Can we question their sanity yet?  (emphasis added)

Pittsburgh: March 19, Anti-war Protest

Tuesday, March 04 2008 @ 11:04 AM PST

Contributed by: Anonymous

Views: 989

This March 19 hundreds of cities across the U.S. will hold events to mark the anniversary of the war in Iraq and remember the tragic toll the world has and continues to pay; nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 30,000 wounded, at least 100,000 Iraqis killed, four million displaced, and nearly a trillion dollars squandered. While there will be events in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, members of Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) feel it is important that there be a local event connected to our community’s long-standing, successful efforts to use education and action to oppose the war and undermine the militarism that leads to perpetual war(s).

March 19 War Anniversary Protest
Evict the military recruitment station, cage the recruiters!

When: Thursday, March 19
Rally: 6:00pm
March: Departs at 6:30pm for the Military Recruiting Station
Where: Meet at the dinosaur sculpture in front of Carnegie Library (4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213)

This March 19 hundreds of cities across the U.S. will hold events to mark the anniversary of the war in Iraq and remember the tragic toll the world has and continues to pay; nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 30,000 wounded, at least 100,000 Iraqis killed, four million displaced, and nearly a trillion dollars squandered.

While there will be events in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, members of Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) feel it is important that there be a local event connected to our community’s long-standing, successful efforts to use education and action to oppose the war and undermine the militarism that leads to perpetual war(s).

On Thursday, March 19, POG will be holding a torch-lit march to a modern day castle of abominations—our local military recruiting station. If the station remains open, we intend to evict it and everything inside of it, occupy the location, and transform it into something useful for the community. We’ll also be bringing a movable cage in which to confine military recruiters until they no longer pose a danger to our friends and neighbors. Of course, the station may be closed and recruiters may flee or hide behind the police apparatus that enables the war to continue. That is often the case, and we’ve seen in the past the overwhelming resources the state directs against these anniversary events because of their importance as a symbol of dissent. We believe in acting effectively, in confronting the war, at times and places of our choosing. When the state brings the resources necessary to suppress direct action against the war, it makes sense to hold a symbolic protest, and we still consider that a success, as it exposes the reality that it is ultimately on the local level that our countries war policy will be decided.

The truth is, the anniversary of the war—much like symbolic casualty milestones—is not significant in and of itself. Just as each death is equally lamentable, so too is each day that we continue to engage in a brutal occupation, that we marginalize and repress progressive non-sectarian organizations, that we crack down on independent Iraqi trade unions, that we arm multiple “sides” of a conflict, that we work to maintain the economic advantage of U.S. corporations, that innocent Iraqis die, that the powerful operate with impunity. In short, each day we sacrifice more lives and resources in an endless, self-serving war, a cycle of violence and retribution.

But the anniversary has meaning for those who have suffered, for those who remember. And while the President will use the day to claim a new victory with new benchmarks on the horizon, we have an opportunity to present the people’s story, a counter-narrative. When the body count of American deaths decreases, regardless of how many Iraqis die in our place, the media attention lessens and the politicians move on. But our responsibility to work for peace and justice remains.

It is our sincere hope that you will join us on March 19 if only to stand with others of similar good faith to show that there is dissent at home, and there is a common humanity that binds the people of the United States and Iraq—the desire to create and sustain a new world based on mutual understanding and solidarity.

For peace with justice,
In solidarity,

Pittsburgh Organizing Group

www.organizepittsburgh.org
pog@mutualaid.org
POG c/o TMC
5125 Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh PA 15224

But after:

The plan was simple: put out a call saying we were going to evict the recruiting station and bring a moveable cage to confine military recruiters until they no longer posed a danger to our community, all the while we would march to a different war-related institution, either the local ROTC office or Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

The goal: get the right-wing to do publicity for us, allow us to focus the cops and expectant counter-protesters on somewhere we wouldn’t be, all the while publicizing a message not typically heard or discussed—that military recruitment and recruiters themselves are a threat to our communities, a blight on our neighborhoods, and they deserve to be confronted with direct action capable of addressing the fact they are key to the continuation of this war.

And help us the right-wing did. From the far right blogosphere, news of our protest migrated to national Fox news, a press conference in Washington, DC, and local talk radio. The Department of Defense gave us a shout-out in a leaked bulletin warning local recruiters of the diabolical anti-war crowd and all the resulting buzz sent traffic to our website skyrocketing. This guaranteed advance media coverage and created a huge spectacle. The multitude of creepy death threats, violent homophobic language and imagery, and promises to meet us there and beat us to death with their own hands helped highlight the true agenda of war supporters who claim to care about the “freedom” of others.

It’s worth noting the ruse itself was probably only possible because of our history; we’ve often shut down the recruiting station and caught the police off guard. While we thought the call was obviously satirical—who the heck would actually try to wrestle someone with military training into some flimsy, activist (not engineer) designed and constructed cage?!—the unwillingness of the cops to take a chance and the inability of the right-wing to take a joke (or more likely the need to believe it was true in order to validate their view of themselves as necessary patriots protecting defenseless recruiters against the traitorous leftist hordes) gave us an opening.

After a brief speech by a member of POG, the march, with its 12 x 5 foot cage in tow, headed straight for Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a large, military-funded educational institution in Pittsburgh. After arriving at CMU with chants of “no killer robots in our town, shut CMU down,” “we don’t want your robot war,” and “organize and smash the state,” the march zig-zagged through campus, eventually losing most of the police as we crossed a pedestrian bridge. Making our way to Warner Hall, the university’s administration building, a few marchers proceeded to chain the cage to the front doors completely blocking the main entrance. The march then meandered through CMU buildings, eventually heading through two halls that are connected to military research.

While the above events were taking place, 25 war supporters had gathered at the military recruiting station, ostensibly to stop us from shutting it down and caging the poor recruiters. As the real march was getting underway, a POG member at the recruiting station began a prepared speech to the war crowd. Starting off with a bit of over-the-top war mongering, they proceeded to lay out the obvious: the pro-war faction had been tricked and were standing in the rain “protecting” an already closed and empty building from people who never planned to go there with only dozens of police paying any attention to them. The crowd responded with long faces, looks of confusion, and eventually someone shouted “you’re a faggot.” The POG member left and reconnaissance people reported to us that a couple people from the pro-war crowd left to look for us.

We would like to thank those who turned out and believe everyone played a part in making the event successful. We believe in creating inclusive frameworks for events that open up space for participants to take action they feel is effective. We don’t try to monopolize the media representatives covering the events nor instruct people what they can or can’t do (within reason and with an eye towards why we’re there, of course). As this approach is often different from those taken by other groups we’d like to remind folks that if you want to see something specific happen at an event, work with us, it probably can! From post-action feedback, this year’s event seemed to mark an improvement over last year, leaving participants more empowered and hopeful of the prospects for resistance.

You know why it worked?  Because people are willing to believe the unhinged anti war left would do what they claimed….

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