PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

March 17-18 Anti-War/Counter Military Recruitment Events
by POG Friday, Mar. 03, 2006 at 3:43 PM
pog@mutualaid.org (email address validated) everywhere

March 17-18 Anti-War/Counter Military Recruitment Events
We won’t be Bush’s Cannon Fodder, Lay siege to military recruitment

On Friday March 17 Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) will lay symbolic siege to the military recruitment center in Oakland. Then on Saturday, we will lead a youth and counter-recruitment contingent to participate in the mass march organized by the Thomas Merton Center.

These two events are part of a weekend of events marking the wars three-year anniversary and are intended to express our disgust at the human and material costs of the war, and oppose the despicable military recruitment machine that ensures its continuation.

March 17, 5:00-7:00pm
Anti-War/Counter Military Recruitment protest at the Military Recruitment Center in Oakland (3712 Forbes Ave in Oakland)
*Bring Counter-Recruitment /Anti-War signs, masks, drums and instruments of noise, light producing devices, catapults, siege towers, walls, etc.

March 18, Rally Starts at 1:00pm, March kicks off at 2:30pm
Youth and Counter Recruitment Contingent in larger anti-war march
Converge at Penn and Baum in East Liberty. Look for the Youth Against
Militarism banner and our sexy drummers.

Bring Counter-Recruitment /Anti-War signs, masks, lungs of fire, drums and instruments of noise, light producing devices, banners and flags, and any other raucous and rowdy means to give voice to what we all know- the war must end and the ruling institutions of power are not going to end it without massive outpourings of dissent.

The anniversary of the war is, much like symbolic casualty milestones, 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 responsible for taking so many precious souls. Three years is a measure of just how horrific this war has been and what it continues to cost the people of the U.S. and Iraq.

We invite you: students, young folks and their parents, and all those concerned about issues of military recruitment to join together to say “Let the rich and powerful fight their own wars! We won’t kill for you!”

On both days we invite you to join us in laying siege to a bastion of evil in our city, a military recruitment apparatus that daily seeks to make our communities participants in the unjust and immoral policies of our government.

On this symbolically important weekend help us send a public message that many Pittsburghers intend to continue speaking out; we will not be silently complicit in this madness.

Now is the time!
To let the fire in our hearts become the scream in our throats and the
drumbeat of our footsteps as we walk the path to a new world.

For more information: http://www.organizepittsburgh.org
You can reach us at pog@mutualaid.org

The larger story for us-

March 18th weekend will also mark almost one year since POG began organizing against military recruitment. We’ve organized 27 protests, made a dozen visits to local schools, produced and distributed thousands of flyers, talked to kids around the city, garnered dozens of news stories about counter-recruitment (CR), and shut down the station on numerous occasions.

This campaign has successfully disrupted the recruitment process in
Pittsburgh. Every second recruiters have come to the window to watch us, or been delayed entering the station due to acts of civil disobedience outside, or choose to lock their doors because they knew we were coming, has been a small step towards hastening the war’s end and reducing the chance of similar wars in the future.

There is a lot of work and we have no illusions about its difficulty. As CR groups around the country have mobilized, the government has increased its efforts. Many activists have faced police violence and arrests, surveillance and spying, and other forms of intimidation: more recruiters in Pittsburgh, more money for propaganda, more marketing and branding, larger and more sophisticated databases now tracking kids from birth, more military video games, etc. What’s important to keep in mind is that no matter how many resources they pump into recruitment, CR work still makes a difference because it gives people access to alternative information about enlistment. Whether someone gets five or 20 phone calls from a recruiter if they are exposed to even one message from us they are at least being exposed to an alternative perspective – the first step towards acquiring the balance of information needed to make an informed decision. We are trying to break the consensus that has, for the most part, existed in society about what joining the military means and what its benefits are, a branding message that has been largely created by the military itself.

We don’t know that we’ll win the complete victory we hope for, but we do know that in the end that isn’t what’s most important about this campaign. What matters most is the difference we are making through our educational efforts and the success we are having at creating a culture of active resistance that increases our movement’s ability to engage in direct action against injustice. We are on the right track. Our inability to create a larger impact on the war is now a result of our limited resources rather than a commentary on the ineffectual/symbolic nature of so much of today’s anti-war organizing.

No group can single-handedly shape the course of history, we are inextricably linked to a thousand other groups and millions of souls around the world all struggling towards similar aims: to create the world we wish to live in, one with a peace in our lives and relationships that is based on justice in our world.

There might not be a utopia in our future, but with collective struggle there is the promise of a better tomorrow. It is towards this brighter day we will continue to work.

POG

protest locations
by Ken Friday, Mar. 03, 2006 at 11:09 PM

i applaud all the efforts and work of the anti-war committee, POG, etc especially since i have been out of the loop for some time for numerous reasons and have not helped. However, i wish we could hold a large scale protest in a less friendly area to bring our message to an area that won't basically be all people who agree with us already. East Lib and Squirrel Hill are clearly with us on this issue. Southside on the other hand is gettin more and more yuppie and wealthy, meaning the demographic is shifting in a bad way and I as someone who grew up in Arlington, which is close to Southside, cannot stand to see what is happening down there. I think a large scale demo on the southside or some action down there would be ideal in light of these facts and the enormous amount of public traffic of all types that comes thru the area. This side of the city has seen little to no action in the political aspect of life and its due time we bring some of this over here! Any thoughts on this would be welcome. (Keep in mind how people were attacked on East Carson when the war began....clearly they don't want us there, which is all the more reason to move on down and take action!)