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Annexus Quam
926 posts

Genoa
Jul 20, 2001, 19:22
Eight old gits idly and carelessly talking hipocritical shit while at least one hundred thousand people outside are unlistened to. Democracy my arse! Would they still sit there wining and dining if the whole of the population they are supposedly representing were outside ranting against their 'global economy' pretensions? There's of course those who protest, those who acquiesce from their armchairs and those who spend their lives in numbness; violent groups are doing it wrong, but who accuses the police when they beat and kick defenceless folks on the ground? Why should the police be allowed to maim and even shoot as they themselves gag for violence in anticipation nazi-like? I can picture each European city's mayor boasting 'it won't happen in my city, we have the best police force and we will crush them' - but then it does, over and over again, as frustration continues to build up in the population. Future history books will speak of... 'once upon a time there were eight idle villains sitting round a table and *pretending* to be trying to help the world'. These farcical summits make me sick.
Moon Cat
9577 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 20, 2001, 19:59
...and as is so predictable, the reporting is one-sided, focusing on violence and reactions from G8 reps...not one point of view from protesters. Typical.
And there was ol' Tone doing his usual lip-service to the protesters "Some people are protesting peacefully as is their democratic right.....but others have made a big mess and a noise and it's just not cricket etc". Puhleeze
Annexus Quam
926 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 21, 2001, 17:38
Man, tony bland's appearance following the news and followed by a Proms ad was what prompted me to post that diatribe.

I can picture the chinese laughing at this equivalent farce of their Tiananmen repression where their cops were also shooting and repressing protesters. C'mon, anyone can give me hundreds of detailed differences between both regimes but deep down, both have people in power who only represent a very tiny minority of the population so the rest are forced to take to the streets in frustration so as to be listened to cos they are UN-represented. Both systems are derelict.

Luckily, we still have non-governmental organizations and their power shouldn't be menospreciated, as well as ours, as consumers.
Leppo Joove
33 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 22, 2001, 14:25
From what I read in the papers and saw on the TV, it looked pretty much like a much larger-scale version of what happened on the 1990 anti-poll tax riots. One or two protestors throw things, the police over-react completely and start beating people up, the crowd fight back, and then get labelled as the agressors of the piece just for trying to defend themselves. One thing's for sure, though, the organisers of the summit are going to have to think things through a lot more carefully before holding another one, because two many events of thisnature ain't gonna create a good public image for them.
Moon Cat
9577 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 22, 2001, 14:50
Rumour has it that the G8 (which textually almost spells great which is quite annoying...maybe grate) bods are thinking of doing their thing on a cruise liner in the future.
Fuck me, as a metaphor for Us and Them it's hard to think of something as a venue that's more appropriate.
"More Chablis while we discuss the state of the deprived...anyone for boules on the deck?!"
Anyone got a submarine....or a You-boat!
Annexus Quam
926 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 22, 2001, 14:50
there's talk of holding the next summit on the web, but they know as well as I do, that someone will boycott it; there's always someone more clever than they pretend to be, it's just that they continue to hold on to their fragile empty positions; they have frustrated me for a long time in their roles as 'experts', because, like most politicians, they are not coming up with alternatives, just deeply immersed in a deadly routine they can't get away from, and I don't blame them, for such is the nature of the economy, a linear neverchanging trip into 'nothingness'; dubyarse talks of 'economic progress' for the americans, well it's high time he talked of 'mental progress'. When is the nation measured in terms of money? He's plainly ignoring the US and whatever it is it can offer in terms of ideas and human benefit. Humanity's progress since the middle ages has only been material, but the 'mentality' remains, in a scary way, untouched. Give a laser gun and a hundred dollars to a baboon and you won't make it be more human. Fuck them for being so backward and fuck them for not listening to the people they mean to represent.
Jez
12 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 22, 2001, 18:58
Three of my friends went to Genoa and are due back tomorrow. I'll find out what they have to say and post here when I find out. But I can pretty much guess already.
fitzcoraldo
fitzcoraldo
2709 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 23, 2001, 01:38
Are you really suprised.
This is how its always been.
The tragedy is its not the few thousand outside the red zone of Genoa but the millions due south and east....... The g8 is a metaphor for US/WE and our wealth....we are rich because you are poor. The whole of the" first" world is part of this, we are all culpable. It is easy to blame 8 leaders, but they shoulder a blame that belongs to all of us. we cannot expect to protest a meeting and change the world. As sincere and committed as the protesters are, change must begin at the grass roots and the pressure must be constant and consistant. I hear the arguements against capitalism and globalisation but where are the solutions and how can you convince workaday people to change. Trying to beat up the coppers can only be counter productive. Change will only come about when, for example, the Sun newspaper and its readership support that change.
Annexus Quam
926 posts

the Sun
Jul 23, 2001, 06:34
absolutely, check my third post on the thread, same point
Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Re: Genoa
Jul 23, 2001, 21:44
Surely people changing cos the Sun says so is not the kind of change that anti-globalisation is about. It's about people taking control of their lives, having localised and diverse solutions to problems, not some centralised pupeteers telling people whether things are OK to believe in or not.

'we cannot expect to protest a meeting and change the world'; You're right, but I don't think anyone *does* think that. What the protests are about is giving voice to things that are gonna point in the right direction, and showing up the G8 meetings for the flaccid farces that they are.

'As sincere and committed as the protesters are, change must begin at the grass roots and the pressure must be constant and consistant'; what do you think the protesters are doing the other 364 days of the year?

Contrary to what the mainstream media tell you, NOBODY goes halfway across europe cos they like twatting coppers; you can do that in your hometown, and indeed it happens in most city centres every weekend.

The millions of people who've been on anti-globalisation protests over the last few years are - I would bet entirely - doing things in their everyday life to effect change. Cos they know that, as you rightly say, that's the only way real change will come.
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