G-20 Diary: Hitting the Fan

Our neighborhood is well used to the sound of helicopters, with three major hospitals within a mile radius. But that occasional sound is now almost constant -- not with medical 'copters as much as the military, police and "news" variety.

I figured to check out the action by heading downtown, closer to the actual G-20 site. I was well aware that lots of streets and even more businesses would be closed, but a lot of the owner-operated small shops and restaurants were hoping to make a buck, including the best hot dog joint in town. Few potential customers though. I mainly saw barricades and cops. Cops from Tucson and Milwaukee, in riot gear. State police on horseback. Cops from nearby cities on bicycles. K-9 crews. But nary a protester. My big excitement was seeing Yo-Yo Ma getting out of a van and slinging his cello case on his back.

Since all the downtown buses were on screwy detours, I figured the quicker way home was to cross the Allegheny and get a convenient belt-loop sort of bus, which is running normally.

Hah.

As soon as I reached the bus stop, a fellow bus-seeker told me he'd just heard of demonstrations broken up by teargas, along the residential streets where our bus was supposed to go. Not that I know entirely what's going on, but apparently a lot of protesters decided to walk down the narrow avenues heading into downtown Pittsburgh -- assuming they could get through the phalanx of police, National Guardsmen, Army Reserves, horses, dogs, Jersey barriers and fences. Since they couldn't, many came back to my neighborhood. The Post-Gazette reported that 400 of them were back in Friendship Park. Yep, they were there regrouping and chanting "Our streets," but the tiny plaza they were clustered in couldn't hold 200 people on a good day.

The news media certainly were correct about the damage to the local branch of a bank that, by most measures, is a good corporate citizen. The ladies working at the bakery next door were seriously outraged by the rudeness of of the protesters and mocked their "peace" talk. Throwing a public trash receptacle (paid for by local businesses like the bakery) at a small historic building does not impress any of the locals for smarts if the demonstrators were trying to make a point.

There's more inanity (not a typo) going on if you want to follow it at the Post-Gazette's site, or any "news" outlet that likes to showcase violence rather than what people are actually saying.

 

 

Comments

[anticapitalist1983]

first person accounts and videos by people who were there about how the cops overreacted and were brutal:
http://indypgh.org/g20/

myths about protesters: http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/atoz/twelvemyths.php

[jimfl]

From the videos I've seen the Pittsburgh police should be ashamed. What an ugly scene for no reason.

[WestTexan]

With these protests coming as they do so closely on the heels of the town hall and tea party "protests," why is it that no one has picked up on the stark difference in the way the two sets of protesters were treated?

What the G-20 protesters taught me was just what an incredible sham the Tea Party and town hall “revolutionaries” were—all that phony hyperbole about “spilling the blood of patriots and tyrants” (A notion, by the way, that after the French Revolution Jefferson was to recant). The huffpo photo-essay did a good job showing how the plutocrats respond to those they really fear.


Where I live (Mexico) “protesters” like those that appeared at the Tea Parties and town hall meetings are a permanent fixture. They’ve become so prominent on the political landscape, in fact, that they’ve earned their own moniker. “Junkyard dogs” they’re called. As often as not they are paid and organized by the very people they criticize. Thus when a burglar breaks into the junkyard, the junkyard-dog barks and makes a grand show of things. But then he immediately goes back to sleep, allowing the burglar to carry off whatever he pleases. The powers-that-be of course love junkyard-dogs, because they give people the impression that their interests are being protected, when they’re really not. It gets people to let their guard down, making them easier to exploit.

[WestTexan]

Michelle,

I'm with you. I'd like to hear what some of these protesters actually have to say. Unfortunately, unlike the tea party and town hall "protesters" who had their commentaries broadcast ad nauseam across the land, their speech has all but been blacked out.

[SWPADEM]

The troublemakers are just that. That are not protesters, they are troublemakers. I guess they are bored and looking for some action. They are mostly college aged and younger wannabes but not sure what they want to be. They said that they only go after corporations not mom and pop establishments. They broke the windows of Pamela's restaurant in Oakland. If they intentions are so righteous then they need to may reparations to Pamela's which is a mom and pop restaurant. Cough up the money to fix their windows. Any any other destruction to our buildings. You play, you pay. Three of our police were murdered in cold blood several months ago on a domestic call to the home of a racist misfit who hated the government. The coward shot police who were there only to help his mother (who in my opinion is an accomplice to the murder of a law enforcement officer). University of Pittsburgh should review films and expel any student of theirs destroying public property - just like they did with those setting fires during the Super Bowl celebration. I wish the media would identify the group of "protesters" that were the "trouble markers" for what they were, mostly in their teens and early twenties who really don't have any idea what they are protesting against but using a lot of rhetoric and lack of real life experiences.

[jimfl]

Thats what the king of England said about the Patriots

[GeorgeP922]

These people are just like teabaggers, except their parents are rich.

They are yelling, but not sure why they are yelling.

And instead of proposing something, trying to fix something, they go to the gap, buy black clothes, hop in their parents lexus SUV and go to Pittsburgh.

If police are cracking heads and arresting them, they are doing for them a great service.

[Liberal Angel]

We shouldn't accept police brutality for any reason other than shooting a hostage taker. It's not mostly kids whose parents take care of them. They know exactly what they're yelling for. People are protesting different things, but it doesn't matter what they're protesting because they have the right to do so. There's no reason for cops to "bash" heads.

[WeMustSpeakOut]

Seconded!

[jimfl]

Cops are cowards unless they can gang up.

[beau23]

Got to be kidding, I've known a lot of anarchist and i've never meet one who was some sort of trust fund baby. Or one who would except it if offered. Those types stick with liberalism so as not endanger their class/national privilege ( though at least they recognize problems). You know what these people do day-to-day? There out there working to make the world a better place - sure they get caught up in flights of fancy and waste time preaching to the choir - but at least they try.

Its one thing to say that their ideas are unworkable or Utopian, but to pretend like people go out and get beat up by the police for no reason is sick.

[Grackle]

Do you know what they're against?
Do you know why they are wearing all black?

I'm sure some of them may be rich kids but the people I know who feel as they do are primarily middle class or lower middle class.

If they were just rich kids who want to break crap they would just get drunk and tear down the goalposts at their prep schools and elite junior colleges.

[blackjedi47]

That kind of "hey they deserve it" stuff would sound real weird if U happened to get caught up in it
rapped on the head and trotted off with the rest--and that does happen-once the military or police feel its OK to cross the line. Period.

[WestTexan]

Serious US arousal against abuses of wealth and power has always transcended class lines and many of the notable triumphs have been led by persons with sophisticated and affluent backgrounds: Jefferson of Monticello and the Roosevelts of Oyster Bay and Hyde Park. Indeed, George Washington of Mount Vernon led the earlier opposition to concentrated wealth and hauteur.

And what about the affluent white students who first joined the Civil Rights movement and then moved on to protest against the Viet Nam War?

Those who glorified violence for violence’s sake—Sorel, Pareto, Fanon—were motivated by a much deeper hatred of bourgeois society and were led to a much more radical break with its moral standards than the conventional Left, which was chiefly inspired by compassion and a burning desire for justice.

[audadvnc]

Who has a right to lawful assembly, when access to that right is dictated by the people you're assembling against?

[OhTheHumanities]

The inanity is also in the local news coverage - I laughed when I saw a reporter start to refer to the protesters who marched without a permit as "rioters" and then corrected herself to merely "protesters." But seriously, they're spending millions on security and as far as I can tell there's more police officers than protesters...

[Liberal Angel]

That's exactly what it is. There aren't that many protesters here. The police and military presence is way bigger than any of the protests seen on TV. The reason there's so much hype is because nothing happens here. Pittsburgh is a calm city, but the local news has been stoking up fear, so they can get some coverage of something. It's not as bad as people may think.

[WeMustSpeakOut]

Hey, but those security contractors will surely rake it in! And that's all that matters!
Well... aside from cracking some heads and hoping to intimidate the masses and discourage us from trying to capsize their corruption.