[p2p-research] Fwd: People's Summit

[Michel Bauwens]

Activists gather in Pittsburgh before G-20 summit

JOE MANDAK

The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - Liberal, progressive and socialist activists, along with
community leaders, began gathering in Pittsburgh on Saturday for a People's
Summit ahead of next week's Group of 20 world economic summit.

The daylong gathering Saturday included speeches and workshops on topics as
diverse as universal health care and an end to war.

Democratic state Sen. Jim Ferlo, of Pittsburgh, one of the summit's
sponsors, railed against globalization, what activists call the myth of free
market economics, and promoted health care as a "basic human civil right."

"I want to unite people in peaceful speech and peaceful discussion. I
encourage each one of you to take to the streets this week," Ferlo said,
referring to mass protests expected during the G-20 summit.

The speakers at the rally were diverse internationally, if not
philosophically. They included Walden Bello, an antiglobalist professor at
the University of the Philippines and representative in that country's
Congress; James Quilligan, economic adviser to former President Jimmy
Carter, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and former French
President Francois Mitterand; and Anna Pinto, program director of the Center
for Organization, Research and Education in northeast India.

Generally, the speakers believe the G-20 controls the global economy on
behalf of banks and transnational corporations, at the expense of most
citizens.

"The G-20 as a mechanism to save globalization is doomed to fail," Bello
said.

The G-20 leaders head nations that control about 85 percent of the world's
money and are meeting to discuss initiatives they took to respond to the
world economic crisis at their last meeting in London in April. The G-20 is
made up of 19 member countries; the 20th member is the European Union, which
rotates the council presidency. The G-20 was started in 1999.

The speakers criticized media coverage of the summit as focusing too much
too much on the potential threat of violence by protesters and not enough on
the economic harm they say the G-20 causes.

Quilligan mocked security preparations, including plans for more than 3,000
police officers downtown, as the "biggest mobilization of security in
Pittsburgh history since the French and Indian War."

"The myth of the G-20 is that it is representing developing countries,"
Quilligan said.

Robert A. Enholm, executive vice president of Washington, D.C.-based
Citizens for Global Solutions, said the G-20's existence proves the United
Nations is failing to adequately address the interrelated concerns of the
activists: energy, environment, employment and the economy.

"A G-20 is, in some respects, a statement of failure," Enholm said. "Isn't
that a statement about the failure of the U.N.?"

Ashley Smith, of Burlington, Vt., attended the People's Summit and plans to
speak at the Peoples' March to the G-20, a protest scheduled for Friday. An
organizer for the International Socialist Organization, Smith was selling
books and publications, including Karl Marx's "Capital" and the Socialist
Worker newspaper.

He said many activists, though heartened by the election of Barack Obama as
the nation's first black president, want to express their disappointed with
his policies to date during the G-20 protests.

"He was elected with this huge expectation of change and this mandate of
change and, so far, Obama has been delivering mainly to the corporate
elites," Smith said. "It's been about helping Wall Street instead of Main
Street."

The gathering in Pittsburgh's Oakland section, near the University of
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and Carlow University, is scheduled
to resume Monday and Tuesday evenings.







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