Fear As A Foundation
I wont carry on in this post (well, at least not too much). No long diatribe about how disgusting it is that the G20 summit comes to Toronto, erects a 10 foot high, miles long fence to keep protestors out of the conference area. I’ll be straight to the point.
This is what a police state in action looks like. 20,000 police officers using sound cannons, mounted police, pepper spray bottles that look more like fire extinguishers, coercive tactics, rubber bullets, batons, and the list goes on.
This unprecedented show of force only belies the utter fear with which the Canadian government and the G20 nations are operating from. They fear the average citizen who dares to exercise their right to be informed and then verbally takes that information to the street in the form of a protest.
$1 billion. That’s how much is being spent (paid for by tax dollars, mind you) to protect the talking heads descending upon Toronto in their helicopters and black caddies. This is a meeting of the mega wealthy getting together to talk about how they can continue to stay mega rich.
This isn’t about you and me, it never was and it never will be. This is about fear, greed and the continuation of a corrupt world system that robs from the poorest to feed the wealthiest.
This is what it looks like when you use fear as a foundation.
This is what a police state in action looks like. 20,000 police officers using sound cannons, mounted police, pepper spray bottles that look more like fire extinguishers, coercive tactics, rubber bullets, batons, and the list goes on.
This unprecedented show of force only belies the utter fear with which the Canadian government and the G20 nations are operating from. They fear the average citizen who dares to exercise their right to be informed and then verbally takes that information to the street in the form of a protest.
$1 billion. That’s how much is being spent (paid for by tax dollars, mind you) to protect the talking heads descending upon Toronto in their helicopters and black caddies. This is a meeting of the mega wealthy getting together to talk about how they can continue to stay mega rich.
This isn’t about you and me, it never was and it never will be. This is about fear, greed and the continuation of a corrupt world system that robs from the poorest to feed the wealthiest.
This is what it looks like when you use fear as a foundation.
posted by Corey at 1:45 PM
4 Comments:
how ridiculous.
I agree with you in principle. Unfortunately the self-described anarchists who have been smashing out storefronts, burning police cars, and driving away legitimate protesters for the last two hours will only serve to prove that this was needed.
All that money spent so a couple hundred people can hijack what's left of democracy... that's what makes me angry.
Erin, I too followed the protests for most of the day (the miracle of twitter) and was severely disappointed that the actions of a few drowned out the voices of many.
But, it came as no surprise that the media latched onto this violence and failed to do any real in depth reporting on what the thousands of other people were protesting.
Thousands of people showed up on the streets to voice deep seated concerns about the way the world is being run and their message was mostly unreported and unheard.
A few broken windows and some burnt vehicles aren't the tragedy here (it's only "stuff", it can be replaced), the real tragedy is how the people of the planet are being negatively affected by the decisions being made inside that convention centre.
That's the message most of the protesters were trying to get across.
Corey, I agree with you. I do. Though I have a different take on news media. It's never been their role to report on what is most important. They're in the drama business.
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