2009-04-14

Report back on the G20 Summit in Washington D.C.

On November 15th the leaders of the of the 20 most powerful economies met in Washington D.C. for the “G-20 Leaders Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy.” Responding to the financial crisis.

A variety of organizations in D.C. assembled under the name Global Justice Action organized a three-day weekend of events across in and out of the streets. This weekend U.S. organizers a chance to organize against a world financial summit during at historic moment—not when world economic leaders are calmly a new trade deals, but when they are scrambling to deal with a major crisis in the world economy. The organizers worked under a serious time crunch, saying “No” to a reformed global financial system as people around the world called for ‘the crisis be paid for by the richest’ (2).

Given the current low energy of the anti-globalization movement—the global movement for economic justice that dramatically shut down financial meetings such as the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle—stopping the meetings was never a possibility The organizers put a lot of energy into a counter-summit, allowing mostly DC-based organizations to discuss the crisis and strategize on how movements can fight crises already making themselves visible in the U.S.

Friday

On Friday November 14th was the launch of SDS’s first national campaign: Student Power For Accessible Education. This national day of action called by SDS against the student debt crisis saw protests across the country. In Philadelphia SDS held a demonstration at the office of the Department of Education (DoE), where fifty or so students from Philadelphia area universities and high schools presented a giant report card to the Department of Education and awarded it failing grades for undemocratic, unaffordable, and inaccessible education. Philly SDS delivered hundreds of “Bail me out” requests to the DoE’s office, allowing local students the opportunity to put in writing exactly how much federal money they would need to achieve a proper education (3). In DC, members of DC-SDS and other local schools similarly converged on the national DoE, this time marching around a school edifice chanting, “Education is a right, not a privilege!” and delivering aid requests to the guard at the door (4).

In Philly, several students walking home from school joined the demonstration because it looked like “the most fun [we’ve] had in a long time,” and in DC, several student activists who had not previously worked with SDS helped lead the group with student power chants they’d used on their own campus. Evidently, student debt and accessible education are tangible issues with the potential to mobilize a broad youth base for democratic change in our schools and communities.

That evening, as the wealthy G-20 attendees visited their exclusive, ritzy galas and dinners. Organizers with DC Food Not Bombs held a People’s Banquet in Lafayette Park, directly across from the White House. Unfortunately, the coppers deliberately cleared most of the homeless residents out of the park an hour before the scheduled food sharing, leaving many hungry and distressed. Regardless, the event received some press coverage in the Washington Post and other news outlets. On the whole, the banquet was a perfect kick-off for a weekend discussing and celebrating alternatives to capitalism.

Saturday: Morning Rally

150-200 people rallied in front of the World Bank Offices listen to radical cheers and impassioned speakers critiquing the G20 and the world financial systems. After about an hour, a march began, accompanied by a superb brass band.

Saturday: People’s Forum

The march moved into the Luther Place Church for the People’s Forum, which turned out to be the highlight of the weekend. The 6 hour session opened with explanations of the financial crisis, including educational theatre by the ACT Collective (5). From there we moved into simultaneous ‘break-out’ sessions, where we discussed various facets of the summit and the international financial crises, the fuel crisis, and the housing crisis). The housing crisis session gave a great overview of the crises of affordable housing and homelessness in D.C. and offered insight into people’s organizing around these issues, including chronicles of homeless-lead efforts to fight shelter closures.

The highlight of the People’s Forum was the Global Justice Discussion session, where we discussed the state of global capitalism, the nature of money, and how pro-people social movements can propose alternatives. Here the organizer’s forethought made itself clear, as people were invited not only to ask questions, but to sit on the panel of ‘experts’ and express their opinions. As people cycled on and off the panel, one started to get the very real sense that there was a ‘we’: a mass of plans and experiences and disagreements coming together against something, and for many things.

Saturday: Night march

There were dual calls for a rowdy SDS march and a Black Bloc (a group of militant protestors that dress in black to conceal their identity as they confront the police and destroy property) meeting in Dupont Circle at 11:55 p.m. that Saturday. By 10:55 p.m. 13 police vehicles had parked in Dupont Circle with their lights flashing. Protesters reconvened and marched through a residential area close to some embassies , blocking traffic and making noise. This small group of protesters was eventually forced to disband by the police. There was no reported property damage.

Conclusions?

U.S. radicals love endlessly critiquing major mobilizations while going to them anyway; this author is no different. Due to the rushed nature of the G20 summit itself, this never had time to develop into a major mobilization. Given that, it was however, a critical meeting at a critical time and it’s important as a movement that we can be self critical in the most constructive way.

As we mentioned before, the People’s Forum on Saturday afternoon was superbly planned and organized, moving beyond the passive or irrelevant speaker/workshop models to something that gets us analyzing, networking, and planning like an anti-capitalist movement should. There was a very real understanding that this crisis in the credit markets is already becoming a crisis of basic needs.

While the confrontational protests of Saturday night were poorly planned and out of place, the experience was valuable if not strategic. If we are seriously facing food, fuel, and economic crises, people are going to riot. From Nigeria to Venezuela to Argentina, the results of previous financial crises have been similar. This rioting sometimes translates into generalized social uprisings that alter a country’s political course.

No doubt we’ll see same the thing in the massively indebted, de-industrialized, auto-centric US urban economies as long-term fundamentals around food and fuel production mix with the inevitable fall of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Living standards will tumble as public services—other than the police will be cut. Potentially, groups of politicized, experienced hoodlums could be valuable as people seek by their own material survival by any means necessary. In the U.S., unlike many other countries, street protests have never brought down presidents and there are no annual riots in celebration of popular resistance, so we need all the practice we can get. It’s doubtful isolated counter-summit actions are that place; perhaps we should look to some recent (differently) political and non-political street situations, such as Day 1 of this summer’s RNC protests in St Paul, the Phillies World Series riots, and the Obama win. Most importantly, all of these events had the numbers for interesting situations to develop.

Notes:

(1) The original 1944 Bretton Woods meetings established the relatively regulated and stable (under U.S. economic and military hegemony) post-World War II economic order.

(2) Read a report-back at: http://www.17-s.info/ca/15n-explica-com-ha-anat-la-concentracio-cuenta-como-ha-ido-la-concentracion-explain-about-assemblies

(3) See pictures at: http://phillysds.org

(4)See video at: http://tinyurl.com/dcsdsdoe

(5) http://actcollective.blogspot.com

Source: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090413120109620