G20 in Pittsburgh

[Ed Jewett]

History:

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Region: Pittsburgh Region

County Location: Allegheny

http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=652

[Ed Jewett]

Time to Change Bernanke's Medication?

Secret White House letter to G-20

By Greg Palast

September 23, 2009 "Huffington Post"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-palas...94262.html

I still get a thrill whenever I get my hands on a confidential memo with "The White House, Washington" on the letterhead. Even when--like the one I'm looking at now--it's about a snoozy topic: This week's G-20 summit.

But the letter's content shook me awake and may keep me up the rest of the night.

The 6-page letter from the White House, dated September 3, was sent to the 20 heads of state that will meet this Thursday in Pittsburgh. After some initial diplo-blather, our President's "sherpa" for the summit, Michael Froman, does a little victory dance, announcing that the recession has been defeated. "Global equity markets have risen 35 percent since the end of March," writes Froman. In other words, the stock market is up and all's well.

While acknowledging that this year's economy has gone to hell in a handbag, Obama's aide and ambassador to the G-20 seems to be parroting the irrational exuberance of Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke who declared last week that, "The recession is very likely over." All that was missing from Bernanke's statement was a banner, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

And the French are furious. The White House letter to the G-20 leaders was a response to a confidential diplomatic missive from the chief of the European Union Fredrik Reinfeldt written a day earlier to "Monsieur le Président" Obama.

We have Reinfeldt's confidential note as well. In it, the EU president says, despite Bernanke's happy-talk, "la crise n'est pas terminée (the crisis is not over) and (continuing in translation) the labor market will continue to suffer the consequences of weak use of capacity and production in the coming months." This is diplomatic speak for, What the hell is Bernanke smoking?

May I remind you Monsieur le Président, that last month 216,000 Americans lost their jobs, bringing the total lost since your inauguration to about seven million? And rising.

The Wall Street Journal also has a copy of the White House letter, though they haven't released it. (I have: read it here [ http://www.gregpalast.com/PDF/europeanco...letter.pdf ], with the EU message [ http://www.gregpalast.com/PDF/europeanco...sponse.pdf ] and our translation [ http://www.gregpalast.com/PDF/europeanco...nse_en.pdf ].) The Journal spins the leak as the White House would want it: "Big Changes to Global Economic Policy" to produce "lasting growth." Obama takes charge! What's missing in the Journal report is that Obama's plan subtly but significantly throttles back European demands to tighten finance industry regulation and, most important, deflects the EU's concern about fighting unemployment.

Europe's leaders are scared witless that the Obama Administration will prematurely turn off the fiscal and monetary stimulus. Europe demands that the US continue pumping the economy under an internationally coordinated worldwide save-our-butts program.

As the EU's Reinfeldt's puts it in his plea to the White House, "It is essential that the Heads of State and Government, at this summit, continue to implement the economic policy measures they have adopted," and not act unilaterally. "Exit strategies [must] be implemented in a coordinated manner." Translating from the diplomatique: If you in the USA turn off fiscal and monetary stimulus now, on your own, Europe and the planet sinks, America with it.

Obama's ambassador says, Non! Instead, he writes that each nation should be allowed to "unwind" anti-recession efforts "at a pace appropriate to the circumstances of each economy." In other words, "Europe, you're on your own!" So much for Obama channeling FDR.

The technical policy conflict between the Obama and EU plans reflects a deep difference in the answer to a crucial question: Whose recession is it, anyway? To Obama and Bernanke, this is a bankers' recession and so, as "stresses in financial markets have abated significantly," to use the words of the White House epistle, then "Happy Days Are Here Again." But, if this recession is about workers the world over losing their jobs and life savings, the EU view, then it's still "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime."

If Bernanke and Obama were truly concerned about preserving jobs, they would have required banks loaded with taxpayer bail-out loot to lend these funds to consumers and business. China did so, ordering its banks to increase credit. And boy, did they, expanding credit by an eye-popping 30%, rocketing China's economy out of recession and into double-digit growth.

But the Obama Administration has gone the opposite way. The White House letter to the G-20 calls for slowly increasing bank reserves, and that can only cause a tight credit market to tighten further.

It's not that the White House completely ignores job losses. The US letter suggests, "The G-20 should commit to ... income support for the unemployed." You can imagine the Europeans, who already have generous unemployment benefits--most without time limits--turning purple over that one. America's stingy unemployment compensation extension under the Stimulus Plan is already beginning to expire with no live proposal to continue aid for the jobless victims of this recession.

The Europeans are so cute when they're angry, when they pound their little fists. Obama assumes he can ignore them. The EU, once the big player in the G-7, has seen its members' status diluted into the G-20, where the BRIC powers (Brazil, Russia, India and China) now flex their muscles. But Europeans have a thing or two to teach Americans about the economics of the twilight of empire.

Maybe the differences are cultural, not economic; that Europeans lack America's Manifest Destiny can-do optimism.

So, to give the visitors a taste of the yes-we-can spirit, Obama should invite Pittsburgh's 93,700 jobless to the G-20 meet to celebrate that 35% rise in the stock market.

Or -- my own suggestion -- change Bernanke's medication.

Greg Palast is the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Palast wrote the column, "Inside Corporate America" for the business section of Britain's Observer newspaper.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e23564.htm

[Ed Jewett]

2,500 Pennsylvania National Guardsmen Deployed for G-20 Security

September 23rd, 2009 Via: Lebanon Daily News:
More than 2,500 Pennsylvania National Guardsmen – including several from Lebanon County – are in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit, set to take place Thursday and Friday.
During the mission, dubbed Operation Steel Kickoff, the Guardsmen will fall under the direction of the U.S. Secret Service and will support local, state and federal agencies. Guard members will serve as a regional response force, augment law-enforcement personnel, provide crowd and traffic control, and help with security.
“Everybody is excited and honored to participate in such a global event,” said Lt. Col. Dale Waltman of Cornwall.
Waltman, who works full-time at Fort Indiantown Gap, is the commander of 1st Battalion, 107th Field Artillery Regiment from New Castle, Lawrence County. For the G-20 Summit, he is commander of Task Force Security, comprising more than 600 Pennsylvania National Guardsmen.
Waltman arrived in New Castle on Sept. 16 to begin assembling the task force, then moved into Pittsburgh on Sunday. Since then, the soldiers and airmen of the task force have been training on a variety of different tasks, he said.
“We just reviewed some basic communication skills, and we worked on some specific equipment skills so everybody has that common knowledge,” he said.
The Guardsmen have also completed civil-disturbance and crowd-control training in anticipation of the thousands of protesters who are expected for the summit.
“We’re not anticipating that nothing is going to happen,” Waltman said. “We’ve been briefed on the possibility that there will be some protesters coming into the city, but they haven’t given us a specific number.”
Also in Pittsburgh for the summit are several members of the Fort Indiantown Gap public-affairs office. Capt. Jay Ostrich of Cornwall said the public-affairs specialists’ primary mission is to do news features on the Guardsmen taking part in the mission.
“Basically what we’re doing is helping to tell the Guard story here,” he said.
Ostrich said the public-affairs specialists could also be called to help with crowd control if needed. If that were to happen, he said, he is confident they would be able to meet any contingency.
“We’ve been side by side with the soldiers as they did their training,” Ostrich said. “We’re well prepared to defend ourselves as well, but hopefully the need doesn’t arise.”
The G-20 is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 of the world’s largest national economies, plus the European Union.
This week’s summit was originally planned for New York City but was changed to Pittsburgh in May. Pittsburgh was selected by the Obama administration to highlight the city’s economic recovery after the collapse of its manufacturing sector in the latter half of the 20th century.
“Our soldiers and airmen supporting the G-20 Summit demonstrate the relevance, value and accessibility of the Pennsylvania National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Jessica L. Wright, commander of the Pennsylvania National Guard, said in a news release. “When our communities, commonwealth and country need us, we are always there.”

[Ed Jewett]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjJzlIedCuo [/FONT]
Mark Knopfler, Telegraph Road,
live at the Royal Albert Hall, 30th May 2005.
Great video, amazing audio!

A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a pack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness
He built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travelers came riding down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back
Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road

Then came the mines - then came the ore
Then there was the hard times then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph road got so deep and so wide
Like a rolling river. . .

And my radio says tonight its gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
There’s six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow. . .

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I got a right to go to work but there’s no work here to be found
Yes and they say were gonna have to pay what’s owed
Were gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed
And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the telegraph road

You know I'd sooner forget but I remember those nights
When life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care
But believe in me baby and I’ll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
’cause I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t want to see it again. . .
from all of these signs saying sorry but were closed
All the way down the telegraph road

[Ed Jewett]

G20 coverage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqdQj098l4&fmt=18

http://www.prisonplanet.com/military-att...t-g20.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE58N5WA20090924

[Ed Jewett]

Allegheny County Pennsylvania - Live Audio Feeds



Via: Radio Reference:
Pittsburgh City Fire and G-20 Police Operations:
(includes Fire for the following areas North and South: (Boroughs, Ross, McCandless, Stowe, Kennedy, Bridgeville, Greentree, MtLebanon, Baldwin, Whitehall and Pittsburgh International Airport
—
Pittsburgh Police / G-20 event communications
Status: ** G20 EVENTS – CITY OF PITTSBURGH AND TACTICAL CHANNELS ONLY **


http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?ctid=2242

[Ed Jewett]

'We have seen police use rubber bullets, batons and gas.' Police embroiled in violent battles with G20 protesters --Reports: Rubber bullets used 24 Sep 2009 Anti-G20 protesters rampaged through the city centre of Pittsburgh tonight, smashing up shops and throwing rocks at police, as officers used tear gas and baton-charges in an attempt to bring them under control. In riots which continued through the middle of the evening rush hour, about 300 protesters were reported to have remained from an initial crowd of 2,000 in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh’s Little Italy.



G-20 opponents, police clash on Pittsburgh streets 24 Sep 2009 Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins and throwing rocks. The afternoon march turned chaotic at just about the time that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world's major economies.

[Ed Jewett]

10:45 YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akwjAjcQnqM
(Luke Rudowski, WeAreChange)

Additional coverage and discussion here:
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/vi...sc&start=0

[Ed Jewett]

JOURNAL: Protest as National Security Threat

CNN video: Sonic weapons used against a small group of protestors in Pittsburgh G20
In general, governments worldwide are losing control over all of the classical forms of national power from borders to finances to communication to media to economic activity to security to trade flows (of all types). The upshot of this accelerating weakness is a tendency to view any and all forms of public protest as a security threat. To counter this perceived threat, an ever increasing number of countries have opted to

• militarize their police forces (from the 5 fold increase in US SWAT teams over the past decade to China's new million man paramilitary force),
  
• establish rules to neuter expression of dissent (i.e. establishment of "free speech zones" etc.),
  
• and the immediate/early application non-lethal weapons (sonic weapons, tasers, tear gas, etc.) to disperse crowds.
  

This effort will almost undoubtedly generate unintended consequences (we can already see protest groups learning to counter this by using flash mob mobility via cell phones).


Posted by John Robb on Friday, 25 September 2009 at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Global Guerrillas

Networked tribes, systems disruption, and the emerging bazaar of violence. Resilient Communities, decentralized platforms, and self-organizing futures. By John Robb

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ed - thanks. Most informative video - if of course one ignores the MSM psychobabble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzJD5Psy5o0

The metallic police tannoy voice at the beginning, their armour, and the urban setting, make it seem like a scene out of Robocop.

Sonic weapons? Yup. Technically - non lethal weaponry...