G20 Summit

[Johann]

*WARNING* I'm a hothead on this topic and my words will be harsh. It is warranted.


The G20 summit was held in Toronto over the weekend (as everybody knows) and I'd like to express how it felt to be in the city when this debacle unfolded.

For about a week prior to the summit I noticed changes to the downtown core. All mailboxes were removed. Then bus shelters. Then garbage bins- they taped plastic bags to telephone poles- just like last year's garbage strike! awesome, huh? Then all PARK BENCHES were removed. Then major statues were moved by crane (for fear of defiling). Windows were boarded up all over downtown- what the fuck is going on here?
Is there a Level 5 Hurricane on the way??
Then the armies of cops started to appear, day after day. RCMP, other provincial cops, York region cops, gazillions of police officers.
With each passing day towards the summit citizens started to stop going downtown unless they had to. The vibe was so negative and oppressive.
I started to get angry. Who organized this? Who was the genius who decided Toronto was the city where this was going to be held? Disrupting local businesses and citizens lives beyond belief so a few empty-headed "leaders" can sit around a conference table and make piss-poor decisions on the world's behalf? Fuck I was getting mad. I don't protest in the streets because that is simply pointless. I've never seen a protest that went well, that got something accomplished. You're just asking for a baton upside the head...

It was truly sickening to see the destruction caused by some "anarchists" but it was even more sickening to see the lack of police response.
Cop cruisers were set on fire, with radicals stomping on the roofs- where were the police? That's right: nowhere near the scene until the cars had been burning forever. Where were the cops when so many windowfronts were smashed? When the shit was going down? That's right: on some other non-vital street, in their riot gear, waiting for a clue or message on what to fucking do.

And now we have our douchebag Mayor Miller grovelling to Harper about compensation for damages, which I'm sure Harper really cares about..
Our PM calls the summit a "resounding success", and that these types of meetings will always attract "hoodlums".
Excuse me, Mr. Prime Minister, but where do you get off brushing this disaster off? You charged the taxpayers 1.3 BILLION for your little meeting, left a major city reeling from a police state environment which resulted in unprecedented vandalism and destruction.
All for what? And we were given how much notice that this was all going down? Next to NONE!
A shitty "conference" that you could've easily done by video? Get all heads of state on a timing to be "Live" on satellite and voila! No damage to property, people's sanity or police cars! But Shithead Harper does not care at all. He is a true psychopath. I see through him so much it's insane. He has no conscience whatsoever. I'm disgusted that he is Canada's Prime Minister. But we have no one else either. The Liberal party is all but extinct and the majority of ignorant Canadians think Harper is doing a fantastic job. It's sad beyond comprehension.

Did you know that special fancy license plates with the G20 logo were made for special cars?
Did you know they spent 1.2 million on a fake lake that the leaders wouldn't even SEE during the summit? It was at the media pavillion!
Did you know that they spent almost a BILLION on security alone? And that they "secured' JACK FUCKING SHIT FOR THAT MONEY???

I asked 4 different cops on the street why they picked Toronto. Here's the answers I got:

1. It was coin toss
2. It's "good for business"
3. I don't know
4. It's "our turn"

The cops had no answer as to why Toronto was chosen. No one fucking knows. They shut down one of the biggest cities on the planet (imagine the disruption to business and lives!!!!) for NOTHING. For Fuck-All. I'm still pissed off about it. No one has apologized to the citizens of Toronto for being subjected to such insulting chickenshit.
I couldn't walk around my city for three fucking days because a bunch of empty-headed morons decided that they would hold a meaningless pow-wow. A pow-wow on the global economy no less!
How does it fucking look spending truckloads and truckloads and truckloads of money when you're trying to be "fiscally responsible?!??!
FUCK RIGHT OFF.
(I told you I'm a hothead on this one..)

I want Stephen Harper on his knees before the Canadian people. He owes us big time.
But he doesn't care.
He's " a person without conscience"
He only cares about himself.
When the world economy truly tanks where will he be and what will he say?
"I told you so?" HA
he will be saying
"I GOT MINE".

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for this, Johann. A sad sequel to Luminato. Which was free, and made people happy. A time when being a hothead is totally justified.

The prominent weekday US leftist/liberal news program and commentary Democracy Now has been broadcasting from Toronto this week.

Monday: http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2010/6/28
Tuesday: http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2010/6/29

The vandalism showed that the repression AKA "security" didn't work. I didn't get from Democracy Now the details of removing mailboxes, bus shelters, and even statues. That is nightmarish, and recalls the prettying-up done in Iron Curtain countries for outsiders' visits; helping do that got the artist Christo (a Bulgarian by birth) started on his ideas of transforming environments in art pieces/events like Running Fence, the Central Park Gates, the Wrapped Reichstag, and so on. Oscar said this would have happened in any town where this was held. But that's not true. It's different depending on the organization of the protest, the style of the repression, and many other factors. This is a bad one. And it comes at a particularly bad time.

Smart ideas of yours to have the G20 done by closed TV conference. One defect: obviously this is a show of strength, and 'fiscal responsibility" is for the common man, not the people at the top. They can spend billions on swaggering. Even though to us money doesn't look very well spent. It makes sense that Naomi Klein (a Canadian) was on hand to comment on Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/2...al_crime_scene
Klein wrote the book on Disaster Capitalism: make all the mess you want; whoever gets to do the cleaning up will make a bundle.

I'd be about as scared to go to Canada as to Mexico at this point but for different reasons. After hearing bll about the Mahar Arar case, I'd not trust Canadian authorities. In Mexico, the drug cartels rule, and as an American I might be kidnapped or assassinated.

If I write a political commentary realted to this I'll use your post as a reference.

[Johann]

The head of police security in Barrie Ontario called the operation a "complete success" as well.

How the fuck do you call a billion (?) dollars in damaged property and a furious public a "complete success"?
Is it because you were thrown a $900, 000 000 bone? maybe?
I stayed at home for quite a bit of the summit (as per police orders! Stay Away Perp!)

The police didn't know how to do anything except bang their batons against their plastic shields before they did an "advance"
It was pathetic beyond belief. The National did a piece on a Toronto female bike cop who worked the summit and she said at one point
"It's depressing. It feels as though they've taken over the city" (the protestors). All the while these officers are standing around lollygagging.
I used to be a soldier, and there's a thing called "tactics", things called "SOP's", "in theatre" operational directives that you are supposed to employ during certain situations. I saw absolutely none of that from the legions of police.
It seems like they were all just asked to show up. Stand around, hold a helmet, look like an Alpha male asshole as much as possible. That seemed to be enough. No clue on how to handle violent protestors.
The vibe I got from the police was "I'm not paid enough for this shit"
Is this what citizens/taxpayers deserve? Where's our money's worth for that billion dollars?
And get this:
STEPHEN HARPER is now saying that the federal government is not legally bound to pay for the massive damages to property.
Uh, let's get this straight:
A FEDERAL conference causes a billion dollars in damages to local businesses and private property and you don't owe a dime?
YOU'RE FUCKING FIRED SHITHEAD.

[Johann]

There is also a massive scandal going on right now with regards to the Chief of Police Bill Blair's decision to not tell the public at all about the types of searches near the security fence. Not to mention the targeting of gays and certain others by the police. People are fucking OUTRAGED here in Toronto.
The public was out of the loop until the summit was right on top of our heads.

It's a world-class city, we're recovering rather quickly from this disaster because we fucking rock, because we're always excited about the next big thing happening here (ROGER WATERS: THE WALL LIVE Sept 15th!!!) but the stain of this massively disgraceful display of fiscal and mental irresponsibility ain't coming out with Tide.

[Chris Knipp]

The general point this illustrates is that spending a lot of money and doing good planning and organizing are two totally different things.

The more ominous one is that any operation of this kind moves the place toward a culture of repression.

And then third, what is happening to the world's economies? Will enforced global belt-tightening lead to a repetition of the Great Depression of the Thirties?

[Johann]

Exactly. Our PM knows this too. This is why I hate his guts so much.
He knows and yet he recklessly and psychopathically spends like a drunken conservative asshole.
You're only PM once, eh? Gotta stick it to the peons!
That word: "CONSERVATIVE"- ha ha ha. How "Conservative" are you Steve? My God does he suck..

He even mentioned the "delicate" nature of the world's economy on live TV.
If it's so fucking delicate, Mr. Asshole, then why didn't you tighten your fucking belt? be a Leader in fiscal responsibility? Or how about even having an IDEA that helps the WORLD, even a smidge?
Oh, that's right: that was your PREDECESSOR, Paul Martin, former finance minister and LIBERAL LEADER.
He handed you a surplus when you took power. But you had so much contempt for him (and Canada it turns out) that you had to blow that surplus to Kingdom Come, didn't you? Erase any and all similarities with sanity and "good government", right?
You fucking Calgarian Oilman Asswipe.
You don't speak for me or millions of others in this Awesome Country.
You speak for ignorance and elite bullshit.
When you meet your maker the truth will be driven into your empty pathetic soul.

We are headed for a massive Depression. Great question/point there Chris.
Just look at Greece. If that ain't the writing on the wall...
And who does Wall Street look at today? The Great White North. CANADA.
Canada's banks are rock solid. Our structure is very sound. Stock brokers are investing in only one sure thing: CANADA
That's a fact.
Americans have sneered at us/ignored us forever and now we seem "favorable" for investing. It's quite funny and sad actually.
Ask any stockbroker you know: "Is Canada worth investing in?"
See what he says.