33rd G8 Summit in Rostock, Germany

I am currently in the Southern-most part of Germany, Baden-Wurtemburg province. The annual, informal G8 Summit and the protests will be in the Northern-most part of Germany, in a small town called Rostock. All the heads of state will meet in an exclusive seaside resort called Heiligendamm. All of Germany has been activated by the summit, however. There are protest notifications all around the City of Freiburg, where I am staying. The graffiti on the walls read, "Fight the Police State", and "Stand Against Police Brutality. Fight Back!" Others say, "STOP G8" and "FIGHT G8". Unlike American graffiti, German graffiti is very political.

The agenda for this year's G8 Summit--set by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel--is "investment, innovation and sustainability". But also, like last year, Africa (which was not then and probably wont be now, solved) is a priority. Climate change is also on everybody's mind, especially since George Bush made some comments this week about "his" new climate change plan. "The United States takes this issue seriously," Bush said Friday morning just a few days before the G8 Summit was to begin, today. It seemed like just last year Bush "didn't believe" in Global Warming. This is all part of his plan to reject the G8´s Climate Change proposals, however, before he even hears them. Meanwhile, a thousand people have already been injured in the protests, and the Summit has not even officially begun. The whole ordeal is a humongous orgy of statism and anti-statism. Two polar opposites. The world Alter-Globalization movement (or rather, anti Washington Consensus movement) is growing. G8 Summits are unsuccessful in general. The meetings are terribly informal, and cost states billions of dollars to provide the security and the location for these meetings. With the introduction of a world database on terrorist suspects introduced in 2005, it begins to look more like a sort of world-wide Patriot Act
and the encroachment of civil liberties.

Germany has already spent 13 million in Euros to pay for this extravagant meeting, which could just as easily take place digitally.