Peaceful anti-war rally featuring Vets and press hones in on 'anarchists'.

Reports continue to stream from events held by people excluded from the Group of Twenty (G-20) Summit, a forum of global finance leaders and bankers touted as a chance for leaders of states with high debts under development to have their voices heard because they have been historically excluded from global trade bodies that establish binding agreements - the G-20 is a forum for discussion on the global economy. Bodies that make such agreements would include the World Trade Organization (WTO) for example.

For the past couple of days people have protested and tried persistently to have their excluded voice heard by the leaders gathered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the host city of this year's G-20 Summit.

However, they have been blocked by an excessive security barrier of 4,000 police armed to the teeth with an assortment of pseudo-warfare urban gear and weapons, and the corporate press's dismissal of the issues at hand under the cloud of their fascination with sensational violence, and participation in political conflict.

On the front page of the G-Infinity website, indypgh.org, with Pittsburgh Independent Media Center (indymedia), there is an audio report about a peaceful rally with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) - http://www.ivaw.org/membersspeak/join-us-resisting-g20-pittsburgh - where people spoke out against continued wars by the United States on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Agence France Presse (AFP) reports have been creating a false dichotomy between a group they call, without having actually asked each and every member - technically required considering the imposed label - "anarchists," and every other protest group, police, finance leaders and bankers, corporations, and the world - as well as the community in downtown Pittsburgh.

Thus far there is no real evidence provided that even compares in terms of raw video footage to that which shows that police pretty much incited Thursday's unrest, logically with no help from any popular or networked media that happened to rely on police lapdogs, like AFP in this case, for information about what happened.

The AFP article I noticed that seems to paint a drama of fantastic proportions, though unfortunately one among many thus far, is "Pittsburgh braces for more summit violence" (don't be surprised if the title changes) by Karin Zeitvogel at the following URL:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipqeePU-DbGnrZmH_f49I_7zDLfA

This article quotes demonstrators in a way to specifically to separate the 'anarchists' from the rest of the demonstrators.

"This march will be much better. We have a permit. We confront the policies of the G20, not the police. We're a different kind of protest," the article quotes of the Thomas Merton Center's Peter Shell.

The article only quotes one of the 'anarchists' as stating that they heard and understood police orders, and did not mention whether the person had said anything about the acts of property destruction the article alleges occurred, relying of course on police reports for that information.

The article also, above and beyond illustrating the events as primarily a sensational clash between villains and super-heroes, goes on to place the image of the victims of police brutality, whom they refer to as 'anarchists' who somehow want to disrupt everything and not much else, in the frame of the old adage of agitators and sheep-like followers whose organizing was too weak to beat the A-Team, a rather irresponsible fantasy to conjure for a respected press agency just following a night of police brutality and vandalism, thus public fear.

"Friday's march is expected to attract not only a bigger crowd but also a different one from that which tried to disrupt the G20 on Thursday," the AFP asserts without explaining what exactly gives off that idea.

After all wearing all black and even waiving a black flag doesn't mean you want to disrupt meetings and nothing more. Those who dress in such ways and wave black and red flags always participate in other demonstrations, and not always dressed as "black-clad hardliners wearing goggles, helmets and masks" as AFP implies to be their trademark. The irony is that the phrase 'black-clad hardliners wearing goggles, helmets and masks' also accurately describes the police, and especially with the police who were outsiders in Pittsburgh just for the G-20, the word 'hardliners' doesn't negate the essence applying to police.

There have been indicators, as previous reports reveal, that Pittsburgh police officers are reluctant to use violence and intimidation toward city residents, and generally seem like they don't want to be doing what they're doing.

After comparing coverage of the protests from the corporate press like AFP and the non-profit and activist press like Indymedia the question about which side harnesses the "outside agitators" (quotes for context), and the 'black-clad hardliners' for that matter, arises naturally.

If in fact the rally participants of today's anti-war demonstration are more peaceful and have a different agenda, then by all logic and experience-based judgement, it is a peaceful agenda endorsed as much by 'anarchists' who participated in breathing tear gas and being pummeled with rubber bullets, bean bags, pepper-spray, batons, and having their hearing probably eternally damaged by sound cannons, as it is by all of those groups the AFP article insists are so "different."

Associated Press (AP) is reporting that President Barack ObamaBarack Obama has responded to the fact that there were protests, but mentioned nothing about what was said by the voice of the protesters.

The demonstrations focused on social justice at the city level, the national level, and the global. Protesters called attention to climate change and ecological destruction funded by the major financial institutions that benefit most of all from the insulated G-20 Summit, and they called for an end to the expensive and senseless wars in Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan, and the ongoing presence by foreign troops and businesses fueling sectarian warfare in Iraq. Protesters also called attention to the human rights violations of one of the previously excluded countries, China, against the people of Tibet.

The protesters called attention to the Neo-liberal revanchist policies of urban redevelopment that amount to a hijacking of public space by private companies, and multinational corporations whose interest is little more than quick profit, cheap labor, no rules protecting public health, safety and the environment from their corporate plunders, protection from democracy in terms of barriers to criticism like the security operation in Pittsburgh this week, and more corporate welfare from states that can't honestly be called "democratic."

The President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, is apparently unaware of what any of the protesters were actually saying, if you take AP's word for it.

Have a look at the AP string at the following URL:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5izJGY1GNeNYgNG6q1N0bsXCVfBeAD9AUJMO80

Such attempts to carve out sections of the protest groups to focus fog-of-war negative attention on particular groups are nothing more than spin to divert the public information-consumers from the issues at hand. The question that should be asked of the police is whether or not the romanticism of the corporate media condones and encourages police aggression.

AP stated that President Obama believes the week was calm comparatively, however, reports from the street made available by the press that isn't umbilically attached to the corporate system in question by protests, which would be independent press like Indymedia, Free Speech Radio News, and Democracy Now!, indicate the week was anything but calm and as a result of the drama cloud the issues were buried away from the President's, and much of the public's, attention.

President Obama is not quoted in the AP report of his response to protests, so whether he did or did not actually understand the concerns and significance of the protest events, especially the police aggression over dispersal orders and permit technicalities and little if anything at all else, is not confirmed at this point. The people of the United States may well be expecting more of a response than that, by now, especially considering the role of finance capital in the current economic crisis.