2009-09-06
Friday, September 25 at 11:30am
Everywhere!
[Note: The event below is organized by the PGRP, whose work POG is supporting, and any questions should be directed to them]
Sept. 25: Localize and Broaden the Fight Against the G-20
TGIF. The global is local, the local is global and our resistance is everywhere.
Friday, September 25th. Simultaneous actions in different areas of Pittsburgh, all ending at 11:30 am
By this point, the G-20 summit circus will be in its final hours in Pittsburgh. Earlier in the week, we focused our energy on the summit more directly and now, we will turn towards the institutions where the G-20's worldview manifests. The places that symbolize the kind of world the G-20 works to protect and sustain. Institutions that pepper the landscape of our city, just like most other cities.
We reject the idea that some issues are local and others are global. The local is the global and the global is the local: the problems we face locally are overwhelmingly not unique and in fact, the "global" problems created by the G-20 have translated into problems that are being felt in every locale across the world. When we talk about the decline of real wages, we're talking about the sweatshop labor in Asia, we're talking about the sweatshop labor in California. When we talk about anti-union activities on Columbia, we're talking about anti-union activities in Pittsburgh. And everywhere we're talking about housing, healthcare, food and education becoming more expensive and less accessible.
With this in mind, we reject the G-20 not just because their meetings are an undemocratic farce or because they don't have our interests at heart. We reject the G-20 because the world that we have inherited is neither fair nor just and we recognize that our governments are either unwilling or unable to help. It is from unjust social and economic relations that our misery springs, that these institutions exist and prosper and while we make no claims that one day will bring about a new society sometimes you just got to say fuck it and get down. Our resistance on Friday is an attempt to show that mass movements of people, not governments, are the only things that we can trust to create the world we want to see. We are going to undermine the G-20 by exposing and confronting the institutions %mdash; institutions that the G-20 protects and defends %mdash; that directly affect us.
For Friday, September 25, we've created a (soon to be released) menu of places in Pittsburgh at which we're asking affinity groups and organizations to adopt as sites for protests and other actions. We don't care when your action starts, but ask that it end exactly at 11:30 am For those who want to do an hour-long picket start at 10:30 am, for those who want to do a 30-second street theatre piece kick things off at 11:29 am At many locations nothing will happen and that's okay as we see part of the point in simply drawing attention to those places where oppression and injustice exists on a daily basis. Some locations will have previously advertised public protests. Many other spots will have creative actions determined by the groups that adopt them. The tactics and the tone should be determined by you. We see this as the creation of space in which others can bring their visions to fruition while drawing on the strengths of coordination, decentralization, diversity of tactics and differing risk levels. We intend to create a way that groups can avoid going to the same areas, and we'll later release a more in-depth look at how we see this playing out and why we believe it will be successful while some other (in our view, more problematic) variations have not met expectations.
Our liberation was never, is not and never shall be, dependent on the G-20 governments, ministers or summits.
Make Total Resistance.
Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project
www.resistg20.org
Pittsburgh Organizing Group
pog@mutualaid.org
www.organizepittsburgh.org