02 April 2009

Business as usual



The high cost [of the security operation] is the price of democracy
-Stuart Fraser The City of London Corporation on the BBC


Doesn't sound much like democracy to me, when the police are out to snuffle any grumblings aimed at the greedy bastards who created this mess. Doesn't sound much like democracy when the world's elite debate our fate while those that want to give them a piece of their mind are "kettled in" miles away from the event.

Lost your home? Lost your job? Lost your savings or your pension? This party is for you!
Capitalism has been heating up our world for years, melting the icecaps, burning up the rainforests, pushing the planet to tipping point. Now we're going to put the heat on them. At the London Summit , the G20 ministers are trying to get away with the biggest April Fools trick of all time. Their tax-dodging, bonus-guzzling, pension-pinching, unregulated free market world's in meltdown, and those fools think we're going to bail them out. They've gotta be joking!
We can't pay, we won't pay and we are taking to the streets
Many, many imaginative actions will be taking place across London on April 1st. One major focus will be four separate carnival parades culminating in direct action against the financial follies in the City of London among them carbon trading.
Full circle back to 1649?
Meaningful change is obviously nowhere in sight yet we wonder why some people put bricks through bank windows. It's merely 'mindless hooliganism' according to the complacent, but that hooligan has little control over his or her own life, or the direction their community is being forced to take. For one brief second, he or she, gets to spit in the face of those dictating the direction of this abstract contrivance we call an 'economy.' Really, sit back and consider why it feels so good to smash that window, even if there are no 'politics' behind the release of the brick. Even if that hooligan knows nothing of the inner workings of the G20. Even if that hooligan is a twenty something white male middle class adventurist, there are many reasons why the sound of smashing glass sounds so sweet. Sure, it won't achieve much, as a largely empty symbollic action, but I for one appreciate the gesture, much like the shoe that was thrown at that one dick-head. It is nice to step out of line once in awhile. It might not be 'democratic' to throw that brick but neither is the G20, so fuck it.