A major columnist got my dander up this week, precipitating a reblog of a post I published on my old site on June 29th, 2010.
Here goes…
First they pass a secret law that suspends civil rights. Then they disregard the law’s boundary (5 m from the fence) and detain, question and search people anywhere they like in downtown Toronto. (I saw this happen on the protest Saturday at Queens Park Subway Station at 11:30 AM, before any trouble started). Then they refuse to give their badge numbers, taunt innocent people, rough them up, and put them in cages like the terrorists, and the collateral innocent, in Guantanamo. The protests should continue until Harper, McGuinty and Blair/Fantino resign. Next step, torture? Good grief!
G20 Protest – June 26, 2010
On the Friday night before the Saturday G-20 protest a major rally was held at Massey Hall in Toronto that included the following speakers: Dr. Vandana Shiva, Maude Barlow, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Pablo Solon, Clayton Thomas-Muller, John Hilary and Leo Gerard. It was called Shout Out For Justice and was live-streamed by rabble.ca. I am unaware of any podcast or transcript available, but the ideas were insightful and plentiful. I list about 33 of them below.
On The Protest Itself: We revere Ghandi for standing up to oppression and opposing unjust laws. Modern activists are mocked and despised, yet the current World Order is far worse for Mother Earth, humans and other species than the British Raj was for India. Until many more of us see this and are mobilized, the world will careen toward a scary, violent, environmental showdown and wars over scarcities. We will hearken back for the days when property was the only casualty of conflict. Other, less fortunate, populations already are victimized by such wars and by the rich, including members of the G20.
Ghandi, to my knowledge, never broke a window or torched a police car (nor would I), but he would have stayed sitting when the police charged. He would not have moved. I wish I could say, “Nor would I.”
Now, my quick list, gleaned from speakers at the Shout Out live-stream, of reasons why the G20, usurper of the U.N., should be criticized and its goals exposed.
There are only 33 reasons listed, but it’s a good start:
- Canadian water is, trust me, on the table to be commodified and sold for a profit. Canada has steadfastly refused to accept the proposed U.N. declaration that water is a human right. Last year (2009) my financial advisor informed me that mutual funds that will trade in water are already being set up. He should know, and he’s no “flaky protester.”
- The G20 countries inToronto this June are mainly swapping strategies on how to pass the bailout bill to us.
- Multinational Corporations should not have the rights of an individual. This right of “Corporate Personhood” must be taken away. It has enabled MNC’s to become stronger than nations. The people must take back their human rights. Government is now just a puppet show with the rich pulling the strings.
- At this meeting are the “B20″ – business leaders invited to lobby the leaders. Behind closed doors. Not good.
- Mining companies are now permitted by PM Stephen Harper to designate pristine lakes as tailing pond areas.
- Under Harper, Canada is becoming perceived as an “eco-outlaw.”
- We must decide if Corporations or Society will control our country’s resources.
- Corporations can now sue countries for bringing in laws to protect the environment.
- The G20 has already failed to produce an agreement on how to reduce climate change.
- Waste water is now 6 times more than available fresh water in rivers and lakes.
- Wealth distribution is more skewed than ever in favor of the few. The bottom half of the world’s population have 1% of the world’s wealth. This is progress?
- Over 5000 farmers in India who have used Monsanto GM seed have committed suicide due to the GM seed failing to perform as they were told it would and being forced to pay over and over again for patented seed and pesticide. Check out Vandana Shiva and her traditional seed movement.
- Secretly negotiated free trade deals (the raison d’être of the G20), like NAFTA, cause Canada to get locked in to colonial, corporation-dominated deals.
- Indigenous peoples are not invited, even though most of B.C. is on unceded native land. Oops, maybe that’s why. Look up “terra nullius.”
- Hedge funds are buying up huge tracts of African land. The poor are and will be displaced. This is not even an issue at the G20
- There have been 1500 foreign takeovers of Canadian companies in recent years. Brazil now owns Inco in Sudbury. Its miners have been on strike there for a year! (Note: As of June 2010)
- G20, the club of the powerful countries, is set up to bypass (and, ultimately, exploit) the other 170 poorer countries in the UN.
- Ninety per cent of the big fish in Earth’s oceans have been killed.
- Our G20 has a fake lake, a fake law to persecute protesters and is undemocratic because its negotiations are secret.
- Wars and sanctions perpetrated by some G20 countries are responsible for uncounted civilian, women and children’s deaths, but we only count our military dead. We don’t even dare count our military that are permanently legless, armless or otherwise incapacitated, because these unjust wars must continue.
- Media ignore (“white out”) intelligent meetings of the left, such as the Shout Out rally above, and restrict their token left-wing columnists to a small number of column inches. They belittle some of the best minds and hearts on the Planet.
- Public broadcasting (CBC in Canada) is under intimidation, diminution and threat of sale.
- We prosecute protesters, but let bankers and polluters go unpunished. Breaking windows is viewed as much more evil than allowing the Gulf Oil Spill. I didn’t see the CEO of BP getting punched and handcuffed.
- The Tar Sands, Canada’s Mordor, is in no danger at the G20.
- Nobel prize winners and legitimate critics of Corporate Canada have frequently been harassed at the border so they miss their events, but the alleged war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, is welcomed.
- The very people who have been taxed to pay for bailouts and stimulus will be the first to be attacked when the agreed upon deficit cuts are implemented. This is why the Greeks are so pissed. They get it! (Note June 2012: talk to General Motors workers in Oshawa, Ontario, whose huge plant will close.)
- We must stop killing the planet by pitting jobs against clean water and sustainable forests.
- The G20 are hauling out all the failed organs of world domination to fix the financial crisis: the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank. The Doha Round is being resurrected.
- Britain just cut 25% of its public services – services it took years of struggle to build up.
- Latvia’s future has been totally destroyed by the IMF.
- Free-trade negotiations with Europe threaten Canadian jobs in Canadian health care, education and natural resources. (Note June 2012: Deals with Colombia and Korea will not help anyone in Canada who works with their hands.)
- In Ontario, McGuinty recently passed a bill that will lead to much higher user costs for water by downloading the built up infrastructure deficits onto water rates. Small communities like Smith’s Falls will lose control of their water supplies. It will be run by an unelected corporation. The poor will be very thirsty. (Note June 2012: Ontario wants to let a sneaky multi-billion dollar, U.S. hedge fund build a mega-quarry near the headwaters of three important rivers, a further attack on our right to clean, fresh water.)
- Obama’s advisor, Larry Summers, who created the G20 with Paul Martin on the back of an envelope, created, under Bill Clinton, the conditions (deregulation) for the financial meltdown. Summers also believed that restricting the bulk of pollution to developing countries was a good thing because the costs of damages could be minimized. Its the same old boys running the show.
This entry was originally posted my old site on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
mightyturk 