Fortress Toronto:Massive Clampdown for the G8/G20 Meetings,Most Expensive in Canadian History
Posted on: June 25, 2010 - 10:47pm
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Fortress Toronto:Massive Clampdown for the G8/G20 Meetings,Most Expensive in Canadian History
I was watching Democracy Now! and they were across from Toronto talking about the security around the G8/ and the G20/ summit meetings.Is there any body from Toronto or Quebec that can tell me WTF is going on there ? http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/25/fortress_toronto_massive_security_clampdown_for
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Yeah they are just having full out security, Toronto police, OPP (for Highway and Huntsville area) and private security taking care of security for this summit and to protect the city from rioting protesters. Other than the Hwy off ramp on the 427 being closed down from HWY 401 (which kinda bugs me because now I have to get off at the next exit and drive back to where I would originally gotten off) nothing more than just a massive amount of security force to protect the city (threats from radical protesting groups threatening to fire bomb banks and other large institutions, as it occurred in Ottawa leading up to the G8/G20 summit)
I have been downtown, really not much of a problem unless your acting like an asshole to the cops, at least they didn't harassed me or the group of people I was with. Then again don't be a dick to the cops and they won't be pricks to you. Kinda simple really, also know that they have orders to protect a certain perimeter were the meeting is occurring and that's what they plan to do.
Also in this day and age of terrorist threats to Canada, US, Britain and various other allied countries, well a little bit of extra protection is probably expected. Oh and they probably are taking lessons from the previous G20 summit and trying to avoid the chaos that happened there. There are protesters out to actually protest, and then there are the ones out to cause destruction and mayham......to steal from Alfred.....to simply watch the world burn.
....... nothing much, I avoid downtown. But my wife and the Blue Jays work right downtown in the highest security area. The Jays are playing their HOME games this weekend IN Philidelphia, they seem to have a much bigger crowd. On TV I noticed a lot of Blue Jay fans in the stands. Leaving Toronto seems to be the thing for residents to do this week.
My wife's buisness and meny others downtown told their employees to dress "down" so that they do not draw attention to themselves. My wife hooked up her computers on Friday and worked from home, I saw the news photos in this morning papers, of normally jam packed commuter train parking lots all but empty, Tens of thousands of other workers did the same has my wife.
My wife and thousands of others schedualed buisness trips out of town for this week. I actually spent Sunday to Thursday in Washington D.C. She worked I did the tourist thing. Thomas Circle where I was staying seems to be a gay neighborhood where atheists dominate, I was relaxed the whole time.
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Year after year I hear about protesters at this summit, wherever it is held. I never get any detail as to what the protesters are protesting, just that they are. What is going on here? I am a bit out of the loop if someone could clue me in.
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People with too much time on their hands, with pleanty of money to travel to Toronto are violently protesting how about how unfair life is.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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I don't throw in with any specific political ideology, but it is discouraging how almost every single world leader in the summit would agree to break the status quo in one regard, i.e. get deficits under control (most likely by cutting ALL OF EDUCATION and needed programs, meanwhile taxing the middle class instead of the wealthy), but leave entire failing segments of our societies/economies untouched and deregulated. Has not the entirety of deregulation been proven to be an outright failure, over and over again, for decades now? Fucking wake up and implement some rules for the games and schemes that keep making our societies fail, as that is what we charge our leaders with.
Maybe that makes me an anti-teabagger.
Thanks for confirming what I wrote.
They travel from all over the world, and take vacation in an expensive city to whine about being oppressed.
The planes they fly on use lots of that evil oil that oil companies make and spew tons of green house gasses into the air. But none of them bother to study the science of alternatives.
The want free health care, but none of them are busy studying medicine, nursing or biomedical engineering.
They scream about overuse of earth's resources and pollution but then say nothing about mandatory limits on family size.
They bitch about corporations only being concerned with the bottom line and then claim they discriminate against workers for being gay, female, etc..
Whiners that want something for nothing.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Lots of different groups with mutually incompatible goals. I think that anti-globalization protesters are the main group.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Here's a good summary:
The anti-globalization movement is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. These participants stand in opposition to large, multi-national corporations having unregulated political power and to the powers exercised through trade agreements and deregulated financial markets. Specifically, corporations are accused of seeking to maximize profit at the expense of sabotaging work safety conditions and standards, labor hiring and compensation standards, environmental conservation principles, and the integrity of national legislative authority, independence and sovereignty.
Many anti-globalization activists generally call for forms of global integration that better provide democratic representation, advancement of human rights, fair trade and sustainable development. Generally speaking, protesters believe that the global financial institutions and agreements undermine local decision-making methods. Corporations exercise privileges that human citizens cannot:
- moving freely across borders,
- extracting desired natural resources, and
- utilizing a diversity of human resources.
They are able to move on after doing permanent damage to the natural capital and biodiversity of a nation, in a manner impossible for that nation's citizens. Activists' goals are for an end to the legal status of "corporate personhood" and the dissolution of free market fundamentalism and the radical economic privatization measures of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade.
Activists point to the unequal footing and power between developed and developing nations within the WTO and with respect to global trade, most specifically in relation to the protectionist policies towards agriculture enacted in many developed countries. These activists also point out that heavy subsidization of developed nations' agriculture and the aggressive use of export subsidies by some developed nations to make their agricultural products more attractive on the international market are major causes of declines in the agricultural sectors of many developing nations.
Though the movement is often labelled the anti-globalization movement by the mainstream media. Those involved, however, frequently deny that they are “anti-globalization,” insisting that they support the globalization of communication and people and oppose only the global expansion of corporate power. The term further indicates an anti-capitalist and universalist perspective on globalization, distinguishing the movement from those opponents of globalization whose politics are based on a conservative defence of national sovereignty. Participants include student groups, NGOs, trade unions, faith-based and peace groups throughout the world.
Actually, I agree with this position. Claiming that having your facilities - manufacturing, call centers, etc - in a foreign country reduces costs is true, but often not very true. By the time you take in the cost of shipping, the cost spread is less. There are other external costs as well. The lack of pollution controls in the other country, the additional shipping pollution, the lack of worker health and safety laws in many countries and so on.
I've had people tell me they didn't care about the external costs, what they wanted was cheaper stuff. Fine.
But I am not motivated enough to go out and riot and burn things - thereby increasing air pollution and wasting valuable resources that went into the manufacture of the things being burnt.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
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If they're so concerned and full of common sense, why is population size control a taboo subject? Even if they get what they want, won't population increases just negate the gains and leave us in a world of poverty, resource over-usage, pollution and unskilled labor oversupply? Some common sense.
Are they asking for an education in health-care or alternative education? No. They want everyone else to sacrifice through higher taxes, while they waste time and government money.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Is that an item in any of these groups agendas? If so, I'll come join them. They feel the corporations take stuff for nothing(in many cases they do), so they want something for nothing. They want to behave as badly as the corporations they despise.
They want these to be free with no strings attached like mandatory family planning, just like BP wants to drill for oil for free with no strings attached. Everyone whats a free lunch, what else is new?
OK, so the protesters what to divvy up the earth's resources as they see fit. They want to behave as people they despise. Since we live on an overpopulated planet, people are going to be left out and pissed off no matter who decides.
Everyone is a nuisance when you live on an overpopulated, overpolluted planet. We're all competing against each other for these limited resources instead of cooperating. That's why we have wars. There's no one with a higher moral ground.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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On the lighter side of things, Toronto police seize LARPing gear and gay flags:
www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/weapons-seized-in-g20-arrests-not-what-they-seem/article1622761/
I live near LA, so I'm used to hearing about retarded police officers. But, really Canada? Really? The police seized some protesters goggles? What is going on up there?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
So their ideal world is basically everyone doing subsistence farming, living in huts and foraging? Take away all motivation to gain wealth so we just live like cavemen? Let hunger, disease and war control our population size? We don't want anyone driven by profit to develop products.
Meanwhile they fly around on corporate airlines that use oil to fuel them. Use computers and technology from evil corporations to organize. Buy food, clothing and shelter from corporations instead of making it themselves. What hypocrites. Why don't they go live like the Amish if they think we'd be so much happier that way?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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