9/12 and G20: A Comparison

Well, the city of Pittsburgh has officially kicked off the G20 Summit much to the dismay of this blogger. The agenda set for this summit reads like something out of Orwell's 1984. Changes to the world banking system and the ever-present, bogus non-issue of climate change are among the topics set for discussion during this meeting of mushheads.

During the 9/12 patriot march on Washington, nearly two million people from all walks of life came together to protest the growing intrusion into our lives by government. By all accounts, not one arrest was made in connection with the protesters. People were vocal, but respectful.

Police here have made numerous arrests of snarky little anarchists hell-bent on disrupting the summit by any means necessary. They used tear gas on the little socialists when things got ugly.

Yesterday, it was reported here that PNC Bank headquarters had windows broken by those Michael Moore supporters who wish to see the death of capitalism. I'd think it's safe to say that they'll be glad to see the summit end so they don't have to miss the opening weekend of His Royal Fatness' movie.

Ahead of the summit, local television stations showed footage of local businesses who, knowing what to expect, had decided to board up their storefronts and close shop during the summit. These businesses are, for the most part, small businesses who really can't afford to close for one day let alone two. But knowing this crowd, they decided to take the loss.

The West End Bridge was the site of a protest by some climate-change alarmist group (Greenpeace would be my guess). A banner was hung from the side warning of "Climate Destruction Ahead." How nice.

Compare all this crap to what we witnessed on 9/12 in Washington. To the best of my knowledge, there was no fear by business owners of having their storefronts defaced. Did the DC mayor have to ask for 4,000 federal troops to help local law enforcement? Well, The Boy Mayor here (Ravenstahl is 29.) did so in anticipation of protests and riots. Why? I thought this was the peace-loving crowd the left is always touting themselves as.

After the summit ends today, traffic will return to its normal nightmare, and businesses will once again open their doors to customers. The tent cities erected in various sections of the city will come down, and the city will once again return to its former state of routine chaos. World leaders will return to their countries, and the media spin machine will start the task of assuring us that any egregious policies that have come out of this are for our own good.

I'm going to be watching for any word on the clean-up efforts when everyone goes home. We saw a stark contrast between the inauguration crowd and the 9/12 marchers.

I hope the city of Pittsburgh has alloted for extra manpower to help clean up. They should've started on Wednesday by removing the trash staying in tents.