G20

College students had a protest against the G20 meeting. The 20 most powerful people in the world met in Pitsburgh, and these 20 people alone control up to 80 percent of of the worlds economy. These protesters were college students, just like our class. The police used less lethal force in order to prevent a riot, and to control the crowd. Yes they there were probably some students who were disruptive and wild, yet the police were using extreme measures. Remember, these were college students, yet the police were treating them as criminals. The scary thing is that the police were using riot control tactics that they use on terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is very possible that more techniques perfected in Iraq could be used in the United States. The G20 will have to meet in New York soon, and it is very possible that we will be a part of the type of situation that happened in Pittsburgh.

The news and live video clips were very different. The news classified the college students as anarchists, not as students walking home from school. The news sugar coated the situation, and made it seem like the police were just doing their job to prevent a protest from turning into a full scale riot. However, the video clip showed that the police were telling the students to disperse, yet were surrounding them on all sides. The students truly were the victims. They were trying to go home, yet had nowhere to go. The video showed a woman getting hit by a policeman, showing the true brutality of the situation. There was a huge difference between the news and the video clips.

I find it very strange that this event happened in September, yet I am just hearing about it now. I feel that the news does not want the people to think their freedom of speech is not there. During the presentation in room 230, the lawyer had an effect on me. He was a really smart guy, who was talking about a similar incident. The government tried to convict people of crimes who could not disperse, yet this man got 90 percent of them off the hook. It is ridiculous how the government could try to convict people of a crime, if they were just walking on the street. The government also tried to convict a man who posted something on twitter about the situation. There are worse things in the world going on than a person writing something on twitter. These are some lessons I obtained from the G20 incident.