Remembering a protest, planning action
By Michael Macagnone / Senior Staff Writer
published: Mon, 28 Sep, 2009
Three days after police surrounded Schenley Plaza to disperse what they declared an unlawful assembly, students met there to voice their opinions about police actions in Oakland over the past weekend.
More than 30 people, mostly Pitt students, met in Schenley Plaza last night to discuss organizing a group to protest police action during the G-20 Summit.
The group lacked a formal agenda, but it agreed on several points.
As part of the meeting, students introduced themselves to each other and shared thoughts about the police handling of protests in Oakland last Thursday and Friday. Most of the students expressed anger at police actions.
Kevin Fischer, a Pitt senior and industrial engineering student, said that he left Schenley Plaza early on Thursday night and was hesitant to go out Friday night.
“I’m really happy no one died,” Fischer said of Thursday and Friday night.
The group allowed everyone to speak their feelings and propose ideas to those assembled.
Ryan Olander, a traveling student organizer, said, “The story that is out there is pretty far from the truth.”
Olander also commented on the number of student arrests.
“They were easy targets to pick up off of the street,” Olander said. “They’d never been through anything like this before.”
Joe Hogle, a sophomore majoring in communications and philosophy, founded a Facebook group called “Hold the Police Accountable: Oakland G20” which had more than 500 members as of Monday.
“We’re here to talk about what went on and what we can do about it,” Hogle said at the meeting.
Jessica Benner, a member of the Thomas Merton Center’s anti-war committee, encouraged the group to work closely with the American Civil Liberties Union and help to change the official narrative by sending their stories to the ACLU and the media. The ACLU and related groups also plan to provide counseling for people traumatized by the events last weekend.
They expressed a consensus that the police actions in Oakland were unjust and disappointment with the University’s actions on Thursday and Friday.
They wanted to consolidate the various groups that had evolved to protest police action over the weekend and try to work together. Olander and Pitt students Matt Schultz and Justin Wasser founded a new website, whathappenedatpitt.com, to link to all of the groups.
“There is justice to be had here,” Hogle said.
The group agreed to meet again on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. and emphasized that the meeting was open to everyone.
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MAKE WALL ST. PAY
Fight Back: Make Wall St. Pay!!
I am very proud of the PITT students!
Tim Buzzard was tear-gassed and less than 5 minutes later articulately told the real story of how he and about 10 mostly freshman or sophomore girls were trapped and gassed IN their DORM building.
If people really want to do something, consider a proposal by Robert Kuttner to FIGHT BACK: The students of PITT were invaded and, frankly, attacked on the flimsy pretext of "invasion of anarchists who came in our city" as the Chief of Police is quoted.
"THEY" are out to silence you. "THEY" trespassed on your rights to peacefully assemble and express your grievances.
Who is "THEY"? Why, Wall St., of course!
Wall St. that has caused the World Depression.
Is the $800,000,000,000 BANKER BAILOUT among PITT STUDENT grievances! Doesn't take a genius to know these young people don't like the BANKER BAILOUT of $800,000,000,000 to offshore accounts and foreign banks [Bank of Switzerland received $5 Billion of US taxpayer largesse, e.g.]
They seem fully aware that the bill has been handed to THEIR MIDDLE CLASS parents.
SO HOW DO YOU FIGHT BACK, PITT STUDENTS???
Here is an interesting proposal by Robert Kuttner on how to TAX WALL ST. for the World Depression it has caused by its Casino Economy Derivatives Bubbles:
http://pumasunleashed.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/robert-kuttner-supports-t...
And don't think such a thing can't succeed - last September 29, the US House of Representatives actually voted the bailout down by 23 votes, first time around. That says something important about the USA - the will of the Middle Class is powerful. Yes, the Bailout ultimately passed, but the will to beat it exists, and it's powerful.
Kuttner's proposal for a Tobin Tax is not the "Tobin Tax" in which the proceeds would fall into the IMF and World Bank coffers as the GLOBALISTS are proposing; Robert Kuttner's is a proposal to tax Wall St. speculative activity 1% for the US Treasury. A mere 1% Tobin Tax would realize about $3 TRILLION into the Treasury. 1/2 could be diverted to the states, solving the bankruptcies. Not-For-Profit Universal Medicare and so much more could be funded.
The Bankers Loathe We the Middle Class. More important: The Bankers Fear We the Middle Class. They Fear you, oh students of PITT. Maybe that's why this occured?
So realize that you have the power to fight back at the class of people who have caused the World Depression AND sent your parents the bill.
Don't just protest, or go to court, REALLY FIGHT BACK and Hit Wall St. where it hurts.
Make Wall St. pay for the Depression; not your parents!
Organize for a TOBIN TAX.
The AFL-CIO also proposed this just prior to Robert Kuttner. TOBIN TAX won it's creator the Nobel Prize in the early 70s after Nixon killed the US economy.
Don't tell the media details of your story
What I said last night to the students at the meeting, was to call the ACLU and tell them your story, EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT no matter how small.
When talking to the media DO NOT give them details or information that could harm your case in the future. Keep your story broad, and brief in the media. Also only talk about your own story, any comments made about other people's experience could negatively affect them. Solidarity.
I would be disappointed if
I would be disappointed if the University did not weigh in with some sort of statement condemning the action of the authorities on the Pitt campus. I commend the actions of the Merton Center and ACLU in supporting the student community.
Obviously there are large numbers of young people in Oakland, and for the troopers to react in such a heavy-handed manner was totally inappropriate.
As I watched the sublime
As I watched the sublime declarations of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Deputy Police Chief Paul Donaldson before a hand-picked gathering of their supporters—“the lords of property and their hired liars and bumsuckers” as Geroge Orwell put it in “Looking Back on the Spanish War”—and their self-eulogizing of what they believe to be an unequivocal victory in their war against the hoi polloi of Pittsburgh, all this taking place against a backdrop of people slowly but inexorably finding out what actually transpired in their city over the past few days, I was reminded of something Ernest Hemmingway once said about war:
It is very easy to fool the people at the start of a war and run it on a confidential basis. But later the wounded start coming back and the actual news spreads. Then, finally, when we have won, the men who fought the war come home. There will be millions of them who will come home knowing how things were. A government which wants to keep the confidence of its people after the war, or during the last stages of it, should take the people into its confidence and tell them everything that they can know, bad as well as good, so long as their knowing of it does not help the enemy. Covering up the errors to save the men who make them can only lead to a lack of confidence which can be one of the greatest dangers a nation can face.
http://www.post-gazette.com/multimedia/?videoid=102379
http://www.post-gazette.com/multimedia/?videoid=102380
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