Talk of the Town

NATO. Everyone in Chicago is talking about NATO.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a political-military alliance made up of 28 world nations, visited Chicago’s McCormick Place over the weekend.

As the largest city to hold a summit in more than a decade and the first city in the United States outside of Washington D.C. to do so, the event garnered attention from the entire world. In a mostly peaceful march, thousands of protesters carried their message of anti-war to the world leaders.

Inside, heads of state from these 28 nations met to discuss world issues while outside in the streets, protesters and security officials swarmed, the protesters waving signs and shouting disapproval while the Chicago police officers and other security officials attempted to provide a safe environment for everyone involved.

"We are here today to stand against the death machine that is NATO," Natalie Wahlberg, a protester with Occupy Chicago told the Chicago Sun-Times. "So we don’t want NATO here. We are here to stand in solidarity with anyone who tells NATO to get the 'f' out of our city."

Police estimated the crowd at 2,500 to 3,000 people Sunday, although it appeared to be larger, in what was the biggest rally so far in the week leading up to the NATO summit.

Demonstrators ranged from students with signs and a few parents pushing strollers with babies to others clad in all black with bandannas over their faces and wielding signs including "Anarchists alliance, D.C." Some members of Occupy Chicago and anti-Wall Street protesters donned clown makeup. All protesters were kept blocks away from the actual event occurring inside of McCormick Place.

Whether you were in agreement with the protesting masses or not, it’s essential to inform yourself of the reasons why such a large number of people feel so strongly about the issues the NATO Summit brought up.

NATO was formed in 1949 with the agenda to make the world safe from communism and situated for capitalism.

On a practical level, NATO worked in the past to contain the political, military and economic reach of the Soviet Union and its allies, and to preserve and advance “the West.”

This allows for the protection of the economic and political interests of the United States and the Western European corporations and governments—yet not the interests of people who live in NATO countries or in places that NATO chooses to occupy.

“I’m against this war,” said demonstrator Anna Shek. “I’m here to speak up and protest what I believe in. There are people out there from oppressed nations who can’t speak for themselves, and I’m here to give them a voice in any way that I can.”

A major point of dissent for protesters fell within the money that’s involved.

NATO countries account for two-thirds of the $1.5 trillion a year the world spends on militaries. U.S. expenditures account for 70 percent of NATO expenditures, which is roughly half of the total global military expenditures.

The $700 billion that U.S. taxpayers pay towards the military each year, including more than $700 million a year for NATO, could pay for living wages for tens of millions of teachers, health care workers, firefighters and other important service providers—or $25,000 a year in unemployment for the nearly 30 million out-of-work people, or tuition at colleges for more than 60 million students.

Carrying a sign that read "healthcare not warfare,” protester Jeff Grieco said, “NATO should be disbanded and taxpayer money that is given towards war should go towards funding more progressive avenues, like education and health care.”

In a summation of the many beliefs of protesters, natoprotest.org said, “We gather to oppose the tyranny of the banks and the corporate elites – to oppose the corporate war on our wages, our homes, our health care, our education and our right to speak out and protest.”

Some Specific Reasons for Protester Dissent:
• Unelected representatives from 28 countries decide where to focus the might of the NATO military machine. NATO claims to operate through consensus, but the people of the countries that make up NATO have no say in the decision making process.

• NATO only represents 28 countries in the world, yet makes military plans that effect the entire world, without giving the remaining 168 countries any say.

• Money used to fund NATO actions could be utilized for human needs; unemployment, student tuition, living wages, etc.

Who is Protesting?
There were many protesters against the NATO Summit in Chicago, and they each had their own specific reasons for their unease.

As outlined by The People’s Summit, topics ranged from the increasing cost of a loaf of bread in Chicago to the 1.4 billion people worldwide living in immiseration. Protesters were rallying against the ‘war on terror,’ global homeland security industries, the increased militarization of domestic policing, global wage depression and the creation of disposable labor reserves. Others held platforms against destruction of environments, and the privatization of common resources.

“Organizations like NATO are detached from the reality of living in the world today when you aren’t as privileged as others,” said student Mara Hodgeson. “I work harder than ever to put myself through school with no help and several outside jobs to make a living in the meantime. These people are paying no attention to the millions struggling with student debt or health insurance problems,” she said. “All this money spent on war is saddening to me, when there are so many other issues that need to be addressed.”

There is no single reason why citizens are banding together in disapproval, yet with each and every personal story, there is a thread that runs through them all, outlining a number of important and shared problems within the people of our world.

Major events around the globe in 2011, from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, have instilled a great urgency in many of the protesters and lead them to understand how complex conditioning by global processes has given the 99 percent of the world more in common than they dared to imagine before.

Here’s a list of some of the groups who have identified themselves as anti-NATO summit.

 

Occupy Chicago
Our city has seen an increasing amount of action from demonstrations and marches organized by the Occupy movement as the recent months have passed.

“Occupy Chicago does not endorse and never has endorsed the two dominant parties, Democrat and Republican, that are currently carrying out the agenda of the 1 percent. Our only affiliation is with those who want to end the entanglement of big business and government,” states occupychi.org

They viewed the NATO summit as an opportunity to garner attention for their overall cause.

“Shouting out against the NATO war machine, Occupy Chicago [organized] a week of actions highlighting the violence and oppression of NATO, and [called] for the organization to be disbanded,” said the site. Occupychi.org

The Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8)
According to their website, the protest events “give people a place to have their voices be heard and to share a vision of what the world could be when people are put before profit; when money goes to jobs, healthcare, education, pensions, housing and the environment, not war; when we say no to war and austerity.” CANG8.org

Chicago Independent Media Center (CIMC)
Chicago Indymedia, the Chicago Independent Media Center, is a grassroots volunteer collective of media makers committed to reporting on progressive issues and grassroots struggles for economic and social justice. They are part of the global Indymedia project, dozens of likeminded collectives around the world all working together but separately for the same cause. Chicago.indymedia.org

The People’s Summit
The People’s Summit is a radically democratic meeting to discuss the type of world that they would like to see, “one that transcends our present condition of corporate plutocracy and military empire,” said the website.

Their purpose? To educate communities about war, austerity, global capitalism, and corporatization in the 21st century, and what it means for the ways we all live in this world. peoplessummitchicago.org