Overnight there were 'riots' near campus. 40 people were arrested, but I heard a lot of the confusion stemmed from students being in the streets, trying to ward off violent demonstrators. There has been no sign here of the targeted demonstrations that were supposed to disrupt all the banks and starbucks in the city. The groups responsible for yesterday's mayhem decided to splinter into a large and explicitly peaceful demonstration, leaving the smaller anarchist factions to do whatever they felt like. Hopefully this will allow some kind of message to get out. Tibetan monks assembled up the hill for a march this morning, but there hasn't been much else going on here.
I am disappointed really. Aside from a few small and clever demonstrations, the nondescript mayhem captured most of the media attention. Pittsburgh doesn't have many activists, so on the whole residents are confused and aggravated by this. It just seems like pointless destruction. Even the groups that are "anti-greedy-big business" are having to hoof it around town to find some big businesses to protest. Ugh.
The Big Protest has been really well received, very peaceful. There was speeches and singing, just like a Rally. We'll see if they move forward peacefully. The city was significantly over-prepared for protests, and violence- it isn't surprising that there were clashes. I'll agree with Bart, too many people uncoordinated on both sides always leads to confusion. The 'confusion' has gotten a LOT more coverage locally than any issues that anyone has been pushing. On the flip side, I am really surprised that there are so FEW protesters here. I guess everyone who cared was at the UN in NY at the start of the week.
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In his closing remarks, Obama said he was resentful that he didn't get to eat at Pamela's, the local diner that serves big, fried in butter pancakes to die for. Or put you on lipitor. This was a visitor favorite, before it got the presidential nod. Who wants to go for breakfast?
3 comments:
this is beginning to sound more like Seattle, perhaps a little less intense.
Based on the NYT/ NPR/Democracy Now news this morning, these elements are familiar:
Massive police presence, from multiple jurisdictions (means not well coordinated?)
A large contingent of people who want to protest 'peacefully' i.e. with a permit and a planned route. these folks, too, are not always well coordinated and certainly not well disciplined.
A smaller group of people determined to 'protest' w/o permits, order, or accountability. This usually means masked people in black, breaking windows, pushing dumpster in the street etc. Their *goal* seems to be to provoke a police over-response, which theoretically reveals the iron-fist of authority and transforms people into higher levels of class consciousness - but in practice fuels a pro-law and order reaction. (this is so predictable that some of us believe the anarchist are hired by the police to support next year's budget increases and provide cover for any police activities that be unseemly when seen on the 5:00 news.)
Add a helping of confused, sometimes drunk, college students, and you're ready to start baking.
I hope nobody gets hurt and that your local coffee shops keep their windows!
Yes, but then consider that large financial corporations could also be hiring people to go around to smaller blogs and post 'grassroots' theories about how the anarchists are either violent jerks or simply a tool of local law enforcement, therefore delegitimizing their protests and causing people to assume they were done without proper permits or organization, crippling the movement in its infancy.
But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, "Bart"?
For the record, yes I'm kidding. It's been frustrating to watch these one-sided accounts of how 'the man' is keeping down the protestors who were merely, I'm sure, threatening law enforcement personnel and causing a real danger to the public.
What really confuses me is 'why now'? I remember a similar crazyness out of seattle years ago that seemed odd too. It's just a meeting of a bunch of world leaders, what are we protesting, again? Meetings? Leaders? Is it just all the international attention?
-N
Noel, that is what was so weird about yesterday. They were protesting having a meeting, actually having countries, like if you shout down a couple riot cops a tide of sympathy will swell and the world will decide to live without order. Wah?
It is a good forum for 'demonstration,' since they are setting the economic agenda for the next go around, and as such there is a lot of media- international media. That's why the Anti-war, Free Tibet, Save Darfur, Feed the Hungry people were out. Free Tibet ppl can't get on TV in China, but our media outlets think buddhist monks are colorful. Pittsburgh doesn't have a lot of activism, so this is like a blank canvas for other protesters. The camera steeling kids in black masks- they'll come out whenever they think they can get away with it. Waste of air time though- and it makes ppl here more skeptical of any kind of demonstration.
Surprising, really, from a town that burns couches after football games.
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