issues related to global economic
stability," saying it "support(s) growth and
development across the globe," or does it?
The reality suggests otherwise
about a political power elite gathering to review past
achievements, challenges, and prospects for greater
exploitation of world markets, resources, and people
everywhere. In other words, to support power and
privilege over beneficial social change, a
consideration not addressed, discussed, or thought
about, except with regard to instituting policies
leading to the disintegration and elimination of
social democracies, replacing them with the worst
elements of developing world harshness, tolerating no
opposition.
What economist Michael Hudson
suggested in his recent article titled, "Europe's
Fiscal Dystopia: The 'New Austerity' Road to Financial
Serfdom," saying:
"Europe is committing fiscal
suicide - and will have little trouble finding allies
at this weekend's G-20 meetings," attendees "calling
for cutbacks in public spending" when economic
recovery requires stimulus, job creation, and public
investment, not global wars, banker bailouts, or other
counterproductive measures.
Hudson called the meeting "a
carefully orchestrated financial war against the
'real' economy," initiated in America, Obama having
"stacked his White House Deficit Commission....with
the same brand of neoliberal ideologues who comprised
the notorious 1982 Greenspan Commission on Social
Security 'reform,' " a topic this writer addressed
earlier in a "maestro of misery" article about a man
who wrecked the lives of millions for the rich, now
cashing in big late in life, claiming no
responsibility for decades of harm, a legacy others
won't let him forget.
Now it's going global, why Hudson
sees Europe "dying....succumb(ing) to a financial coup
d'etat rolling back the past three centuries of
Enlightenment social philosophy." In lock step,
America is erasing its New Deal and Great Society
gains, planning mass impoverishment, human misery, and
fascist harshness, the hidden G20 agenda not reported
in the mainstream, sticking to its party line
propaganda, the usual rubbish top officials preach to
conceal their real plans from hell.
The G20 - An
Explanation
Comprising 85% of global GDP, 80%
of world trade, and two-thirds of its population,
participating countries include America, Canada,
Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain (a permanent
guest), China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia,
Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Australia,
South Africa, and Saudi Arabia as well as EU Council
and Commission Presidents.
Other attendees include:
-- the IMF's managing director
and chairman;
-- the World Bank's president;
-- the international Monetary and
Financial Committee (IMFC); and
-- chairman of the IMF/World Bank
Development Committee.
Even though they rank higher
economically than some members, excluded are
Switzerland, Norway, Taiwan, Iran and Venezuela.
Included only as part of the EU are Spain,
Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Greece
and Denmark.
The G20 superseded the G33 that
replaced the G22. The year 1975 inaugurated the G6
comprised of America, France, Germany, Britain, Italy
and Japan. Adding Canada in 1976 made it the G7, then
G8 by including Russia in 1997, the EU also included,
but it doesn't host or chair.
On June 26 and 27, 2010, G20
officials met inside the Metro Toronto Convention
Centre, Toronto, Canada. Thousands of protestors
filled city streets outside, Reuters reporting over
600 arrested, many in a so-called "free speech zone,"
police spokeswoman Michelle Murphy calling it "quite a
messy protest" on Saturday, continuing on Sunday,
accusing "masked anarchists" of smashing store and
bank windows, then torching two or more police cars.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
said "Free speech is a principle of our democracy, but
thugs (provocateurs he dispatched) that prompted
violence earlier today represent in no way, shape or
form the Canadian way of life," he and his government
have been systematically destroying in league with
Washington.
Against peaceful activists were
more than six KM of barriers topped with concertina
wire, thousands of newly installed surveillance
cameras, patrolling helicopters, the Canadian Armed
Forces at undisclosed locations, and over 7,000
police, plain clothes officers, mounted patrols,
snipers on rooftops, US Navy Seals (trained killers),
about 1,000 private security guards, and planted
("Black Bloc") provocateurs. More on them below.
Police, acting as hooligans, used
tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bag guns,
batons, and other intimidations, a security operation
costing Canada a reported $1.2 billion, the Harper
government's communications director, Dimitri Soudas,
calling protestors "a bunch of thugs who pretend to
have a difference of opinions and instead choose
violence in order to express" them, adding that police
were "ensuring these thugs don't rampage across the
city and create even more damage."
In fact, protestors were
peaceful, but not police, independent reports saying
they exhibited extreme brutality, including against
journalists (men and women), beating and punching
them, injuring others, and arresting hundreds, some
before the summit convened to intimidate others.
Protest organizer, Niki Thorne,
reported that 20 police raided her house and arrested
four people, saying:
"Police forcibly detained and
cuffed a number of people, and refused to allow those
in the house to call for legal advice. Without showing
warrants, asking consent, or giving notice, (they) did
an illegal cursory search of some of the people on the
premises as well as the house itself."
According to the Toronto Globe
and Mail, those arrested were charged with conspiracy
to commit mischief, police alleging they were
"planning to break off from peaceful protest and
launch violent attacks," with no corroborating
evidence.
In fact, quite the opposite,
according to reports, video, and other evidence
exposing undercover police violence, posing as "street
thugs," hooded and dressed in black (the so-called
"Black Bloc"), instigating disorder and brutishness,
destroying public property, smashing windows, burning
police cars, blamed on protestors - an old story in
Canada, America, and other global venues to blame
state crimes on peaceful activists, the major media
reporting it without question, independent journalists
kept away to suppress it, public perceptions
manipulated by misinformation.
This is how a police state
operates, Ameri/Canadian fascism, making false
accusations and arrests, employing hooligan tactics
against peaceful protestors, and refusing
non-mainstream reporters entry into Canada, others
arrested to prevent their coverage - violating Section
2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a
constitutional bill of rights, affirming:
"freedom of thought, belief,
opinion and expression, including freedom of the press
and other media communication (as well as) freedom of
peaceful assembly (and) freedom of association."
The US Social
Forum (USSF) - Another World is Possible
Evolving from the World Social
Forum's (WSF) alternative vision, the USSF first met
in Atlanta in mid-2007, this year in Detroit for
activists, organizers, minorities, labor, the poor,
indigenous peoples and others wanting social justice
and a better world, mirror-opposite of the G20 agenda
- supporting privilege over the common good, plotting
to extinguished those old-fashioned notions, forcibly
when necessary.
On its web site (ussf2010.org),
USSF headlines "Another World is Possible, Another US
Is Necessary," calling itself:
"a movement building process. It
is not a conference but is a space to come up with the
peoples' solutions to the economic and ecological
crisis. (It's) the next important step in our struggle
to build a powerful multi-racial, multi-sectoral,
inter-generational, diverse, inclusive,
internationalist movement that transforms this country
and changes history."
"We must declare what we want our
world to look like and we must start planning the path
to get there. The USSF provides spaces to learn from
each other's experiences and struggles, share our
analysis of the problems our communities face, build
relationships, and align with our international
brothers and sisters to strategize how to reclaim our
world."
No wonder, the major media ignore
it, instead supporting power and privilege, corporate
interests, imperial wars, democracy for the few, sham
elections, and street thuggery hooliganism. At the
same time, social justice concerns are suppressed,
ones affecting most people everywhere, their voices
never heard, their issues unaddressed, their struggles
disregarded and spurned.
But not in Detroit from June 22 -
26, ground zero for the failed economy and
counterproductive measures causing it, over 20,000
attending in solidarity for a better world, one that
can't come a moment too soon, that won't happen
without mass grassroots support no longer tolerating
official policies preventing it - in Toronto,
Washington, or other global cities where governments
deny their own people justice. What better time for
change than now, USSF's agenda an inspirational call
for it.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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