Anti-globalization is what the protesters of the G-8 conference in Genoa, Italy, are concerned about. That’s no secret. I am concerned about it too. Money equals power. The wealthiest corporations in these eight wealthiest countries are making sure their views are being represented heavily in the policy-making, and they are also making sure that the views of the protesters (i.e. the vastly poorer people) are not heard. With the violence that occurred amongst the protesters, the media would have us believe they are a bunch of crazy anarchists hell-bent on smashing stuff. However, there are reports from people who were there (versus the corporate mass media reports that are written so as not to offend their source of profit: advertisers) that the violence has nearly always been incited by a Black Bloc group. This particular group has been observed to pop up in an area of the protest and start smashing store windows and property. When other protesters try to stop them from breaking things (because they know this will obviously incite police violence) the Black Bloc members are violent toward them as well. But after some destruction has been caused, the Black Bloc leaves the area suddenly, and shortly afterward the police arrive and begin committing violence. In other words, the Black Bloc is not a group of actual protesters, but insurgents who are giving the police a reason to be violent and the media a reason to discredit the protest.
Does that sound too far out? Hoover committed such unconstitutional acts of insurgency during the anti-Vietnam/civil rights movement. There is massive documentation of the FBI trying to infiltrate, confuse and destroy those movements. Don’t believe me? Research it for yourself. A very poignant example is when the Chicago police, prompted by the FBI, broke into the home of Fred Hampton, the leader of the Chicago Black Panthers, without a warrant and murdered him with machine guns.
Murder is definitely the word for it, since he was asleep, and we know for a fact he was asleep because the autopsy report revealed that the last meal he ate had been drugged. A more recent example is the WTO protest in Seattle, where again there were reports similar to Genoa of insurgents starting the violence and giving the police a reason (hmmm … I wonder why I never heard that on Disney’s ABC News?).
The government/corporate structure has an almost impeccable history of hiding the truth if it is profitable to them. Globalization is certainly profitable to the rich and decreases worker security for the poor. Just look at what NAFTA has done already.
But getting back to Genoa, the independent media there had a lot of footage of the protests, supposedly including evidence that would expose the phony Black Bloc. However, the night of the gymnasium attack (where University student Morgan Hager had her arm broken by the police) the police first broke into the Independent Media Center across the street. They raided the place and broke all the incriminating tapes before they proceeded across the street to break some human flesh.
This is the basic picture of the G-8 summit that I’ve been able to obtain through independent media sources online. It is, of course, very contrary to the view presented by the mass corporate media. It begs the question: Which one is correct? Of course, no one can answer this for sure unless they were actually there, but we can ask who has more to lose by telling the truth. Keep in mind that in the business of corporate media they are not selling news to audiences, but rather they are selling audiences to advertisers. We, the public, are the product that is manipulated, bought and sold. Discover the truth for yourself. If you want, you can start with www.zmag.org or italy.indymedia.org, two independent media sites.