Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘g8’

Fuck the moronic thugs who decided that setting police cars on fire and smashing store windows was an appropriate Saturday afternoon activity.

Fuck Stephen Harper and the Conservative government for thinking that hosting this summit in a major urban centre was an appropriate use of over a billion dollars of taxpayer money.

Okay, rant over.

The Toronto Star has a photo essay from this weekend. Sometimes, pictures really do say a thousand words.

Everyone’s making a really big deal about the remarks that Bush made at the G8 summit without realizing his microphone was on, and the fact that he *gasp!* swore!

Bush replied: “See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.”

Gee, you think?

Some people find Bush’s candor refreshing. Others seem to have a more realistic take:

No one in the media seems to notice (or maybe they notice but they don’t care) that this isn’t candid, frank or dramatic. It’s the kind of simplistic blowhard chitchat my relatives exchange during ‘NFL Today’ commercials. You know… just git ‘em to do it. Git someone to git ‘em to do it.

Is that the best Bush can do?

My question exactly.

There’s been a long-running debate among observers of Dubya as to whether he really is that dumb, or if his “plain-spokenness” is partly an act to help him win votes. Certainly his aversion to words with more than two syllables is nothing new.

But if, even off-camera, Bush’s understanding about the political situation in the mideast really is that oversimplified, then I think we all ought to be more than a bit concerned. Even if he was, in this case, perfectly right in what he said, it still has that “duh” quality to it that’s so pervasive in so much of what Bush says even publicly.

The G8 summit in Edinburgh is this week, and it’s getting attention like never before.

Yesterday, for anyone who’s been living under a rock lately, was Live 8. In nine cities around the world including Barrie, Ontario, acts such as U2, Coldplay, Pink Floyd, Elton John, the Who, Green Day, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews Band, Our Lady Peace, the Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Jet, Great Big Sea, and many more took to the stage in a massive free concert with the lofty goal of ending world poverty.

But with such a stellar lineup of mega acts, the show basically overshadowed the message. Millions of people watched the concerts, but I’d venture a guess that most were tuned in for the music and not for the politics.

In the meantime, will governments really drastically increase foreign aid just because a bunch of rock stars sang their hits? Despite Bob Geldof’s insistence that it will, I have my doubts. According to a poll, 60% of Canadians believe the concerts can help alleviate global poverty, but an equal percentage believe that instead of spending an additional $12 billion on foreign aid, the Canadian government should spend it on domestic priorities like healthcare or social programs.

With the debate raging on whether foreign aid is even the answer to help poverty, it’s worth noting that simply throwing money at a problem is not a good way to make it disappear. Prominent voices in Africa have been calling for reform over funds for a long time. Isn’t it about time we started listening?

Meanwhile in Edinburgh, a friend who is currently travelling there had this to comment about the protests in advance of the G8 summit (no link because she wrote the comments on a personal travel blog and probably doesn’t want a bunch of strangers showing up):

I don’t know if you are all aware of this, but there is a G8 summit going on in Edinburgh in about 2 days. The ‘festivities’ started today with the ‘Make Povery History’ protest. There were well over 100,000 people marching through Edinburgh. [ . . . ]

In general, it did not disrupt our day of touring at all. The march seemed peaceful, so all was well. At one point in the afternoon [ . . . ], I watched the protest go by. As I did so I got more and more frustrated. I think that you all are aware of my generally left of center views. I believe in excusing third-world debt, and in ensuring that every person have a minimum standard of living. Nonetheless, much of what I saw at the protest made me angry. (Warning, I’m going into a rant. Either brace yourselves or stop reading here.)

- This was a protest for poverty, so why confuse the issue? People were walking around with Palestinian flags. While there is a time and place for presenting that opinion (and it is an opinion), why at the voicing of a cause that is so overarching?

- Many of the placards carried were for the Socialist Workers party. In addition, there were a few communist flags about. I see this as changing the issue. Why alienate the crowd? This is about solidarity, not about highlighting separations.

- Parents brought their children who were often infants. Why make an ideological choice for someone who is too young to make it themselves?

- There was so much garbage thrown on the floor. If you are going to discuss a global issue, why ignore another one? Pollution is as much of an issue as poverty. How could anyone in that crowd be so single-minded? Isn’t their point that they are aware?

I dealt with closed-minded people who are under the opinion that they are open-minded all year. It was my job. I didn’t need this on my vacation. People are stupid.

I can’t say I’m surprised – these summit protests frequently attract a wide variety of people, most of them well-meaning and many of them not so well-intentioned. I just hope that things don’t devolve into the type of violence that we’ve seen at these things in the past.