Pittsburgh: POG G-20 Resistance Update #2

Capital and its protectorate, the State, continue their scheming and we persist in our resistance.

The working groups of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project (PG-20RP) are ramping up their activities. Local Outreach has started going door-to-door, discussing the G-20 and its effects with residents; Legal is in the process of organizing a Radical (Play)Date Raffle; Logistics is hunting down space for all of us to eat and organize; and the (Im)Material Group is working in spurts to add and build more content for the website,

One of the ways that POG is readying for the G-20 meeting in September is to use our annual anarchist picnic as a way to build stronger connections between those in the radical community, and also with our friends and neighbors. Though the days of action are very close, there will no doubt be a long aftermath, both in terms of legal battles and a giddy police force with eager trigger fingers...

The Miami Model in Pittsburgh

Both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (one of the city's two major dailies) and the City Paper (the local corporate weekly) have reported on the city's early plans to quell dissent: 4000 additional cops (the city currently boasts a meager 800 or so class traitors), including 400 PA State Troopers and several helicopters; ordering "sizeable quantities" of tear gas and other yet to determined less-than-lethal projectiles ("We're not going to be very forthcoming about what we're getting," said the ever-clever Raymond DeMichiei, deputy director of the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. "We're not going to telegraph what our capabilities are."); and designs for a second holding area, since the Allegheny County Jail is nearly full. Additionally, the G-20 meeting has been designated a National Special Security Event, meaning that that the Secret Service will be in charge of State repression.

This information is being provided not to raise anxiety or fear about the inevitable repression that will surround the G-20 meeting. The idea is to be prepared, and to do that, we must be informed about the capabilities of our enemy.

LOcaL Snafus

• After accurately calling out the G-20 as standing "for chaos and ... economic destruction," United Steelworkers of America president Leo Gerard is now joining an effort to get a seat at the table of power. Along with the Allegheny County Labor Council of the AFL-CIO and The Pittsburgh Building Trades Council, the unions are ostensibly joining the civic partnership to welcome the G-20 so that they can get some face time with the country leaders and finance ministers that make up the G-20. We have yet to see how this will affect the PG-20RP's efforts to create a set of Pittsburgh Principles, regarding mutual respect for a diversity of tactics.
• G-20 promoters committed an online faux pas, placing the United States flag all the way to the right in the line up of nation flags. According to Title 4, Section 7 of the U.S. Code, the stars of the flag are to be placed all the way to the left of an observer's eye. Apparently the ignorant folks at http://pittsburghg20.org hunted down their only web programmer on vacation to fix the arrangement of flags before anyone other than the Hill District-based National Flag Foundation noticed. This bit of news from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reveals how Richard Mellon Scaife's hobby paper sets its priorities with fluff pieces and one-sided commentary. Not a surprise, but good to keep an eye on.

Recovery?

In 2003, the state declared Pittsburgh a distressed municipality, placing it under "Act 47 Supervision", which meant that much of the power in the city shifted from city council to an unelected board of lawyers and corporate economic "experts" tasked with charting our "recovery." The tangible result was attacks on unionized city workers through outsourcing, wage freezes, and reduced benefits in combination with more regressive taxation policies and a slew of objectionable policies. We've been going through our own limited form of the "structural adjustments" neo-liberal economic policies disastrously pushed on other countries. For us, the G-20 does not represent merely an abstract attack on other people; they represent an economic and social worldview that has trickled down to hurt the people of Pittsburgh.

The Propaganda War Goes On

Part of the State's strategy is to project the idea of omnipotence and invincibility, and imply the possibility of serious consequences towards those who dissent. The narrative they're projecting goes something like, "don't bother coming out on the streets of Pittsburgh because we know everything about you and we're going to have 4,000 police armed to the teeth with special weapons you‘ve never experienced."

In our view the power of the state and capitalism in the US, and specifically in Pittsburgh, rests on a legitimacy derived from systems of control far more concealed than the gun. The majority of strategizing on how to crush G-20 dissent is about swaying public opinion, co-opting labor, splitting movements between good protesters that are subservient to government objectives and bad ones that aren't, and intimidating people from getting involved through surveillance and the use of violence against a few.

This is where the real combat is currently occurring. By the time the summit arrives, the state's ability to act will have parameters determined significantly by the public's view towards the G-20, the police, and those participating in resistance activities. They may resort to mass violence, but if we've done a good job mobilizing they will pay a significant price for doing so in the loss of state legitimacy and an actual increase in the willingness of locals to fight back.

Who's bringing, funding, and supporting the G-20?

According to local corporate media these are the key players.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato

Among the largest corporate donors are Alcoa, Bayer Corp., BNY Mellon and PNC Corp.

The Secret Service technically is tasked with overall repression, and Special Agent in Charge James Gehr heads the service's Pittsburgh office. Much of the repression falls to local police, lead by Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper. The Pittsburgh FBI is also heavily involved, especially in surveillance, but we are not sure yet who is in charge of the operation. The Allegheny Conference and VisitPittsburgh are important institutional proponents.

City Invites London Police to Show Us How It's Done

The city of Pittsburgh has announced it will spend $40,000 of tax payers money to fly in six police "specialists" from London to help local police plan repression against protesters at the G-20 summit this September.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's spokeswoman Joanna Doven reassured POG spokeswomen Emma Goldengrahams these officials are experts. "Look. I don't know what the big deal is. On the Day of Action the London Police had 10,000 police to deal with 5,000 protesters. That's barely two-on-one odds. And they only killed one guy just trying to get home from work. Some of the protesters there weren't even injured. I'd rather turn our community into an armed police camp, spend $40,000 on these outside killers, $4,000,000 to arm our own boys, and $40,000,000 later in brutality lawsuits than let some windows get broken, residents get uppity, or protesters succeed at demonstrating resistance to global capitalism. The taxpayers can pay for the cities costs and go bankrupt, but who will compensate my boss if you wily anarchists ruin his moment in the media spotlight?"