The Protest Party Gets Started at the London G20
At least the protesters are united — which is more than can be said for the world leaders.
Leaders from around the world have converged on London to have their photos taken with Barack Obama and, for a few hours between lunch and breakfast at tomorrow’s G20 meeting, will pay lip service to the task of tackling the global financial crisis.
Protesters equally cosmopolitan in origin and even more diverse in terms of their grievances have already turned up. At the protests, the Free Palestine crowd rubs shoulders with the anarchists, the British Muslim Initiative marches in lock-step with groups calling for the lynching of bankers, and global warming alarmists link arms with members of the Stop the War coalition.
President Obama won’t have seen such an ill-informed, self-righteous, and hysterical mob since his election night rally in Chicago. The headless chickens are coming home to roost.
But at least the protesters are, in some vague sense, united, which is more than can be said for the world leaders. France and Germany are leading opposition to calls by Obama and British PM Gordon Brown for increased public spending, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to walk out of the summit if the U.S. and Britain don’t agree to his demands for tougher global financial regulations.
The summit will produce no “breakthroughs” or agreements of substance. It’s little more than a vanity project for Gordon Brown — one which is costing the British taxpayers somewhere in the region of £20 million pounds, with £7 million being spent on policing. But while precious little will be happening inside the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands, outside the fortified “Green Zone” there will be two days of marches, sit-ins, and rallies galore. And just as at previous gatherings of world leaders from Seattle to Genoa, expect the violence, vandalism, and mayhem.
Much of the anger is directed at bankers — so much so that financial workers in London’s financial district are being advised to “dress down” and avoid unnecessary travel. But while bankers have certainly done plenty to make people angry of late, the ringleaders of the violence that will inevitably transpire don’t need an excuse to throw a brick through the window of Starbucks. This will be violence for the sake of violence, fueled by class-hatred, envy, alcohol, and drugs.
Leading the assault on the barricades and the police will be a hard-core hell-bent on violence and with little in the way of an ideology other than a desire to “smash the system,” while just behind the front lines will be the left-wing ideologues who are coordinating the “G20 Meltdown” protests. Their leaders include “academics” like Chris Knight, who has been suspended from the university where he teaches after suggesting that bankers should be hung from lampposts, and a former topless model turned white witch; their ideology is only slightly less incoherent than that of the anarchists.
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Mike McNally blogs at Monkey Tennis Centre.
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16 Comments
1. Sherab Zangpo:I think that the beauty (yes, it is sarcastic) of London’s “protests” is that the commie LOSERS and the jihadist LOSERS will protest “against”… the commie WINNER and the “let’s talk with iran and the talebans and let’s cut American defense budget” WINNER.
Funny, in an evil way.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Apr 1, 2009 - 11:44 am 2. Sebastian Shaw:President Obama should be right at home with the malcontent anarchists who wish to abolish Capitalism; however, President Obama will be the wrath of the same protestors because he is viewed as establishment. Obama’s in quite a pickle.
I believe the US politicians will eventually feel the wrath of the voters; they cannot turn away their responsibility for this disaster. The banks simply adapted to the politicians’ new laws.
Apr 1, 2009 - 12:14 pm 3. AThinkingPerson:As wrong as I think the violence is and as brainless as I think some of these protesters are and as stupid as I think what they’re protesting for is….at least they are standing up for something.
I only hope the Tea Parties coming up on Tax Day 2009 here in the US will be as vocal and get as much press!
Apr 1, 2009 - 12:15 pm 4. Vaughn:Can you say, ‘hollow points’?
Apr 1, 2009 - 12:32 pm 5. rocketeer:Why are these anarchists allowed to terrorize these summits? Protesting is fine, but the ultra-violence for the sake of violence should not be tolerated by a civil society. These miscreants need to be put down hard.
Apr 1, 2009 - 12:56 pm 6. Wayne:The responsibility of the politicians (in the U.S., at least) goes well beyond a failure of “ensuring that appropriate taxes are levied on high earners, than (sic) effective regulation is put in place”. It includes meddling in the market to force lending institutions to make bad loans via the CRA (and promising to ensure that the bad mortgages could be sold to others such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) in support of an expansive home ownership policy.
Apr 1, 2009 - 1:11 pm 7. Marie Claude:“and French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to walk out of the summit if the U.S. and Britain don’t agree to his demands for tougher global financial regulations.”
Well, I guess it’s the anglo-saxon translation for the Sarkozy/Merkel coalition :
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/04/02/01003-20090402ARTFIG00004-sarkozy-et-merkel-unis-pour-imposer-leurs-priorites-au-g20-.php
Now, I can see that you would support a bail out, umm, sorry, raisonable persons don’t, therefore You side Obama to form the dream team
Apr 1, 2009 - 1:17 pm 8. JED:It is the art of misdirection that makes for an effective stage show. One wonders where the money trail comes from when the protestors go home. Where is there lack of irony when the protesters chant to abolish money and then break into a bank, or call to the police to beat them to show how abused they are? Have they invented the Prozac bomb yet? Perhaps the next meeting could be held in Moscow or Tehran.
Apr 1, 2009 - 4:32 pm 9. lol:what an entirely unbiased article, full of factual information and not at all inaccurate
Apr 1, 2009 - 11:45 pm 10. Bill:“The violent, the thrill-seeking, the paranoid, the self-hating, the guilt-ridden, the naive, and the perpetually disappointed”: aka the American Right.
Apr 2, 2009 - 12:33 am 11. Puppy Politico:Oh stop it, Bill. Any thinking person that has read this post properly can see it for exactly what it is: a well-written, unbiased, extremely thoughtful piece. So the writer has an opinion on a certain category of protesters; well, that’s his priority as a leading ‘think piece’ journalist. Merely hijacking his quotes and turning them around to suit your purposes is lame, dull and lazy.
Apr 2, 2009 - 1:38 am 12. Puppy Politico:Oops, I meant to say prerogative, not priority (post 11, above). Guess I got carried away (but fortunately, not by the riot police).
Apr 2, 2009 - 1:42 am 13. Eh?:“The violent, the thrill-seeking, the paranoid, the self-hating, the guilt-ridden, the naive, and the perpetually disappointed”
I.e. anyone who is not yet dead! Anyone who is human and has not allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the drudgery of long meaningless ‘work’ hours in order to be able to afford to buy stuff we don’t need in an attempt to make us happy and fill the gaping holes in our sorry little lives with mind numbing TV and sleep fitfully and get up, go to work, shop, eat, sleep, work, shop…
Apr 2, 2009 - 1:46 am 14. JoshC:My favourite protester was the tradesman who wanted to get rid of the rich until the journalist interviewing him pointed out that if there weren’t any rich people he’d be out of a job.
Train ticket to London: £30
Homemade banner: £5
Being shown to have the intellect of one of the smaller primates on national radio : Priceless
Apr 2, 2009 - 11:00 am 15. stevent12x:Bash them all you want, but those anarcho-punks are more united and focused than any conservative group these days.
Apr 3, 2009 - 8:03 am 16. ReConUSMC:Well the last few days we have heard Obama call America “arrogant “and apologized for our past indiscretions and sins in 5 different speeches in a row in Europe ????? Actually a continuation of his Campaign speeches in America during the election .
Sadly this all is coming again while we are fighting Two Wars and then Obama makes a compete bumbling fool out of his Self with the Guardian reporter in a Press conference before those speeches later .
It appears Obama is still making Campaign Speeches 4 month after the election which is total insanity !
I see he still must be using His Anti American speech writers , Hugo Chevez of Venezuela to write those speeches or his own Wife ’s nasty comments about America as well (before he won ) …… Obama America is finally getting it ….Duh ………… “”Obama does now like or respect this Country at all nor does his Wife as well “until ” he was elected ” President with the Obvious continued intentions to demean and ” Castigate “America the greatest Nation on Earth ever in Foreign Countries . Are you Listening John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan who spoke about America the complete opposite and Greatest in Europe and then Reagan is Russia at Moscow University actually lecturing the students there on why Capitalism and not Socialism and Communism .
During the Election Obama said America “Needed “to lead the World . Yesterday he clearly said America was arrogant for leading the world and Europe should be a large part of it when in total Europe has agreed in total to send less than “”" 100 Troops”"”" to Afghanistan to help America fight the Telibane and Al Quada there who are against any WOMEN RIGHTS or “” Human Rights “” what so ever in Afghanistan .
Not to mention Europe did not help us in Iraq and ranted against us while doing business Hundreds of Billions with Saddam against the ‘UN Resolution .. Ah but now Europe is back in Iraq and have landed 231 Billion dollars in Oil Contracts now that 90 % of Iraq is “SAFE” … Talk about Hypocrisy by Europe and Obama . Reagan and Kennedy would have mentioned that Total Travesty no doubt what so ever !
We heard Obama and Liberals say ….. Europe will never help in Afghanistan while Bush is President .
Well NATO has refused 99.9 % to not give ”The Messiah any more help there now . “”TAKE THAT BRO “” !
This is the first American President ever to put American down wrongly in most of his speeches on foreign soil .
That does alone with his fund raising speech in San Francisco before a bunch of far leftist saying those in “The Rust Belt “cling to their Guns and Bibles .
Obama reminds us yet again of all his Anti American radical Socialist mentors and friends , Saul Alinsky , Bill Ayers , Rev Wright , James Cone
(black Liberation movement )
and his Communist mentor James Harris in his Childhood in Hawaii to name a few of His many Anti American …Americans sadly .
I Wonder what John Kennedy , Ronald Reagan , George Washington , James Madison and all of our Founders who put their Lives on the line and those that gave their Lives in Europe and the entire world to keep the world safe and free is thinking in Heaven with Tears in their eyes right now knowing how this Jerk of a President what he said again about our beloved Country
Apr 4, 2009 - 5:50 am… I wonder ?
Now really !
I got a email yesterday from a young Socialist soon to be a Lawyer that sums it all up who said to me ….. Its nice to see Europe want be burning our Flag anymore . But at what price ….. America’s honor sadly .