community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Counter Military Recruitment Rally on August 6
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) continued to escalate their counter-military recruitment campaign today as 175 protesters gathered to protest the city’s main recruiting center.
imc1.jpg, image/jpeg, 800x1067
Today’s protest was the first publicly announced action in Pittsburgh, and it followed six months of educational activities and unannounced pickets/direct actions.
In response to the planned protest, the recruitment center closed for the entirety of its normal 9am-1pm day.
The rally featured two high school students speaking on the importance of organizing inside the public school system and conscientious objection, a former enlistee and current member of POG on his short-lived experience in the marines, a member of the American Friends Service Committee, the radical cheerleaders, raging grannies, and a performer from the local slam poetry team.
The closing speaker gave an overview of the counter-recruitment movement and announced POG’s next public action -- a call to shut down recruitment in the city on August 20. Following the conclusion of the rally, half the crowd erupted in a chant of “Shut it down! No recruiters in this town!”
After the protest, participants walked the short distance to the recruiting station where Pittsburgh’s own radical marching band, The Steel Gum Bandits, led the crowd in a sing along version of Bella Ciao and another poem was read.
Police presence was mild with three bike cops and four undercover police monitoring events.
For more info on the A20 day of action...
POG A20 Call to Action:
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050804145930778
A20 Zombie Bloc Call to Action: http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050804150553669
Whitnee Stack, high school student, speaks
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
great shirt
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
the crowd
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
people
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
more people
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
imc6.jpg, image/jpeg, 800x1067
yet more people
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
the march 1
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
the march 2
by P
Saturday, Aug. 06, 2005 at 8:39 PM
Awesome message!
by POG supporter
Sunday, Aug. 07, 2005 at 9:22 AM
The message of this protest was really tight, and speakers rarely repeated each other. It was awesome to see so many different faces in the crowd gathered to cut off the military's supply lines, so to speak. I can't wait until the Aug. 20 action.
Great leadership, POG. Thanks for taking the initiative to fight military recruitment.
Excellent coverage of the event, P. Really wonderful pictures and text.
An inspiring and on target event
by Tim Vining
Sunday, Aug. 07, 2005 at 8:34 PM
timvining@verizon.net
Yes, congratulations and thanks to Pittsburgh Organizing Group for another inspiring event with a clear message. Your leadership among the anti-war movement in needed in Pittsburgh now more than ever!
I know that without the inspiration shared at events like this one, I would have totally given up hope. Keep the torch burning!
Peace,
Tim
hmmm
by a nony mouse
Tuesday, Aug. 09, 2005 at 4:20 AM
Hmmm...
Have a 175-person public protest with support of many progressive organizations - the military recruitment center closes down for the day.
Have little private unanounced shindigs with the east-end clique and 10 people attending - military recruitment center remains open.
It's nice to see which kind of organizing really does the job - good work POG, may we learn from this experience for the future.
ReDuX
by pog'er
Tuesday, Aug. 09, 2005 at 9:16 AM
I agree, I thought 175 people was a great turnout.
However, instead of making some sort of insinuation against the organizing of past CR events you should think about what an escalating campaign actually means.
Don't start this silly agruement again.
Thank you to everyone who came out on Saturday - your attendance was greatly appreciated !!!!!
hmmm pt. 2
by savage henry
Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005 at 4:42 PM
maybe instead of immediately defending every action pog takes as absolutely correct, you should think about the constructive criticism offered above.
---
by ---
Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005 at 5:39 PM
constructive criticism is needed, saying things like 10 person east-end clique is not.
this discussion was previously had, and in it people mentioned that pog would be doing larger more inclusive actions, which it clearly is. i'm sure it will also continue to do actions like unnannounced pickets. why? because they are seperate tactics part of a larger strategy. support the parts you feel are important and move on.
It still was a great event
by POG supporter
Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005 at 11:01 PM
POG still held a great event. You may wish that they did things your way, and you may have your own grudge against the group. That's your business. If you simply enjoy engaging in armchair criticism, that's also your business. However, if you have ideas for actions, you should try them out. If counter-recruitment interests you, then why don't you consider figuring out where military recruiters go and interfering with their attempts to nab kids for their death squads? You could also try to distribute CR literature at malls and other "private" places. If security ejects you from the premises and lets the recruiters stay, maybe you can raise a fuss? (Anyone know anything about that?) Better yet, have a fundraiser and donate money to POG to support those sweet, glossy counter-recruitment flyers they're distributing to youth whom military recruiters target.
As far as your criticism goes, you fail to recognize that POG's smaller actions at the military recruiting station, while perhaps failing to shut down the station for the day, resulted in two things: it deterred some people from keeping appointments with recruiters, and it drew public and media attention to the problem of military recruiters, or "death dealers" as I prefer to think of them. I'm guessing this is how you found out about the POG campaign in the first place.
Asking a group to achieve maximum visibility immediately is essentially asking them to expose every idea and plan they have to the public, even though they may still be ironing out the wrinkles in the planning. POG may still be planning different events and trying things out, discarding plans and elements of plans that do not work. Visibility is a funny thing with activist groups. People want them to announce the tiniest move they make, but often ignore them when they actually issue calls for action and support.
I'm glad POG varies tactics by making some events public and pursuing other actions that may seem on the sly to others. Diversity of tactics is the name of the game. Unfortunately, the standard operating procedure of staging mass marches has yielded very little in the way of success for the antiwar movement locally and nationally. There is much to be said for the element of surprise. I hope that POG has some surprises planned. POG, I'll be there at the next event. Of course, the cops will be there, along with some naysayers. But that hasn't stopped you before, has it?
great american's speech
by a right thinking democrat
Monday, Aug. 15, 2005 at 2:41 PM
Winning The Cultural War
Charlton Heston
February 16, 1999
Harvard Law School Forum
February 16, 1999
I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. 'My Daddy,' he said, 'pretends to be people.' There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo.
If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.
As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: if my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty … your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right.
Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, 'We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.'
Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.
Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from 'ridiculous' and 'duped' to a 'brain-injured, senile, crazy old man'. I know ... I'm pretty old ... but I sure thank the Lord ain't senile.
As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.
For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 -– long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.
I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.
I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.
Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.
From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, 'Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!'
But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys-subjects bound to the British crown.
In his book, 'The End of Sanity,' Martin Gross writes that 'blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something, without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it.'
Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.
In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDS -- the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not ... need not ... tell their patients that they are infected.
At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team 'The Tribe' because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.
In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.
In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.
At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.
Yeah, I know ... that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said 'Negroes.' Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said 'black.' But it's a no-no now.
For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly 'Native-American.' I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation Native American ... with a capital letter on 'American.'
Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word 'niggardly' while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, 'niggardly' means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign.
As columnist Tony Snow wrote: 'David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly,' (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance.'
What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?
Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.
You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge.
And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are-by your grandfathers' standards-cowards. Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.
I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, 'Don't shoot me.'
If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.
Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation?
The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.
You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.
I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King ... who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.
Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that Disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.
In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous law that weaken personal freedom.
But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water Cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not Complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story.
A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called 'Cop Killer' celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so-at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend.
What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of 'Cop Killer'-every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.
I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF I'm ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF I'm ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF...
It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces Of Al and Tipper Gore. SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ....'
Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said 'We can't print that.' 'I know,' I replied, 'but Time/Warner ís selling it.'
Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk.
When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you ... petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month ... boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.
So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.
If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.
The Apes Were Smarter
by POG kicks ass
Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005 at 5:27 PM
I'm not sure what this speech has to do with thwarting the efforts of military recruiters...
Does "a right thinking democrat" feel the same "innate kinship" for CR activists that Charlton Heston says he feels "with that Disobedient spirit...that protested a war in Viet Nam"? Maybe "right thinking democrat" missed that line.
As for Heston, he should be fortunate enough to be senile. His own comments are hypocritical to the point of absurdity. For example, Heston thinks it's OK for white people to use whatever term they want to refer to racial minorities, but not OK for Ice-T to write a song about killing cops. If you don't believe in freedom of speech for views you disagree with then you don't believe in freedom of speech at all, and it's clear that Heston doesn't. Continuing on... It's wrong for people to Pressure William and Mary college to change the name of its sports team from "The Tribe," but it's fine for Charlton Heston to exercise his leverage as a shareholder to get Ice T's recrod label contract canceled? Come on, how stupid do you have to be to buy Heston's shpeil? Heston isn't fighting "political correctness." He's fighting for his kind of "political correctness"-- which, I should mention, is a pretty disgusting kind of political correctness where the idea that a person (Heston assumes man) would need to get clear consent before engaging in sexual contact with another person (Heston assumes woman) is at the top of Heston's list of unbelievable outrages. Oh yeah. And people being able to dress however they want at work. What an awful idea.
I'm not too sure what Dr. King would think today, but I seriously doubt that Charlton Heston is an authority on the subject, despite the fact that participated in a civil rights march in 1963 and refers to James Baldwin as "Jimmy."
I don't think it's worth wasting much more time on this...
i
by i
Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 at 10:41 PM
"For example, Heston thinks it's OK for white people to use whatever term they want to refer to racial minorities, but not OK for Ice-T to write a song about killing cops."
Where exactly do you get the idea that Heston thinks it's ok for white people to use whatever term they want to to refer to minorities?
Thanks for reveling in Heston's supposed senility, that sheds a lot of light on the type of person you are. Hey, let's make fun of elderly people!
Whiney spoiled kids
by Philip
Saturday, Aug. 20, 2005 at 4:57 PM
You are a bunch of whiney spoiled kids; YOU are the ones that make’s our once great country appalling. The war is doing well no matter how much your lying communistic media tells you different.
Us Navy
Philip
NO CLUE!
by me
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005 at 12:24 PM
Don't blame the recruiters. Blame your congressman! If I were king for a day all you assholes would be deported to the sudan for a little R&R. See how you like that. I am a career Soldier, and former resident of the Pittsburgh region and I am not surprised. I've alway's said if the state of PA was in need of an enima that's were the tube would go. POG is full of slugs, and cry baby pussies who probably used to get their asses kicked at school then come home and play X-Box for 9 hours straight to forget how sorry your ass is.
POG SUCKS!
by SFC R
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005 at 12:34 PM
tksc2@juno.com
HEY POG HOW ABOUT A NICE BIG CUP OF SHUT THE FUCK UP!
YOU SIT IN THE CORNER WITH THE OTHER LIBERAL PUSSIES OF THE WORLD AND WE (AMERICA'S FINEST) WELL DEFEND YOUR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. AND YOU WON'T EVEN HAVE TO THANK ME. HELL I WOULDN'T LET POG LICK THE CAMEL SHIT OFF MY BOOT'S.
230+ YEARS OF SERVICE AND STILL SERVING! THE MIGHTY MILITARY WON'T SLOW DOWN SO YOU BETTER GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY OR JUMP ON BOARD!
Very Unprofessional
by Disapointed Soldier
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005 at 8:00 PM
I am also a soldier in the US Army. SFC R, I just wanted to say that I think you are very unprofessional and quite disappointing. I too and a career soldier and I too am starting to doubt the reasoning for this war. These people are simply voicing thier opinions.
THINK
by Keepin' On
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005 at 8:28 PM
These are ordinary people in our culture, exercising a constitutionally protected privilege for which we have ALL PAID DEARLY in many ways, starting with the pain and loss of life of our ancestors. If these people are becoming so threatening that we need violence to quell their voices, perhaps the wrong people are dominating the conversation. THINK, PEOPLE. They have drawn attention to themselves because they are compelled to act in a nonviolent way. They act so that YOU WILL ALL begin to ask the right questions of the people who have the most to gain from this immoral war. Reclaim your humanity - open your hearts and minds AND THINK!
Thank You
by Dan Ray
Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2005 at 7:47 PM
sktrpunk16@earthlink.net (540)341-8775 322 Equestrian Rd 20186 Warrenton VA
I thank god every day that there are people like you in the world.
thank you
Poop and penis
by sg
Tuesday, Nov. 01, 2005 at 1:00 PM
Once again, nothing on my mind but feces
![[masthead]](/images/masthead_140.png)
