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We must network

Wilt Thompkins is now speaking. "We must network" and "create land trusts" to protect communities. "You cannot afford to be tired

G-20 People's Tribunal

Helena Wong is now speaking. She is working with a group called , as an acronym , CAAAV. She is telling stories about individuals and families experiencing hardship caused by, according to her, by "corporate and capitalist elites" have denied so many a place at the table.

G-20 People's Tribunal

In this beautiful church, Emanuel Episcopal Church, the speaker is talking about building alliances across many boundaries, based on worker's concerns.

Plan ahead for the US Social Forum in June 2010 in Detroit

While in Pittsburgh for the G-20, I have bee hearing about the US Social Forum. Being here for the G-20, I am convinced that meeting with other activists around the nation and around the world , face to face has value. As I type, I am at an event called the People's Tribunal. It is across the river from the down-town area where there is a heavy police presence. This meeting is one of the activist gatherings that did not get shut down by police. I came here to have meaningful interaction. I did not have a sense of what was getting accomplished in the streets of downtown Pittsburgh amidst the shouting and chanting. I invite Free Press readers to give their answer to that question. My guess is that taking better care of each other and of the planet requires a variety of tools, one of them being protest , civil disobedience and other forms of dissenting from the conventional wisdom. But also a valuable tool are get togethers outside the arena of street protests, per se--meetings such as this People's Tribunal.

Stockpiling human waste

A guy who is providing housing for me while in Pittsburgh played an audio recording of various scare tactics regarding G-20 protestors. Some of that involved the claim that protestors are storing human waste to be used for throwing at police during protests. Two men who looked to be in their e

G-420 ?

About 30 feet away from me, about a half dozen people are shouting "a little bit of weed is all we need." As a group of police in riot gear walked past, one of these people shouted out to the officers who were about a few feet away, "damn girl, you look good." All of the officers were men.

Just now, one of them called out to the officers, "you know you want to get high" and " I got some here in my pocket. When I first noticed them about 90 minutes ago , I thought they were xenophobic and jingoistic counter-protesters against the people calling for a change in US policy toward Ethiopia.

Originally, I had thought they were chanting "go breed your disease!" to the people protesting against the Ethiopian dictatorship. They were actually chanting, as I have learned after hearing it about a 100 times, "smoke weed, cure disease!"

Perhaps it's with my non-THC-induced paranoia that I wonder whether these protestors for weed are corporate-funded decoys meant to distract the public away from the protests for environmental and social justice causes.

Race and protests

A perhaps random thought that crossed my mind as an African - American man walked pass me is that this type of protest action would register on a somewhat higher key in the collective psyche of Pittsburghers and Americans in general if hundreds or several thousand people of color took to the streets.

Regarding the issue of race, I encountered two young men who told me that they would never go to the Hill District due to its high crime rate. I didn't experience problems when I was there yesterday. An idea is that the Black folk in the Hill District right now won't express hostility to a skinny white guy on a bicycle, given that they right now may tend to think I am there as some sort of liberal do-gooder--despite the local buzz about rowdy protestors bent on breaking people's windows.

This idea about how race pertains to protests is something I thought about amidst the mostly white and mostly male young adults in the streets dressed in black and behaving confrontationally toward police. Am I reading into things to think that things would be different if they were mostly people of color ?

Crackdown appears imminent

I was just told by an officer to get my bike out of a barricaded area. Time will tell whether I am mistaken, but it seems that the police have been allowing the Free Tibet protest to carry on for a period of time but perhaps now are thinking that time for that is up or maybe they are just annoyed by the repetitious chanting. Some of the onlookers seem to be having a good time. . My guess is that for some people this spectacle, along with the days off work, have been a break in routine. Some Pittsburghers may also like the fact that their city will be the focus of international attention.

Yesterday, at a meeting in the Hill District here in Pittsburgh, there were reporters there from France, Germany as well as reporters from NBC and a photographer who said he was working with a writer from Penthouse Magazine. So some people may be excited about the international attention their city is getting and some also may like the thrill of something 'crazy' happening. A guy standing nearby just said "catch a Pirates game and watch a protest. That's a good day."

Activists can form working relationships via G-20 regardless of whether officials are paying attention to protests

Though it's not clear whether any of the G-20 officials are paying attention to this protest,let alone the question about the extent to which any of them care about the issues , well, an idea is that these G-20-related events have value for common people in the sense of being opportunities with activists and other concerned citizens to form working relationships.

Events Shut Down

I have bee using G-20 Media.org to find out about the events that are going on . What I found today on that website was that many of the events read "SHUT DOWN" next to their listings.

As I stand here with my notebook on a concrete barricade with the free-Tibet chants in the background, I wonder about what, if anything is getting accomplished at this protest and at the various other events I have attended so far.

All the chanting is pretty much a repetitious sound in the background. By the way, there was a person with one of those big shoulder-mounted cameras with a person with a microphone, that is someone from a network or one of their local affiliates.

Sure, perhaps it is good that some Pittsburghers have showed up to downtown, but I wonder about the extent to which the onlookers here will increase their civic engagement. In some ways the ambience here reminds me of other public gatherings such as those events that involve watching a parade, watching fireworks, or waiting in line to buy concert tickets(if that's even done anymore).

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