Genoa G8 Unveiled

PM Berlusconi revealed in the closing press conference his government's mind set: "... there was no distinction made between the Black Bloc or the Genova Social Forum." Many events are too curious and point to difficult times ahead for the Italian nation. Helicopter films showed a truck distributing baseball bats and other objects to protestors. A raid late on Saturday evening allowed police forces to capture the culprits and various objects of violence. But that was not enough. Police forces raided - in the middle of the night - a school, which the city of Genova provided as a dormitory facility, and the press and legal offices of the Genova Social Forum. 86 persons were hospitalized - including many women. Computers, including those of the legal offices of the Genova Social Forum, were destroyed. Incompetence? Or willful actions? Police forces, in justifying their actions, apparently confiscated dozens of handknives and 2 Molotov cocktails. Pray tell, why would any demonstrators stockpile a ready-to-use Molotov cocktail, given the danger of having something like that lying around and when the demonstrations were over? Maybe the demonstrators were incompetent. The worst bit. It is documented in video (and now admitted by the government) that the police had agents disguised as black bloc protestors. Additionally, it is also documented by various individuals, including a reputable journalist, that black bloc forces curiously were present before the arrival of peaceful demonstrators, the police forces did not intervene, and when the peaceful demonstrators arrived, the black bloc forces went on their rampages. This leaves but one of three options in terms of responsability: the infiltrators were incompetent and did a terrible job of infiltrating; the infiltrators knew where the groups were - the resulting behaviour of not taking action is a deliberate attempt in trying to discredit the peaceful demonstrators; or, the infiltrators were actually agents provocateurs who pushed the masked kids to the right places and incited them into violent acts. Some observers, whose intentions can be questionned, state having seen such events take place. A respected 92 year-old journalist, Indro Montanelli, died late on Sunday. In one of his last interviews, his answer to the question 'What events of the past century you wish never occured?' was: "All those events which have shamed Italy" His departure is a poetic conclusion. Discuss

Dying in Genoa

Dave Winer asked on Friday, July 20:"I was shocked to see the photo of the dead protestor in Genoa. What cause did he die for? I don't know." The best answer is that of the father of the deceased. Although the boy had deserted his family home and lived squat-mode with a local group of punks, his father, in an interview, said that "He was a good boy. He was very sensitive to injustice and wanted to fight against that." Although it may be said with relative certainty that the boy was part of a group with very active male hormones and probably getting a high off of violence and gratuitous destruction, one cannot ignore and not listen. The cause may not always be clearly articulated, but something is there and must be examined. It comes as a surprise to me that Dave Winer does not see the cause. The cause is, amongst others, the injustices drawn from a system that gives patent and copyright protection for periods of time that are unreasonable. Resulting in situations like Pfizer having recouped all research and production investments for one of the AIDS tri-therapy drugs in 6 months - leaving them another 19.5 years of gouging while African nations cannot afford the drug and see their populations hardly hit. The cause is, similarly, in refusing to have the human genetic code turned into an intellectual copyright court-battle. The cause is refusing to have our foods radically modified in such a way that the pharmaceuticals control every element of the food chain and garnish protected transactions fees along the way. It is all about the power of the rich to get richer (have a listen to Midnight Oil's 'Read About It'). The cause is to highlight the hypocrisy. The leaders defend globalization and liberal economics. Yet they defend (and extend) the unbalanced monopolisitic mechanisms of patents and copyrights...The special funds to combat AIDS (and other diseases) are a drop in the bucket, paid by taxpayers, while maintaining an imbalanced mechanism. The promise of cancelling the debt had been made before, but not honoured. Intriguingly, the death may have sent a shock wave. Maybe the leaders will opens their ears a tad more. The boy's name is Carlo Giuliani. Discuss

Genova G8: An Exercise in Disinformation

Truly enlightening to follow the media and the information feeds around the Genoa G8. Most media were estimating the Black Bloc violent protestors at anywhere between 400 and 700. Somehow, 24 hours later CNN.com floated the figure of 5,000 protestors. The difference is an order of magnitude; too much to be a simple estimation error on the initial figures. Interestingly enough, on Sunday evening, Rete4 - TV network owned by PM Berlusconi, had an interview with a resident of Genoa which quoted that exact same figure. The editor-in-chief of that same network, when interviewed late on Sunday about the undecover agents' role entirely skirted the issue. The reporting on PM Berlusconi's TV networks was decisively pro-government, anti-protestors and confusing violent protestors with the peaceful ones. One wonders how the ratings will move. Discuss