Canadian G20’s Shock and Awe, a preemptive act for ending the Welfare State (I)

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A background

Following the initial $700 billion bailout of the financial system in US in October 2008, Phoenix Business Journal wrote on December 17 of that year “the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.”

The two, both the bailout package and the military preparation to confront civil unrest, were introduced at the very same time to the US legislators, “U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.”

Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor said in an interview with NBC in early 2009 “There’s going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots!”.

2 folded violence

Perhaps, there are many definitions to what violence is. If we however limit ourselves to the following two, taken from an online dictionary, violence means a) Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing and b) Abusive or unjust exercise of power. These two definitions combined can now help us to make a sense of the two folded violence. That is, the unjust exercise of power such as $700 billion bailout package which leads to more poverty, death and destruction must be accompanied with physical violence, the US armed forces in this case.

G20 in Toronto

Toronto Star tells us on May 24, that in a letter from previous week to leaders of the G20 members Stephen Harper wrote: “We must quickly turn our attention to the next major issue facing our countries and the G20 as a whole, that is, the issue of restoring our public finances, or, as many economists put it, implementing fiscal consolidation.” “Fiscal consolidation is a euphemism for austerity — major cutbacks in government spending or increases in taxes, or both.“, adds Toronto Star. On May 26, we learned that Harper is spending over $1 billion for the security of the G20 while CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, had confirmed that were no credible terrorist attack (Naomi Klein, June 28, rally speech).

While “steady” flow of austerity plans have poured into Canadian society as the consistent policy of neo-conservative government of Harper, Canadian streets never saw a riot for which the anticipation of a “big fat riot” might have been justified. To that effect, we can mention that police had never used tear gas in Toronto before in its confrontation with public, even in the latst major confrontation with public on June 15, 2000.

What exactly Harper government had in mind for assigning such a gigantic amount of money for the security?

We wouldn’t know for sure up until Monday, June 28, 2010, a day after the meeting: “In a measured victory for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the leaders’ declaration acknowledges a proposal by Canada to cut national deficits in half by 2013 and stabilize or reduce their debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016.”, Global News. Considering that Stephen Harper was a leading role that “convinced his fellow leaders that it simply wouldn’t be fair to punish those banks that behaved well and did not create the crisis” Harper knew where the cut need to come from, “major cut backs on government spending”, that is, austerity plans.

The mere announcement of the $1.2 billion cost of G20 Summit created a great sense of dismay among people in Canada. Despite what was tried to be displayed as “erupted violence”‘ during the weekend of the meeting and hence a justification for the cost, 67% of Canadians are still unhappy about the money dedicated to the ‘security of G20′, as per a Globe and Mail poll.

Shock and Awe

The Canadian shock and awe script has two items a) the upcoming unprecedented austerity plans b) suppression of resistance. Logically, and chronologically, the suppression would occur after the attempts for implementation of austerity plans. However, Harper government used G20 Summit as an occasion to ‘test the waters’. It acted preemptively in order to measure the possible future resistance.

It was also a ‘perfect’ occasion used as a pretext for a whopping $1 billion dedication on the upgrade of the armed forces for future suppression of public resistance. If the events were happening in its ‘natural course’, eg austerity attempts first and suppression next, we wouldn’t probably feel a shock. However, the precedence of suppression displayed itself in form of Shock And Awe.

The areas that the police brutality was displayed were 1) On the street 2) Detention center 3) Media targeting in an attempt for undermining the freedom of speech

To be Continued