G-G-G-G-G-G-G-20!

Good morning world.  It’s Thursday September 24th, 2009.  You’re probably sitting at work already.  Me? I’m in my room…not at work.

Why?

Because the G-20 is in full effect, and I’m not willing to deal with the hassle.  And it might not even be bad…but you created the perception.  For those who have no clue what the G-20 is all about…

The Group of Twenty (G-20) was formally established in 1999 to bring together major industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy.

The members of the G-20 are the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S., as well as the European Union, represented by the rotating council presidency and the European Central Bank…

After consultation with his G-20 counterparts, President Obama agreed to host the next meeting in September and chose Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the site. With governments and international organizations now hard at work to reach the objectives set out at the Washington and London Summits, the meeting in Pittsburgh will give Leaders the opportunity to take stock of the progress made and discuss further actions to assure a sound recovery from the global economic and financial crisis. (Ed: The previous two meetings took place in 2008, and April 2009, respectively)

In laymen’s terms, the G-20 is like the SuperFriends…only instead of saving the world using heat vision or a golden lasso, they try to save the world by using money, strengthening current lending procedures and accountability, and at the very least putting on a front that they care about the environment.  I know, they sound like heartless bastards to me too.  But then they made a wonderful action plan for the world to see, and all was forgiven.

Caught up? Good.

All of that being said, I sincerely wish that the G-20 was 8 million miles away from here (space, I guess?) due to the absolutely retarded nature of the protesters.  They vary, from the anarchists, to the green-peacers who want to save the environment, to those who seemingly want a true/direct democracy as opposed to the actual federal/constitutional republic America currently has in place.  And of course, on its face, all of that seems well and good (eh, not really) but it never goes down the way its “planned”.  Example? Well, I did hear, first-hand, that protesters were using various methods to slow traffic to a stand still…then they were slashing the tires of people waiting in traffic.  All in an effort to…make people have to buy tires, maybe?  Honestly, unless Obama has a second cousin that lives in Sewickley (a Pittsburgh suburb) and you’re indirectly trying to get payback,  you are on the most counter-intuitive, just plain dick-move protest movement I have ever heard about.  Slowing down traffic doesn’t throw the government into anarchy; rush hour happens everyday.  All it might do is get your ass beat (Ed. Note: I didn’t hear about any tire slashing in any of the “rough neighborhoods of Pittsburgh”.  I dare protesters to try it there).  Not to be outdone, Green Peace decided to hang a 50 foot banner from a bridge right after morning rush-hour, basically endangering their own lives and the lives of drivers on the bridge.  Awesome. I can’t decide if protesters get so focused on their protests that the completely forgo the usage of common sense, or if its a lack of common sense that makes you waste all of that money to get to a city to just hold a sign in the first place.

Couldn’t you do more good by donating money to greenpeace for environmental research, case studies, etc. than driving your car for 36 hours to Pittsburgh creating CO2 emissions all the way here?  Then to top it off, the bridge stunt stops traffic, so now you have cars being run longer than they necessarily would have, putting more CO2 into the air, while the cars wait for the cops to pull you up off the bridge…

Greenpeace’s actions are maybe not the smartest, but at least at the present time, they aren’t actually publicizing an attempt to stop the summit…Right, Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance?

Thursday, September 24, will feature a People’s Uprising, a mass march to disrupt the G-20 summit. We’ll be starting at Arsenal Park at 2:30 pm in Lawrenceville, a vibrant working class community in the city, and marching to the G-20 summit downtown. Our theme is “Power from Below, Not Impositions from Above.” Our only permit is our feet and voices. The G-20 is in the house, throwing a party. Let’s crash it.

Friday, September 25, we’ll be working to undermine the G-20 summit by attacking their power, making connections to the local manifestations of their neoliberal agenda. The folks that gather in the convention center represent large governments that draw their power from collusion with powerful corporations, governments that draw their wealth from resource extraction and destruction to our world, and governments that maintain their forces through the direct violence of police forces and militaries. Without these structural supports, their power will disintegrate. The G-20 is in a house of cards: let’s shake the table.

Sigh. First off, whoever wrote this sounds like they’re writing for a Michael Bay movie (Transformers 3?)

Optimus Prime — looks like the Decepticons are in the house…throwing a party.

Ironhide — Lets crash it!

Optimus Prime — Autobots, lets roll out!

Secondly, did no one read the action plan?  I heard this weird rumor that those people in that summit are trying to help people.  And if they weren’t, why would they bother having a summit in the first place?  They already run their respective countries one way or the other.  Its not like the American public made Obama the president because he mentioned he’d be attending the G-20 summit in his campaign speeches.  Why would these various nations go through the huge cover-up of attending the G-20 just so they could…do what? If the government of any country plans on screwing over its constituency, they don’t have to fake going to a summit to do it; they just do that shit.

And for everyone worried that the government is too big, and our society is too capitalist, and there’s too much corruption?  Maybe. Probably not. Move.  Maybe our government is too big.  But I do know two things: 1. your protesting is not going to do anything to dissuade the country from the course its been on for the last 230 years; it was like this when you were born. 2. you don’t hate this place enough to move somewhere else.  Maybe our country is too capitalist.  But, firstly, get off the notion that we’re purely a capitalist society (wave hello to price floors/ceilings on consumer goods, minimum wage, unions). 2. you don’t hate this place enough to move somewhere else.  Maybe our government is corrupt.  But I do know that we elected those officials ourselves. 2. I don’t see a large influx of people to Canada.

And to everyone who is hell bent on America instituting a pure democracy.

Dumbest. Move. Ever.

There are roughly 300 million people in America. Try getting everyone to cast a vote on one single issue.  Let me then bring up the fact that we can’t even get 60% of the country to vote for the man who is currently in charge of the country.  Now expand your one issue to the hundreds of issues that would need to be voted on, on an almost daily basis…

Yes, we do elect officials for a reason, thanks for asking.

You know what else throws a wrench in the plans? Not every person is well versed on everything.  There is a reason that every baseball player doesn’t run for president…they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.  Hell, I know there are people that can’t name two amendments to the Constitution, and that’s supposed to be the foundation of America itself.  You end up with some informed people who are voting for a reason, and the rest are either not voting or they are lemmings; blindly following or at least relying on someone else.  Now tell me how that’s different than the republic form of government we have right now.

At the end of the day, holding up some signs in front of a popular Starbucks doesn’t do anything more than piss off people that are trying to get their vente caramel latte.  For the most part, the stuff people are protesting about are issues that are so large, you can guarantee the leaders already know your issue.  And if for some reason they don’t know? Well, guess what?  At least in America, we elected that guy.  Don’t like it? We would have had the same result in the wonderful pure democracy that you wanted, so suck it up.  And sure, you have the right to protest; that’s one of the great things about America.  But, trying to get your voice heard to the detriment of other people that haven’t done anything wrong?  That just makes you an ass hole.  In any case, you can call it my naivete if you want to, but I don’t think 20 of the most important leaders in the world would come together just to waste the world’s time.  The only thing the protesters seem to be doing is slashing tires, fear-mongering (obviously not all, but some), causing thousands of extra police to flood the area, and ensuring that many businesses board their store fronts up; to ensure they still have a business on Monday.

Oh, and traffic. You bastards are trying to kill traffic over here.

…and that’s why I hate you.

Game. Blouses.

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