By David Sheen
At this very moment, the most important political leaders in the world are intersecting in Toronto, the financial capital of Canada, for the G8 & G20 summits. There, they will meet to discuss strategies for steering the planet towards more prosperity for all of her inhabitants. They will publicly present ideas about ecologically and socially sustainable economic systems, and how they might be implemented. And they’ll be treated to the best that Toronto has to offer.
These people, the most important political leaders in the world — radical activists fighting for health, equality, and freedom for all of our relations — will unfortunately be joined by the political puppets most responsible for implementing the repressive rules that are making the world worse: the richest presidents and prime ministers. Our generation’s best and brightest will also be received with between one and two BILLION DOLLARS (U.S.) worth of weaponry, turning Toronto into an Alcatraz. And by the weekend, maybe even Attica.
These are really weird times to be an anti-authoritarian activist in the world. One one hand, empire is making plain its most evil intentions, making less and less effort to window-dress this prison planet. So it’s becoming easier and easier to wake people up to the full extent of the fascism. On the other hand, the corporate state is beginning to criminalize even the most non-violent grass-roots efforts to divest from the sinking ship called capitalism. So simply alerting others to existence of resistance movements is now an imprisonable offense. Even fundamental free speech is once again a front line.
I grew up in Toronto and spent most of my life there, so I know a lot of back alleys and secret niches. I really wish that I could be there on the city streets, playing life-size Mousetrap with the Canadian Bacon. But I’m currently living over five thousand miles from my old stomping grounds, researching and developing some of those socially and ecologically sustainable economic systems we desperately need. You can’t dance at every non-hierarchical hand-fasting, I suppose. So from half a world away, I salute all of the beautiful brave hearts mobilizing in occupied Toronto / Turtle Island.
