This one looks ripe for a false flag.Could the Nato and G8 summits scheduled for May put Chicago at the crossroads of the next global uprising of the 99 percent?
February 19, 2012
Chicago’s G8/NATO organizing committee has landed on a slogan for the city as it hosts the twin summits this May: “The Global Crossroads.” This is certainly an appropriate moniker for a town built by immigrants, with its neighborhoods still bearing the names of the ethnic enclaves they once were: Ukranian Village, Greektown, Little Italy and Andersonville, to name a few. Recognizing the inherently global character of the Metropolis of the Midwest would be honorable, if that is what the organizers intended. However, when they say “global,” they are invoking the 1 percent sense of the word, as Don Welsh of the city’s Convention and Tourism Bureau makes clear: “To penetrate international markets takes time and money, and this is going to help us showcase to the international markets in a quick way.” It is the global markets that will cross paths as the world’s political and financial elite sets its agenda behind closed doors at McCormick Place.
Meanwhile, on the outside, there will be thousands of protesters expressing their dissent with the flagrant militarism and economic exploitation inherent to this agenda. Protest organizers in Chicago are busily coordinating with community groups, labor unions, and occupiers everywhere to plan what figures to be a riveting display of resistance. What’s more, the Canadian culture-jamming magazine Adbusters, which put out the call for Occupy Wall Street last year, has issued a similar “tactical briefing” regarding NATO/G8:
Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.
And so will we.
Commentators have spent months speculating about the potential for a resurgent movement this spring. Will Occupy simply dissipate like so many movements before, or will it regain the headlines? The hosting of NATO/G8 in one the country’s preeminent cities certainly seems to provide occasion for a re-emergent movement. Meanwhile, there are a number of other factors pointing to momentous actions around these events. Here are four signs that the American Spring is coming to Chicago.
http://www.alternet.org/story/154089/4_signs_the_american_spring_may_be_coming_to_chicago?page=entire