Image by sarihuella via Flickr
by DAWN PALEY
As the G-20 summit winds down behind the fences surrounding fortress Toronto, there are at least 560 folks in jail, and anyone left out on the streets is facing detentions, beatings, searches and arrests.
This is the context in which the Group of 20 gathered to write the Toronto Summit Declaration, a 27 page document released earlier this evening. An early critical reading of this text makes it evident that those who have taken great risk to mobilize against the G20 have done so on behalf of the health of communities, and the planet.
Because though the Toronto Declaration begins with a populist appeal to sustainability, job creation and financial regulation, it enshrines a commitment to force the poor and working class around the world to tighten their belts yet again as states implement strict new austerity programmes.
The Declaration proposes an ambitious new structural adjustment agenda, designed by the IMF and the World Bank, that aims to halve first world deficits by 2013.
Shoring up financial sector abuse of public funds is likely one of the most pressing concerns of publics, who have been denouncing the bank bail out all around the world. But the language in the Toronto Declaration does little to guarantee meaningful public oversight of the financial sector.
The Declaration welcomes the recently passed US Financial Reform Bill, which according to Newsweek "effectively annoints the existing banking elite," without putting a cap on executive compensation. Nor does the bill crack down on the banks that are supposedly "too big to fail," including J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.
G-20 Nations: Race to the Bottom will Continue
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