[Imc] Horrifying

[peterm at shout.net]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20010720/ts/mdf26681.html


I think we need to respond to the killing.  People who support global
justice and oppose corporate globalization can't let this simply
pass.  The state knew that up to 100,000 people would be protesting, so
they built barricades and spend many millions of dollars fortifying a
fortress with fences, concrete barriers, shipping containers, and 
20,000 police.  Today, they used live ammunition to kill a protester armed
with rocks.

This certainly isn't the first death that corporate globalizers have
caused.  From protesters like Nigerian Ken Saro-Wiwa, who the Nigerian
state killed after he successfully built resistance to Shell Oil's
exploitation of tribal lands, to the millions who die prematurely due to
inequities in health systems, the protester in Genoa is simply the latest.

Could the message be clearer?  Heads of capitalist states will arrogantly
pursue their agendas, even if hundreds of thousands of people gather in
protest.  Those who protest silently, like the 50,000 in Quebec, are
ignored.  Those who attack property in order to NOT be ignored are
vilified and, now, killed.  Reuters reported early this afternoon that
the national leaders will not cancel their meeting.

They should cancel their meeting.  George Bush should return to the US
immediately.  His presence and the G8 meeting itself are endangering
peoples' lives.

Tony Blair lamented that the 'violent protesters' prevent the national
leaders from engaging in a dialogue with the "peaceful protesters".  
That's wrong.  Peaceful counter-summits have taken place numerous times,
and never have the leaders of those gatherings been invited to participate
in a meaningful way in the closed-door meetings of the national leaders.

After Bush returns home, our government should hold broad public
discussions about the US' negotiating positions.  Congressional leaders
should end fast track discussions and stop trying to ram a bill through
the house before Aug. 10.  Leaders of civil society should play a much
greater role in defining US negotiating objectives.  The US Trade
Representative's office should restrict corporate access to negotiators,
or at least balance negotiators' time spent with corporate representatives
with that spent with non-corporate, non-governmental representatives.

And the press should be regulated so that the conflict of global
corporations reporting on corporate globalization can be minimized.  We
need better information than corporations will provide.

Unless Bush and unless the other national leaders acknoweldge that their
policies are unpopular, anti-democratic, damaging to people, and damaging
to the environment, then states will need to continue spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to conduct their meetings behind militarized
perimiters (or in totalitarian nations like Qatar, where the Novermber WTO
meeting will be held), and the struggle to stop them will also escalate.

Our president, our senators, and our congressional representatives should
insist on these actions before another person dies.

I'll be at the IMC tonight if people want to discuss how to respond to the
killing.

-Peter