This weekend saw the G-20 economic summit meeting, and it was much like many previous meetings: leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations made bad decisions; legions of protesters took to the streets; and local police broke the law and told monstrous lies so that they could imprison hundreds of said protesters.
Let’s start with the bad decisions: most of the leaders at the conference decided that they needed to cut back on government spending, to trim their budget deficits. To an individual person who’s broke, cutting back on spending makes sense. When a broke nation does it, it means less investment, fewer jobs, a deeper recession and longer suffering for millions. Noted economist Paul Krugman is warning that this G20 decision could lead to a worldwide economic depression. And just as bad, much of these budget cuts are likely to be social welfare programs that are keeping the poorest citizens afloat. These cuts will hurt them severely.
Next, we had thousands of activists who protested the event, on issues directly related, and not related at all. A gathering of world leaders often seems like the perfect time to speak your mind and organize with others.
Then, we had the police that used the so-called “Miami Model” of dealing with protests. In other words, the local police spend weeks and months telling scary stories to the media about protesters and anarchists and terrorists, so that the public is actually scared of them. Then the police set up their own version of “free speech zones”, where protesters are told they must go if they want to use their, y’know, freedom of speech. Then, there’s usually a mass arrest of innocent activists on one of the first days of the protest, to try to justify their scary stories and to intimidate the rest of the protesters. Then, when the protest is over, it is revealed that the hundreds of arrestees are innocent of all charges, that the police abused their authority, and sadly, only the activists themselves seem to know the real story. This gets used at mass protests time and time again.
The Toronto police even went one step further this year, claiming that they were arresting people on a just-recently-passed law prohibiting people from getting near the official security fence. People were outraged that this new secret law was passed and not publicized. Until it turned out there was no such law. Yes, police made up their own law, arrested people for breaking it, and then admitted that they’d lied about the whole law thing anyway.
In one silver lining to this story of lies, abuse, and economic catastrophe, is that the activists of Toronto showed up in the streets again, after the G20. This time, it was to show support for the masses of innocent arrestees, and to speak out against the police’s violations of law and civil rights. A little solidarity can be a good thing.
Photos by Andrew Louis/Torontoist.
Axis of Justice is a non-profit organization formed by Tom Morello and Serj Tankian. Its purpose is to bring together musicians, fans
of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice. 
Hello guys
I read your posts very often cause I speak a little bit of english, but there are many people in southamerica that would love reading your news. The only problem is that they can’t read english so I’m begging you please make an effort to translate it for all of them. It’ll be a big shot for you.
trust me
This may seem like the “same old thing” to you, but to us, in Canada, it was shocking. The tactics that were used: the sheer amount of police on the streets in riot gear and the amount of brutality used by them was indeed repressive. There are still activists being detained and I hope that you are right about the trumped up charges being dropped. The media is taking on a fear mongering role as the “black block” has now become the enamy of many Torontonians. The protests have not ended as people are pushing for a public enquirey into the whole situation.
In Solidarity (we can use as much as possible)
Hey,
The police over there can suck my balls! The police where I live in Spain just stand next to protests and watch while reporting back to the station via walki-talki, this is how all non-violent protests should be!
P.S. Not trying to make spain sound perfect, it isn’t, it has many problems of its own, but compared to England where I’m from, america and the rest of europe, its pretty cool in comparison.
P.P.S. I will translate this story into Spanish and Catalan as soon as I have time and post it as a comment.
things are pretty not cool over here in canada.. i feel ashamed to live where its the norm for public officials and so called law men to have a fucken god complex this whole system from low life council men to “police” officers to members of parliament. it crazy what they’ve done in toronto to the people, it seems we get punished for exercising our “freedom of speech”. this whole “government” has forgotten its purpose. we are not here to serve our government, they are supposed to be here to serve us..
This story simply delivers a painful turth about the atrocities of those in power and their abilty to manipulate public servants, press, and potentially the military. Performed in the interest of a few and at the cost of many. It also serves to demonstrate the power of the global economy on the politics of any society regardless of location or local belief.
THANKS!
ahhhhh… your blog doesn’t show up properly in android ..
nice you hit it 0n the nose will submit to digg