"At the G-20, Dreams stay with you, Like a lover's voice, Fires the mountainsiiide.."

(I haven't been able to get this out of my head for like two months.)

We had some real think-pieces in this weekend's P-G about the upcoming jubilee.

The American global agenda in the triumphant capitalist expansion that followed the disintegration of the Soviet empire proved to be disastrous for the American working class, as well as for workers and the environment around the world. Free trade, privatization and deregulation pursued with varying degrees of ardor by both Republicans and Democrats over the past 30 years has concentrated wealth and increased the poverty of the majority of humanity by undermining local, traditional and indigenous economies -- all while polluting and degrading the natural world at an extremely dangerous pace. God knows there are reasons enough to protest. (P-G, Charles McCollester)

Fair enough.

The best way to marginalize the forces of violence is to accommodate the labor, anti-war and environmental voices that seek to be heard. (P-G, ibid)

Labor, anti-war and environmental. Labor, anti-war and environmental. Are we missing or excluding anybody here? How about the socialists? How about the anarchists? How about women, or Buddhists, or farmers? Should demonstrators such as these be less attentively accommodated, and if so, is that because we are saying they are likely upon accommodation to somehow un-marginalize violence?

The United States needs a crash economic program to manufacture and construct magnetic-levitation vehicles, rail and mass-transit systems to provide a realistic alternative to the highway. (P-G, ibid)

Way to take one for the team, Charlie!

##

Stop me if you've hard this one:

Pittsburgh was chosen by President Barack Obama because, unlike Cleveland or Detroit, it has adapted and allowed new industries, such as health care, higher education and high technology, to thrive. For a few days in September, Pittsburgh will have the opportunity to recast itself in the eyes of the world. (P-G, David Francis)

Most of this piece boils down to a plea from a journalist to be nice to journalists. Well, let me say as a blogger -- yeah, we're "influential" or something. You should show us a good time.

Most foreign dignitaries who attend the summit will focus on the important issues facing the G-20. They will care much more about coming to agreement on ways to keep the world economy moving forward and whether bankers' bonuses should be curbed. (ibid)

"Ways to keep the world economy moving forward." Meaning A) it is now moving forward for sure, and B) "forward" is really all you need to know about it. Such a gentle construction! And as far as "bankers' bonuses" go -- I'm telling you that's a smokescreen. All yappity-yap for the cameras.

If I could ask President Obama one question, it would be why he believes it is important to significantly increase global and U.S. funding for the International Monetary Fund, and whether that funding will come with any safeguards or reforms within that organization to protect borrowing countries from locking themselves into perpetual debt, while swiftly and clumsily uprooting their local economies. Because I would make my one question a two-parter.

To restore banking health and citizen support, the G-20 should concentrate not on managing banks but on curbing speculative banking activities. (Trib, John Browne)

Yeah! That too!

Cynical observers might speculate that there might be a hidden purpose to the suggestions of some key G-20 Socialist politicians, say, to nationalize the "wounded" big banks by stealth and so seize control of money distribution, as in China. (ibid)

What? There will be socialist politicians at this G-20? Aside from President Obama? Maybe some frustrated world citizens should make their enemy not so much "capitalism" as rather "greed and heedlessness" of all creeds and origins.