They Shall Not Pass!

Far From Over

2012-02-03T17:29:00.003-05:00

Happy Holidays Canada!

2011-12-12T19:52:00.001-05:00

Implicating Capital: Examining the Dimensions of Food Security Discourse

2011-11-30T09:28:00.001-05:00

Introduction:Balancing the Scales

In order to conduct research intofood security, researchers need to start with a broad conceptual framework forwhat constitutes that security and what characterizes its absence. Not onlythat, but researchers must also decide the scale at which to locate theirinvestigations: food security can be examined from a global perspective, with anational focus, at the community level, or through the lens of individuals withinhouseholds. While there are probably well over 200 competing definitions forfood security, only two organizations have, since the late 1970s, defined theboundaries of that debate while simultaneously providing major funding for worldwidefood security research, policy, and practice: the World Bank (WB) and the UnitedNation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

These international and multilateralbodies, along with bit players like the United States Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World TradeOrganization (WTO), and various other multinational agricultural interests, haveformed the collective force behind which governmental and non-governmental foodsecurity policies have been historically transformed.

Through annual reports, researchjournals, conferences, and funding decisions, these institutions have framedfood security discourse at various scales, starting in the 1970s at theglobal/national macroeconomic level, and subsequently transitioning to aposition that today views food security as best examined at the local,microeconomic level. The question of whether or not these changes have been theresult of a natural progression defined primarily by research/policy successesand failures, or whether they are in fact simply theoretical readjustmentsnecessary to serve prevailing neoliberal economic practice, will be the focusof this paper.

TheBackground: Structural Adjustments

From an early focus on national food production,grain stockpiling, agricultural self-sufficiency, and other macroeconomicsolutions to hunger, to one based on individual – usually female – microeconomicinterventions, food security research has gone through a series of paradigmaticshifts of scale and ideology. A very strong argument can be made that thesechanges have coincided directly with the rise of neoliberal economic policies. “Thisdiscursive shift in policy […] devolves responsibility for addressing hungerincreasingly upon rural women. This is in line with the construction ofneoliberal subjects as entrepreneurial individuals who are responsible foraccessing food from the world market as it is shaped by the internationalmodalities of international institutions, transnational agribusiness, and theconsumption demands of the wealthy and middle classes primarily located inWestern countries.”

Capital’s neoliberal logic is one whichglobally espouses the value of commodification, government deregulation, andmassive cutbacks in social spending. It is one that has driven the processes ofglobalization in favour of corporate and monetary interests at the expense ofthe global south, the environment, and democratic decision-making. It shouldcome as little surprise, therefore, that as neoliberal theory and the national ‘structuraladjustment policies’ informed by it have begun to dominate the global politicaland socio-economic landscape, so too has food security, as defined by the FAOand the WB, been manipulated to conform to this prevailing logic.

Driven at its core by thecollection of supranational institutions mentioned above, various 'free' tradeagreements, and the ideological tome known as the 'Washington Consensus',neoliberalism demands the subordination of state policy and public spending tothe undemocratic dictates of international financial currents and treatyobligations. When developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries reach acrisis point – where international loans can no longer be repaid – theInternational Monetary Fund ‘steps in’ to ‘save’ the country from bankruptcy. Inreturn, countries seeking IMF help must agree to agency-imposed structuraladjustment programs designed to stabilise and restart their economies. Thebasic neoliberal tenets of these programs is the unlocking of countries' labourmarkets and natural resources by global corporations for exploitation; theminimisation of the size and role government; and the increased reliance onmarket forces to distribute resources and services. Specific ‘structuraladjustments’ mandated by the IMF before a loan is granted include: privatisinggovernment-owned enterprises and government-provided services; massivelyreducing government spending; orienting economies to promote imports inagriculture; lifting restrictions to trade, including barriers based on socialand ecological concerns; implementing higher interest rates; eliminatingsubsidies on consumer items such as food, fuel, and medicines; and enforcingtax increases on the middle and lower classes.

Populations in many countries have protestedstrongly against IMF policies, most recently in violent clashes in the streetsof Athens. Nations throughout the world have witnessed ‘IMF riots’ followingthe removal of price subsidies for goods such as bread and gasoline. “Theglobalisation of markets erases borders for speculation and crime andmultiplies them for human beings. Countries are obliged to erase their nationalborders for money to circulate, but to multiply their internal borders [inorder to maintain security and social order].” In nations currently experiencingIMF ‘structural adjustment’, poverty has tripled on average, health care andeducational systems have collapsed, and income inequality has becomeincreasingly polarised.

The IMF and WB themselves do notdeny the disturbing effects that this aspect of globalisation can have on ThirdWorld societies. Instead, neoliberal officials claim that ‘at some point’ inthe future these policies will lead to a prosperous ‘rebound’ that will benefitthe local and global economy. This almost shamanistic prediction is based onthe assumption that once an economy has gone through the difficult‘transitional stages’ necessary to strengthen its credit and capital reserves,the liberalized market will facilitate and encourage capital to ‘trickle down’to less affluent segments of the population.

It is increasingly assumed by theWB, FAO, and other food security policy-makers that this very same trickle downprocess, and the neoliberal development theories linked to it, will be the key toensuring individual access to food going forward. “Food security is understoodas no different from mainstream development issues and thus is constructed asrequiring the same remedies of structural adjustment, trade liberalization, andintegration into global capital markets as a way to meet national food needs.Food is deeply commodified in this definition.”

Thecommodification and enclosure of the foodscape by capital poses seriouschallenges for ensuring long-term, sustainable food security for a majority ofthe global population.

The Neoliberal Food SecurityConnection

Asgovernments and their social safety nets are dismantled and individuals areincreasingly forced to fend for themselves as isolated actors in the globalmarket, so too has the scale and definition of food security research witnesseda relocation away from strong national food policies to a focus on improvingmarket access for individuals.

Battles between food-firstapproaches to food security research and competing systems such as thelivelihoods framework illustrate, though imperfectly, the conflict betweenmaking food security an individual matter of market access and examining thelarger institutional environments and economic systems in which hungercontinually occurs. Though a livelihoods framework can illuminate micro andregional systemic and institutional barriers to access, etc., it tends to stillleave larger, macro barriers unexamined and thus does not often implicateneoliberal economic theory. “Taken together, the political economy of hunger,the changing discourse of food security, and the construction of food securityat the scale of “the poor” focuses attention upon individuals’ lack ofpurchasing power or access rather than addressing the capitalist politicaleconomy and the unequal relations of production and consumption in the workingsof the global food system.”

This picture of food securityresearch as being driven by a clear ideological agenda is often obscured by thefact that the latest trends in examining local food security – with a focus onindividual poverty alleviation – is often accompanied by research that is increasinglyconducted in participatory and inclusive ways. Ostensibly, examples such as providingownership over the research agenda to primary stakeholders and including womenin the discussion are actually the antithesis of global market logic. However,because these research methods tend to be conducted within a larger policy andfunding framework which conceptualizes hunger as being intimately tied toeconomic development, ‘good governance’, and is tied to internationaldevelopment theory and practice, a strong distinction needs to be drawn betweenwhat are generally democratic and progressive research methods and mainstreamoutcomes which judge successes in improving individual, household, andcommunity food security in terms of how much projects and policies successfullyintegrate stakeholders into the market. “This paradox does not mean that afocus upon the poorest and most vulnerable is not effective, but indicates thatas international food security policy places an increasing emphasis upon theindividuated acquisition of food in the global market as the desired responseto hunger, socioeconomic inequality within and among nations is increasing.”

Conclusion

There should not be much disputethat the global food distribution and production system needs to be relocated –away from profit, away from commodification, away from environmentaldegradation and heavy industrial, chemical and financial inputs. Reforming thefood system in this way would go a long way towards improving rural and urbanlivelihoods by ensuring better forms of investment (i.e., in human capital, notfinancial capital), more democratic decision-making (i.e., local, grassroots,community-based consensus decision-making instead of the type ofdecision-making that takes place thousands of miles away in corporate boardrooms), and by encouraging and rewardingalternative agricultural practices which have already been proven to be bothenvironmentally responsible and more productive.

There is also no doubt that foodsecurity research needs to be conducted in an open, democratic, and radical mannerin order to effectively challenge the assumptions of free market orthodoxy. Itneeds to incorporate issues of class, gender, and race. Research should beconducted with a local focus on the poor and most marginalized members ofsociety. Shared ownership over the research agenda, a livelihoods framework,and an equally inclusive method of evaluation are all essential. Research witha strong focus on local sustainability can help counteract the growth-basedlogic of neoliberal ‘solutions’ to hunger. However, all of these preconditionsfor truly radical food security research can still be made to work in favour ofcapital if they are not also firmly supported by an equally radical critique ofmacroeconomic realities and systems. After all, hunger exists within developedeconomies governed by neoliberal technocrats just as surely as it exists inSub-Saharan Africa.

That hunger is common to all nationsis a reality that global elites and their champions of neoliberal economictheory would rather be ignored.

Hypocritical Much?

2011-11-22T14:21:00.001-05:00

Isn't it strange how the West expects other world leaders to take the fall for the behaviour of their security forces...

Month Two

2011-11-18T19:37:00.001-05:00

Pigs Backing the Fuck Up

2011-11-13T17:36:00.001-05:00

There Goes Democracy

2011-11-04T17:50:00.001-04:00

The death of a nation.

Weekly Link Roundup

2011-10-16T18:31:00.002-04:00

Protest by consensus | Strategies for the anticapitalist transition | OFFICIAL LIVESTREAM FOR OCCUPY TORONTO | Occupy Protests Live Blog | The baddest Apple in a rotten bunch | Top court weighs free speech vs. hate protection | Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World NoW | The return of strategy | U.S. Copyright Czar Cozied Up to Content Industry, E-Mails Show | All the coverage you don't want to miss: #OccupyCanada

The Concentration of Capital

2011-10-06T11:23:00.005-04:00

Click to enlarge.

Thuggery

2011-09-27T23:10:00.001-04:00

You don't see this on the news every day. Or, ever. Wow.

Weekly Link Roundup

2011-09-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical' | Council rebellion could halt Ford revolution | Supercomputer predicts revolution | Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade’ | Internet customer names sought for Hurt Locker suits | KenneyWatch: If a minister campaigns for a provincial party leader on his private time and no one notices... | The world after 9/11: Naomi Klein prevails again | TTC proposes fare hike, job cuts and longer wait times | Canadians living paycheque to paycheque

Copying Is Not Theft

2011-08-31T20:43:00.000-04:00

Renderings Are Artist's Interpretation

2011-08-31T16:40:00.000-04:00

Against the Grain: Agency & Urban Agriculture in Toronto

2011-08-08T12:38:00.000-04:00

Introduction – Imagining a Food Secure Future in Toronto

Over the past decade, Canada has seen a dramatic rise both in local food awareness and urban agriculture projects, while simultaneously witnessing a growing dependence on food banks by its most vulnerable citizens. “In March 2010, 867,948 people were assisted by food banks in Canada. This is a 9% increase over 2009 – and the highest level of food bank use on record.” Time and again, statistics point to a relatively uniform segment of the population requiring annual food aid: the un- and under-employed, single mothers, seniors, visible minorities, students, recent immigrants, and people with physical disabilities.

Unfortunately, with the election of the Rob Ford administration to Toronto’s City Council in October 2010, the future development of a municipally-led and legislated urban agriculture movement has never looked so bleak. The Ford agenda presents an enormous challenge for food and poverty activists in the city. Policies which benefit high income earners and property owners (e.g., tax breaks) have already created budgetary shortfalls which the administration has indicated a willingness to remedy with massive cuts to social spending, the elimination of grants and regulatory oversight, and the privatization and elimination of many city services. Within this toxic policy and financial environment, the likelihood of leadership from City Hall on issues such as short-term investment designed to secure long-term quality of life improvements is slim. Nevertheless, it also creates a perfect opportunity to draw attention to the linkages between food security and income security and to imagine the genuinely radical ways in which supporting urban agriculture in Toronto can create alternative spaces in which resistance to the types of neoliberal policies mentioned above can flourish.

The relationship between hunger and income insecurity is well-established and thus forms the philosophical foundation upon which most food security organizations guide their policy, research, outreach, and community engagement. The development of urban agriculture is a symbiotic solution to both cause and effect. Urban and semi-urban food production is uniquely situated as a means to promote income security through sales and directly confront food insecurity by providing food for household and community consumption. In general terms, any comprehensive urban agriculture policy framework would be created with the input of direct and indirect stakeholders and local communities, would take into account food safety and health risks, and would focus on projects which could be instituted in a sustainable manner with organic and locally-derived inputs and little reliance on industrial production methods. The foundation for such a progressive transformation of Toronto’s foodscape could easily be appropriated from other cities with similar characteristics and already-existing urban agriculture frameworks and further developed within a local context. Additionally, provincial and federal policy could directly support programs in Toronto by, for instance, making access to safe, nutritious, and culturally-appropriate food a fundamental and constitutionally-inalienable human right.

Most importantly, urban agriculture allows for the development of agency in the very communities most likely to be affected by Rob Ford’s austerity measures, and agency comprises one of the most radical ingredients in any revolutionary reorganization of socio-political and economic systems. Forming zones of resistance to capital – zones which exist outside of its logic (i.e., co-ops, non-monetized community gardens and orchards, food shares, non-profits, etc.) – is an integral part of creating viable alternatives to the ultimately unsustainable and dis-empowering neoliberal market. By situating urban agriculture as one such site of struggle and allowing vulnerable groups to empower themselves, a future vision of a food and income secure Toronto is also a radical future vision of a Toronto where human lives and the environment come before tax breaks and profits. “In the food system […] the possibility of achieving a more equitable path of development and the social stability that only greater equity can secure requires a successful challenge of the powerful interests that have captured the economic and political agenda.”

A Framework for Building an Alternative

For most food-focused charities, agencies, and non-governmental organizations, the difference between providing short-term solutions to food insecurity and finding long-term solutions to the systemic causes of that insecurity can be found within the gap between a radical analysis and critique of neoliberal market mechanisms and its acceptance. The very structure of such organizations needs to be built upon a foundation which consists of ultimately eliminating the need for their future necessity.

To advance beyond mere food aid, food-based organizations need to actively engage in a series of multifaceted activities with the goal of one day securing a sustainable and equitable food system. The first of these activities is an active engagement in research and policy analysis (e.g., questionnaires, stakeholder interviews, etc.), the second is the fostering of client and community agency (e.g., the development of a robust urban agriculture plan), and the third is in the formation of alliances with other (non-food-based) organizations and agencies that also explicitly link poverty and class to arrive at an equally damning critique of capital. A combination of all three of these activities can challenge capital even more effectively than one or two in isolation.

Research & Policy

Research and policy analysis are needed to link food insecurity directly to income insecurity and other issues surrounding poverty including minimum wage levels, affordable and accessible housing issues, job security demands, social spending and investment, and accessibility barriers. To this end, the Toronto-based Daily Bread Food Bank has created a ‘poverty measure’ that combines income levels with a questionnaire about the absence of certain material goods which would be considered necessities by the community at large to more accurately measure susceptibility to food insecurity. Research and policy analysis are also required to improve urban agriculture outcomes and can be undertaken with a sociological, economic, or scientific lens. For instance, the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard has an existing need for more research into non-chemical, locally-based alternatives to pest control for its fruit trees, and projects, such as the movement to amend by-laws to allow backyard chickens for personal egg production, require strong policy analyses of existing programs in similar cities in order to present a compelling case to Toronto city councillors.

Self-Valorisation

Agency can be defined in many different ways – as self-empowerment, self-valorisation, independence, etc. – but what agency ultimately means for the clients of food-based organizations is the development of dignity and the creation of theoretical linkages between cause and effect in the food economy. In the long-term (and possibly more than any other single strategy) fostering agency should also mean an increasingly diminishing role for staff and volunteers running the organization and the movement from facilitating clients’ needs and goals towards having clients actualize their own set of priorities, all while developing the skills, experience, and resources necessary to achieve them. What better way to achieve these goals than the implementation of a strong, city-wide, urban agriculture policy?

Such a forward-looking strategy would go a long way towards simultaneously improving direct democracy at the community level while raising environmental awareness and strengthening food security for the city at large. Initially, the municipality could provide strong top-down support, including funding for educational services and extension work, agricultural research, and technical support for the practical implementation of sustainable projects. Prices and taxes could be adjusted as incentives to encourage the use of natural products and organic techniques over chemical inputs and industrial methods. Urban gardens, orchards, and chicken coops run at the community level could provide increased food security for the immediate neighbourhood as well as for other individuals directly and indirectly involved in production as stakeholders. Urban agriculture in Toronto could also increase local employment opportunities; improve environments, wildlife habitats, and aesthetic values; strengthen community relations and reduce crime; empower underprivileged residents; and foster greater food awareness among all food consumers in the city.

Building Bridges

Finally, forming alliances is both strategically necessary and tactically sound; food insecurity is a multifaceted issue with equally complicated and nuanced causes. Forming alliances with radical organizations that focus more directly on some of the root causes of food insecurity (i.e., affordable housing, eating habits/food nutrition knowledge, mobility, urban planning, education, etc.) can help support and encourage the larger socio-economic changes needed to bring about sustainability and equality in the food system. For example, Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank formed an alliance with St. Christopher House to agitate for change in the way that seniors apply for extra food benefits and also formed alliances more recently with a host of local charities and agencies to create a campaign designed to lobby for a new child benefit for low-income families. This new benefit should reduce future reliance on food aid by children in the GTA, and would have been unlikely without a large coalition of diverse community groups.

Toronto’s Current Capacity

Toronto has already begun in earnest to implement a wide-ranging and ongoing reimagining of its local foodscape. Despite the likelihood that it will soon become more difficult to secure funding from the city, other sources of income do exist and engaged residents and volunteers are willing and able to pitch in. During the 1990s, Toronto was able to create one of the world’s first food policy councils. “The Toronto Food Policy Council (TFPC) is a City-supported, community-led organization that has pioneered the field of urban food system thinking. It has helped put a whole range of new food issues on the radar of local, national and international policy makers, including community and rooftop gardens, local and sustainable food, rural-urban partnerships, nutrition labelling and GE-free milk.”

Recently, Toronto Public Health has released its list of ‘Priority Areas for Action’ on improving the city’s food system. These priorities include: supporting food-friendly neighbourhoods, making food a centerpiece of Toronto’s new green economy, eliminating hunger, connecting city and countryside through food, empowering residents with food skills and information, and urging federal and provincial governments to establish health-focused food policies. “Part of the ongoing work will be to develop an evaluation framework and indicators to measure the effectiveness of the Food Strategy project. The Medical Officer of Health will report to the Board of Health and City Council on progress in early 2011.” Toronto Public Health is also working hard to developing new soil safety guidelines which will include a soil contaminant protocol as “a resource to guide and inform urban gardeners about ways to minimize the risks associated with soil contaminants, including options for soil testing.”

On the urban agriculture front, two significant projects are currently underway; both supported and coordinated by the Toronto Environment Office through its Live Green program. Between 2008 and 2009, almost $800,000 was invested in the community in support of developing and expanding food production spaces and projects such as the establishment of community and backyard gardens. The Office also coordinates a team that has been tasked with identifying “barriers and opportunities to increase urban agriculture initiatives in the city.” This year, the Office with present reports to the city’s Parks and Environment Committee, “that will discuss policy and program options to support an increase in urban agriculture activities, including a discussion on permitting the raising of chickens in backyards and how city owned lands, outside of parks, may be utilized in support of urban agriculture.”

Conclusion

There should not be much dispute that the global food distribution and production system needs to be relocated – away from profit, away from commodification, away from environmental degradation and heavy industrial, chemical and financial inputs. Reforming the food system in this way would go a long way towards improving rural and urban livelihoods in Canada by ensuring better forms of investment (i.e., in human capital, not financial capital), more democratic decision-making (i.e., local, grassroots, community-based consensus decision-making instead of the type of decision-making that takes place thousands of miles away in corporate board rooms), and by encouraging and rewarding alternative agricultural practices which have already been proven to be both environmentally responsible and more productive.

To imagine a truly food secure Toronto is easy; the imagination and passion needed for the development of a healthy and sustainable food system can be found in abundance. What is difficult, however, is how to translate visionary exercises into a grounded reality. Luckily, there are also an abundance of individuals and organizations working every day, in the face of increasingly difficult odds, to do exactly that.

Crushed

2011-06-15T16:46:00.000-04:00

It took decades for progressives to coalesce around an alternative to Canada’s de facto two-party federal system in numbers sufficient to catapult the NDP into the role of Official Opposition. Shamefully, it took only until the conclusion of the first vote in the new House of Commons to crush any hopes that the NDP would prove to be any better than the rest of parliament.

Support for the Libyan intervention by the NDP was at least marginally understandable in the lead up to the May 2nd election. The very language of ‘humanitarian’ interventions purposefully frames any discussion and debate as being ‘against the clock’ and certainly no one wants to be seen to be responsible for civilian deaths that might have been prevented had bombs only started dropping sooner. A federal election was looming large and the NDP needed to begin the delicate process of courting liberal voters through subtle shifts in policy. Perhaps it was the case that the NDP’s historical memory was a bit hazy as to the sad legacy of such interventions and the numerous critiques of the myth of humanitarian intervention were lost on MPs with no time to read the latest analysis. And perhaps it was even the case that at the time, an entirely defensive, NATO-enforced no-fly zone, genuinely seemed like the best way to safeguard innocent lives in Benghazi.

But to support the Harper government and recommit to the Libyan mission three months later as the NDP’s first act as the Official Opposition is nothing short of criminal.

Sure, the real blame here might fairly be levelled at Harper, as the NDP and other opposition parties don’t even have enough seats to disrupt the Conservative agenda. But here’s the thing: no one expects Harper to do the right thing on Libya. Harper and his cronies are committed to purchasing new fighter jets and support continued Israeli war crimes like a badge of honour. The NDP, on the other hand, should know better, and to me, that makes them even more disgusting. They were elected with the expectation that they would at least try to do the right thing, not only because they owe it to the progressive base that mobilized to elect them in the first place, but also because until Libya, their (admittedly meagre) history of opposing ill-conceived and illegal military invasions by Canada set a refreshing precedent. It was also the perfect opportunity to quickly and confidently define a truly alternative voice with which to map the future of an NDP-led opposition. Instead, the NDP squandered the hopes and dreams of a new generation of progressive Canadian voters and then swiftly made them complicit participants in continued war crimes and crimes against humanity.

You might think it would have been even easier for the NDP to vote with a conscience when the outcome of the debate was already decided before any yeas or nays were recorded. You might think that the growing evidence of the sticky influence of oil politics on the decision to invade Libya would give cause for pause, as Wikileaks cables recently confirmed what we all knew anyway, which is that Libya is a country that has historically never played nice with the West with regards to its oil reserves. (The rebel opposition, on the other hand, which the NDP was happy to recognize officially yesterday, has already begun oil shipments to the United States.) You might be right to imagine that since the campaign has murderously and unequivocally morphed from defensively protecting airspace around rebel-held territory to offensively terrorizing Tripoli in a massive wave of bombings -- which recently included killing staff and students at a university and using helicopter gunships which continue to damage civilian targets such as hospitals, homes, and other essential, non-military infrastructure -- it would be easy to vote against the continuation of the mission in Libya. You would be wrong, however, if you assumed the NDP would see it that way.

Because the NDP has gone from supporting a neutral no-fly zone to openly supporting an increasingly clear – yet entirely illegal – mandate for violent regime change at the hands of NATO. More ominously for party faithful, perhaps, is the signal that any rhetoric by Jack Layton about shaking up the status quo in Ottawa has been decisively put to rest at the cost of thousands of innocent lives.

The Situation

2011-05-15T16:44:00.000-04:00

The Coming Storm

2010-06-09T12:21:00.000-04:00

What we are seeing already from police and the Integrated SecurityUnit (ISU) as the G20 meetings in Toronto draw closer, is the widespreadmanipulation of public sentiment to the effect that protesters are ‘dangerous’,‘criminal’, and hell-bent on violence and destruction -- the fabrication of apre-justification for the deployment of future violence by the state.

Effectively using terror to trounce our right to democraticprotest and free speech, members of the ISU, in connection with CSIS agents,have repeatedly harassed non-violent activists in a manner more commonly seenin countries with a secret police, public denunciations, and disappearances.The police have publicly advertised the purchase of new weapons to use against protesters, including an LRAD system, new riot gear, and hundreds of newcameras; they have paraded in front of the media in a massively-aggressive showof force; and they have leaked internal communications requesting the servicesof area doctors and the existence of a converted factory lot that will serve asa makeshift concentration camp for arrested demonstrators. For the police, thesummits represent a massive public windfall of both financial and socialcapital with which to purchase new toys and to openly bend the law.

The police are effectively trying to deter less-committed,less-radical, and first-time activists from ever showing up whilesimultaneously antagonizing more radical elements by picking a fight theyalready know they can win. The police and the media are happy to go out oftheir way to stress how a majority of the 1.2 billion dollars being spent onsecurity for the summits is clearly not to protect a bunch of VIPs fromterrorists (who may crash their fancy dinner parties), but rather simply toprotect those VIPs from having their precious schmoozing interrupted byinformed and angry citizens wishing to express themselves freely outside of themeetings.

Even 9 years ago, when the G8 met in Genoa, Italy,in 2001, putting large fences around international gatherings to create"red zones" was all the rage. It was the height of theanti-globalization movement, pre-9/11, and over 300,000 demonstrators turnedout to democratically voice their grievances.

Predictably, the police also turned out in force, viciouslyattacking and injuring more than 400 unarmed civilians (caught in the wrongplace at the wrong time), journalists, and activists with a combination ofchemical weapons and less-lethal projectiles. Mass arrests were not yet commonpolice practice, but those 300 or so arrested were subject to verbalintimidation, beatings, and the threat of rape. Genoa also marked the firstrecorded death of a protestor at a demonstration in the Western world (sincethe movement gained momentum in Seattle in 1999), when Carlo Giuliani was shotin the head and run-over, twice, by a member of Italy’s military police, theCarabinieri.

If the scenes on the streets of Genoa weren’t evidence enough of the thuggishand criminal behaviour of the police, then the scenes inside a school used byorganizers as a media centre and operations hub provided the world with aglimpse at the barbarism the state is capable of. Hundreds of officersraided the Diaz School at night, and beat people intocomas. They broke bones. They smashed faces. And they did it in a premeditated,highly criminal manner. The activists did not resist; in fact, most weresleeping at the time of the attack.

In a rare move, just last month, twenty-five members of the policewere found guilty of planting evidence, faking the stabbing of an officer inorder to frame the activists, causing grievous bodily harm, and wrongfularrest.

Much like the build-up of hysteria prior to the G20 meetings inToronto later this month, the UK media all but predicted a bloody revolution inthe streets before G20 leaders gathered in London in April 2009. The final costof ‘Operation Glencoe’ to British taxpayers? Just over £1,600 per protester.

With the pretext of confronting andstopping ‘violent’ protestors already firmly in place, the police could getabout doing what it is they actually do: protect, with weapons andphysical/psychological violence, a bunch of people that should rightly beconsidered criminals (e.g., presidents implicated in war crimes and torture,bankers who have stolen from the poor to give money to their rich friends,politicians calling for ‘austerity’ through the gutting of social spending,etc.) from a bunch of unarmed citizens that rightly do not want them eatinglobster dinners in their city.

As the protests approached, the chairmanof the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Andrew Dismore, a British MP, saidthat, "The police have a duty under the Human Rights Act to facilitateprotest and not frustrate it. If they act in a confrontational way and useconfrontation language, they will start to provoke the kind of behaviour theyare seeking to prevent.”

As is common, the police instituted theirtried-and-true strategy of provoking small disturbances as a justification formass arrests and the lock-down of certain areas, while isolating and cornering(now called ‘kettling’) smaller and more radical groups in order to betterattack and intimidate them.

Not only did police officers openlyassault non-violent demonstrators, including women and the elderly, butofficers were also implicated in the death of a newspaper salesman simply onhis way home from work. Ian Tomlinson, 47, was struck by batons and shoved tothe ground from behind before dying on the sidewalk moments later. Initially,the police tried to hide the fact that they had assaulted the man prior to hisdeath, and even went so far as to blame demonstrators for hampering theresponse time of medics. Unfortunately for the police, video evidence suggestedotherwise.

In response to comments later made by thepolice watchdog, Chief Inspector of Constabulary Denis O’Connor, that theviolence by police was “unacceptable” and that it was “hugely concerning” tosee evidence of officers breaking from their colleagues to openly assault people,the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers called the response“proportionate” and said, “I can’t find any other country that doesn’t usewater cannon, CS gas or rubber bullets.” Well, then!

For a mere fraction of the security costs associated with theupcoming Canadian summits, Pittsburgh police in September 2009 got to have allkinds of fun bashing non-violent protestors, tear-gassing students and facultyon a university campus, and generally doing whatever they could to make theFirst Amendment to the United States Constitution look like a vague suggestion.Police deployed fencing, checkpoints, and roadblocks throughout the downtowncore, and used sound cannons, less-lethal rounds of ammunition, tear gas, andpepper spray against demonstrators. They also arrested journalists and peoplejust going about their business. In apparent disregard for the right topeacefully assemble, the security services played the following message acrosstheir new LRAD speakers: "BYORDER OF THE CITY OF PITTSBURGHCHIEF OF POLICE WE HEREBY DECLARE THIS TO BE AN UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY. IT DOES NOTMATTER WHAT YOUR PURPOSE IS, YOU MUST LEAVE. IF YOU DO NOT DISPERSE, YOU MAY BEARRESTED AND/OR SUBJECT TO OTHER POLICE ACTION. OTHER POLICE ACTION MAY INCLUDEACTUAL PHYSICAL REMOVAL, THE USE OF RIOT CONTROL AGENTS AND/OR LESS LETHALMUNITIONS WHICH COULD CAUSE RISK OF INJURY TO THOSE WHO REMAIN.”

The message was clear: the city is not yours, you do not have theright to protest, go home, and shut up.

Now, I am not against individual cops. I have friends and familywho are cops. They are great people. Two cops I had a long conversation with inWashington once were receptive to my arguments (despite not being ‘allowed’ totalk to demonstrators), and my arresting officer in NYC conveniently hid thefact that I was wearing a bandana so that I wouldn’t be charged with the moreserious crime of inciting a riot under that city’s ridiculous no-mask law of1845. Cops help little old women and save people from harm. There is no doubtabout that.

What I am against, however, is the institution. I have onlywritten about policing at demonstrations, but you need not look far forevidence of racial profiling, corruption, homophobia, sexism, and thetestosterone-fueled reactionary crap that results from putting the law and agun in the hands of every member of a very large gang. Because I’m lucky enoughto be a working class white heterosexual male, I rarely, if ever, come intocontact with the police outside of a demonstration. It’s on the street during aprotest that I am most likely to come up against an institution that hasassaulted me with pepper spray and tear gas, which has arrested me and held melonger than is legal. (All for perfectly legal activities, I might add.) It isthe poor, the homeless, and visible minorities that are on the front lines ofthe battle against the police. They might actually get a slight reprieve fromthe violence and harassment the constantly face during the G20 while 5,000 copsare busy destroying democracy in and around the fence.

The police, as an institution, are not neutral defenders of thelaw. They are armed to protect the rich from the poor, to protect criminalworld leaders from their citizens, to follow orders in a military chain ofcommand. They have an agenda, and it isn’t until you’re on the other side ofthat agenda that you truly realize what that storm trooper cop dressed in riotgear really represents.

Is it possible the police in Torontoand other members of the ISU will behave humanely and follow the very laws theyhave all sworn to uphold? Yes, of course it is. It is also possible that theISU will remember section two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedomswhich guarantees me, and everyone else out in the streets, the freedom toassemble.

Unfortunately, it is more likely, based on past and currentevidence, that the police will instead use some combination of minor propertydamage and police provocateurs (yes, they do that) as a justification tounleash an arsenal of weaponry on non-violent and unarmed citizens. They willbreak the law, they will injure, they will scare, and they will arrest.Hopefully this time they don’t kill anyone.

And instead of arresting the real criminals, the ones inside themeeting, instead of doing the right thing, of following the law and theconstitution, of making me eat my words, of risking becoming heroes to millionsof people by going into the summit and arresting the war criminals and bankers,the people guilty of the real violence and the real destruction, they will,almost assuredly, prove me right.

So get ready for the coming storm, Toronto!

(That is, if the police haven’t scaredeveryone away already.)

Heartbreak in Haiti

2010-01-14T12:42:00.000-05:00

Let there be no mistake -- the earthquake which struck Haiti this week is only partially responsible for Port-au-Prince’s massive devastation and the sickening loss of life.

The over-crowded, dangerously-constructed capital, lacking in infrastructure even before the quake, and illustrated poorly by sterile poverty statistics, meant that this natural disaster, like countless hurricanes before it, killed far more than it would have elsewhere.

Haiti has suffered under colonialism and continued to suffer under American occupation early last century. As recently as 2004, it witnessed a US-backed coup which killed thousands and disposed of a democratically-elected and popular president. Since then, the de facto UN-run administration which has governed the country has promoted a murderous neoliberal agenda that has simultaneously ruined the Haitian economy while ensuring, effectively at gunpoint, cheap sweatshop labour for Canadian and American multinationals.

And even more of those guns are on the way. Although the US, Canada, and other world powers have been quick to promise aid and have mobilized their military forces in front of the world’s cameras, the ugly truth is that our politicians, and by extension, all of us, are also responsible for a majority of the deaths in Haiti. It has been our bullets and our policies that have driven poor farmers into cities without infrastructure, building code regulations, security, or jobs. We have made Haitians some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, and they have paid a dramatic price.

The only thing Haiti needs more than disaster relief and more foreign soldiers is the autonomy, democracy, and self-determination long denied to it, and massive reparations for the grievous wrongs inflicted upon it in order to truly begin to rebuild.