[Peace-discuss] Fw: Steel City's `State of Siege' - Day Three

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Subject: Steel City's `State of Siege' - Day Three


> 10,000 Marchers Beat Back
> 
> The Steel City's `State of Siege'
> 
> By Carl Davidson 
> Beaver County Blue 
> September 25, 2009
> 
> Nearly 10,000 protesters marched through the streets of
> Pittsburgh on the last day of the G20 this Sept. 25
> afternoon, delivering a powerful message for global
> justice that was expressed with a brilliantly colored
> display of unity, militancy and diversity.
> 
> Peace and justice groups demanded an end to wars and
> occupations, trade union contingents demanded green
> jobs and fair trade, women and people of color raised
> the banners of equality and empowerment, and young
> people called for a sustainable and liberated future in
> a new world.
> 
> "Will we make any difference?" Rick Kimbrough asked me
> a few hours earlier as we headed down a parkway heavily
> secured with police cars at every exit on our way into
> town. Kimbrough is an old high school friend, an
> African American steelworker with 37 years in a huge
> Beaver County mill that's now shutdown and gone, Jones
> And Laughlin Steel. When I asked him to join me the day
> before, he was fired up to go already, until he heard a
> nephew had taken a bullet as a bystander in a senseless
> street fight. When he heard his nephew would do OK, he
> called back, ready to ride in with me and join the
> United Steel Workers contingent in `the People's March'
> at the close of the G20 sessions.
> 
> "We'll make SOME difference, but not nearly enough, and
> not yet," was my reply. "These G20 people think they
> can run the world as they please, but we have to show
> them they can't, that there are limits, at least until
> we can grow stronger, and turn things around
> completely." I asked Rick if he had ever been to
> something like this before. No, he'd been to political,
> union and civil rights rallies, but this was different.
> 
> We turned to discussing the news from the previous day,
> mainly about the efforts by anarchist youth, a thousand
> or so of them, to stage actions on a variety of
> targets, and march on the G20 without permits. They had
> a number of skirmishes all day and into the night with
> the highly militarized police, who made use of tear
> gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. Some 82
> protesters were arrested overall, and the day had seen
> numerous smashed windows and trash cans sent rolling
> into the streets.
> 
> Far worse, the Pittsburgh riot police, on the night of
> Sept 24, swept the university neighborhood streets,
> downtown Oakland, clean of students with pepper spray
> and tear gas canisters. Students were trapped on
> stairwells by riot police above and below and gassed.
> Students were gassed in closed passages between
> dormitories. They had committed no crime, no offense,
> no discourtesy, no disrespect, but had simply been
> walking to get a bite to eat, or to visit a friend, or
> to study, or stand around in the cool night air and
> talk with friends.
> 
> The media accounts had worried Rick's family about his
> participation. In fact, a number of other Beaver County
> workers I had asked to take part flat out said "No!,'
> they had no interest in playing tag with heavily armed
> cops who were largely inexperienced--and my assertion
> that today's march would likely be large and peaceful
> didn't count for much. In fact, it was entirely
> peaceful on this last day-no windows broken, and only
> one arrest.
> 
> "What's the deal with breaking windows? Don't they
> realize that's just a big diversion that waters down
> the message?" Rick asked about the previous night. I
> tried to explain that anarchists didn't necessarily
> share our message, and could be manipulated by police
> and provocateurs. But young people had minds of their
> own, often having to learn things the hard way. He
> agreed, turning the talk back to his nephew, and
> venting his anger against the criminal profiteers
> selling guns to kids in his neighborhood. "I've seen
> too much senseless street violence," he concluded,
> "I've got no patience for it."
> 
> When we hit Pittsburgh, our attention turned to trying
> to park downtown near the Steel Workers building, so we
> would have the car nearby at the end of the march. Nice
> idea, but no way it was going to happen. Every downtown
> exit was blocked until Oakland, near the university. We
> tried twice to double back, and were turned back by
> police and blockaded streets.
> 
> Security was tough and serious. The militarized police,
> more than 6000 of them brought in from across the
> country, had shut down normal commerce and movement of
> people in the city. The city was placed in a real, not
> a virtual state of siege.
> 
> Finally, Randy Shannon from Beaver County's Progressive
> Democrats of America got us on the cell phone. He's
> across the river on the South Side, the closest spot he
> could find. So we picked him up, and made our way to
> Oakland, and luckily found a parking lot right near the
> head of the march.
> 
> As we neared the top of a steep block and reached the
> staging area, Rick got a little wide-eyed at the first
> thing we saw, a contingent of 200 Tibetans, some with
> monk robes and beating drums, and all with red and
> yellow flags and banners. So I gave him a quick crash
> course in who's who-the Tibetans are protesting what
> they see as a raw deal from China threatening their
> Buddhist culture, the young people dressed in black
> with masks are mostly the anarchists we were taking
> about, the people with checkered scarves and green,
> black red and white flags are pro-Palestinian, the
> women in shocking pink are Code Pink, a militant peace
> group, and so on.
> 
> "This is wonderful, all kinds of people are here," was
> Rick's conclusion. I suggested we look for union caps
> and jackets, or people in fatigues with Army veteran's
> stuff, and we'll find the folks we're looking for.
> Right away, Carl Redwood Jr. from the battles in the
> Hill District, a low-income African American
> neighborhood, comes over to talk. I met him at a teach-
> in two days before. We fill Rick in on the issues
> around the new Penguin stadium and gentrification.
> 
> As we neared the front ranks, I spotted Michael
> McPhearson, a national leader of Vets for Peace I knew
> through United for Peace and Justice. When I introduce
> Rick, it turns out Mike has folks in Aliquippa, so they
> are quickly making connections.
> 
> There were two groupings up front. Randy had connected
> with his daughter, a University of Pittsburgh student,
> and was positioned with the Pittsburgh peace and
> justice coalition people. Rick and I were with the Iraq
> Vets Against the War group along side them. Aaron
> Hughes, an IVAW national leader, came up to greet us.
> He and Rick were soon talking about post traumatic
> stress and it impact on communities when soldiers
> return. "I still haven't spotted the Steel Workers," I
> told him, "but let's just stay here until we do."
> 
> Suddenly the march moved out, and we're in the front
> ranks, about four rows back. It's a long walk, more
> than a mile, but fortunately, almost all of it is
> downhill. After we've gone twenty blocks or and are on
> a little rise, I walked backwards and looked for the
> end. I couldn't see it; we were still filling the
> streets. It meant we were somewhere between 5000 and
> 10,000, and we could declare a victory for the day.
> Progressive activists had beaten back attempts at
> intimidation.
> 
> Rick picked up on all the rhythmic chanting. "The
> people, united, will never be defeated!" seemed to suit
> him best, while "This is what democracy looks like!"
> was my favorite for the day. As we come in sight of the
> Hill District, I'm informed that a feeder march of the
> residents numbering about 500 has merged with us, as
> have a number of other groupings with feeder marches
> throughout day.
> 
> Eventually we decide to stand to the side and wait for
> the USW contingent to show up. This meant we got a
> terrific review of the march's composition: large
> banners from the Green party went by, followed by a
> huge HR 676 Single Payer health care contingent, then
> several hundred young anarchists in black with black
> flags, the Gay and Lesbian people, more
> environmentalists, then Middle East peace militants.
> Finally we spotted the large blue USW flags, with
> dozens of people in union T-Shirts, perhaps 50 in all.
> I waved to Maria Somma, a Steel Worker organizer.
> Interestingly, the front banner is featuring the rights
> of immigrant workers. Plenty of `Good Jobs, Green Jobs'
> placards are also visible. We fell in at the back of
> the contingent, carrying our own placard with a picture
> of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a demand for jobs.
> 
> The taller downtown buildings provided and excellent
> echo chamber for our chants and drum beats, so spirits
> were high as we turned the corner to the rally
> scheduled at an open plaza near the City-County
> Building.
> 
> "We had this successful people's march today only
> because we FOUGHT for it, every step of the way"
> declared Peter Shell of the Thomas Merton Center's
> Antiwar Committee from the platform. He delivered a
> powerful indictment of the federal and city tactics
> designed to disorganize the protestors and dampen the
> turnout. "Look at all these militarized police brought
> in here from everywhere. They have taught us an
> important lesson, even if in a small way, about what
> it's like to live under and occupation, and why we have
> to increase out efforts this fall to end the
> occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza."
> 
> Lisa Jordan of the USW Education Dept spoke for the
> steelworkers. "The G20 is undemocratic and
> unrepresentative," she stated. "They only speak for the
> CEOs; there is no voice for the workers." She pledged
> the solidarity of the USW with all the ongoing fights
> for global and social justice.
> 
> We listened to a few more speeches, but the crowd was
> breaking up. One contingent would go on to the East
> Side within a few blocks of the convention center,
> where the G20 was wrapping up, and thus technically
> getting within `sight and sound' of the gathering. It
> was a thin concession to what was really needed.
> 
> Rick had a bum leg, injured years back in the J&L tin
> mill when a sheet of metal sliced a tendon, and it was
> giving out on him. Given the restrictive logistics, we
> called it a day. Getting to a bus to get back to our
> car was hard enough-we had to pass through three
> barriers of hundreds of police, including a long line
> of German shepherd police dogs that looked forlorn
> behind their uncomfortable muzzles. The bus quickly
> filled, and in twenty minutes, we were back at the car
> and headed home.
> 
> Since the G20 bigwigs were also headed toward the
> airport, which is located near the border of Beaver
> County, security was even more intense on the highway
> on the way back. "It's all overkill," said Rick. "They
> just want to use us for practice. We're just a training
> exercise for them, and it'll be turned against us even
> more somewhere down the line."
> 
> As I dropped him off at home, I reminded him to check
> the news. "The cameras all loved your picket sign; you
> may get your fifteen minutes of fame, and can brag to
> your grandkids." When I got home and turned on the
> news, however, reality sunk in. There were a few brief
> snippets about our huge march today, followed by great
> detail about how many windows and storefronts had been
> smashed the night before, complete with charts and maps
> of targeted areas, and lots of footage of broken glass,
> with kids in black masks, while cops do their best to
> round them up or disperse them.
> 
> Randy Shannon called to check in, making sure we made
> it back OK. "In that state of siege," he summed up,
> "the march today was a shining example of the courage
> and determination of those of us who understand the
> need to fight for the First Amendment."
> 
> But on the wider messages, if we're ever to get beyond
> preaching to the choir of the militant minority, and
> instead break through to the progressive majority,
> we're going to have to find the ways and the forces to
> do things differently.
> 
> Carl Davidson is a writer for Beaver County Blue, and a
> long-time organizer going back to the 1960s New Left.
> Today he is a national co-chair of the Committees of
> Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and a
> national board member of the US Solidarity Economy
> Network. He is author, along with Jerry Harris, of
> 'Cyberradicalism: A New Left for a Global Age.' If you
> like this artile, make use of the PayPal button at
> http://carldavidson.blogspot.com
> 
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