Gearing up for G8? …it won’t be a formal event but most of us will be wearing black

Local activists gear up for G8, NATO summits planned for city
Chicago Tribune – August 28, 2011 – By Andy Grimm Tribune reporter

Activists are planning massive demonstrations to coincide with the G8 and NATO summits in Chicago scheduled for spring 2012, with crowds of protesters likely to reach “tens of thousands,” organizers said.

More than 160 members representing about 50 groups from across the U.S. and Canada gathered Sunday at the Chicago-Kent College of Law to discuss strategy and start planning two large-scale protests and a march that during the week-long joint summit, which is set for mid-May.

The G8 and similar economic forums have for more than a decade drawn thousands of demonstrators. With the world economy in turmoil and NATO leaders set to discuss Afghanistan war policy, the joint summit should draw protesters on behalf of a wide array of causes, activists said.

Chicago could see crowds of protesters similar to the 35,000 or so activists who descended on St. Paul, Minn., during the 2008 Republican National Convention, said Joe Lombardo, co-coordinator for the New York-based United National Anti-War Committee.

“With the war (and) the global economy as they are, and the (U.S. presidential) election in full swing next spring, I think it will have the potential to be bigger than the protests in Minnesota,” said Lombardo, a retired New York state government worker who has participated in demonstrations since the 1960s. “Those issues are not going to go away (by May) and Chicago is a larger city than some of the other places they’ve had these summits recently.”

Chicago activist Joe Iosbaker, who helped organize the RNC protests in 2008 and whose home was raided by FBI agents last October, said he applied for permits to hold demonstrations in Daley Plaza and Federal Plaza downtown the day the White House announced the city would host the summits. …more