A-Infos (en) US, Pittsburgh Organizing Group* - An Introduction to the G-20, the IMF and the Crisis + Yes to Community Gatherings! + Mass March on the G-20 Summit +Localize and Broaden the Fight

Workshop and Film Screening - Thursday, September 3 at 7:00pm Thomas Merton Center, 5125 
Penn Ave ---- This workshop provides a brief but relatively comprehensive introduction to 
some of the major transnational economic, political, and military super structures that 
the elites from powerful nation-states use to dominate the globe. We take a look at the 
history and structure of international financial institutions like the IMF World Bank 
Group, global political structures like the United Nations, and transnational military 
alliances like NATO. The workshop will examine all of these structures against the 
backdrop of the current financial crisis and the upcoming G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh. 
Additionally the workshop will introduce participants to the ideological frameworks that 
fuel this brand of corporate globalization and some of the debates that are taking place 
between the political elite.

-----------
This workshop will be followed by a special free screening of one of our favorite movies 
of all time.

Presented by POG's Tactical Training Initiative

Pittsburgh Organizing Group
pog@mutualaid.org
www.organizepittsburgh.org

--------------------------

September 22: Say “No” to the G-20…and “Yes” to Community Gatherings!

Tuesday, September 22 at 5:00pm
Friendship Park, Friendship Ave & S.Millave

Note: This event is organized by the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project, who's work POG has 
endorsed. Any questions about the event should be directed to them.

Say “No” to the G-20…and “Yes” to Community Gatherings!

This September, the political elites will be gathering in Pittsburgh to push policies that 
harm workers, human rights, the environment and our local quality of life. On Tuesday, 
September 22, Pittsburghers who are opposed to global destruction will be gathering in 
Friendship Park [S. Millvale & Friendship Ave in the Bloomfield neighborhood of 
Pittsburgh] (from 5pm to 7pm) to share food, music and conversation. This is not a 
protest; this is a chance to directly tell our story of the world for which we’re fighting.

Organizers will provide some tasty food, but bring something delicious to share if you 
can! Local singer/songwriters will be on-hand with tunes, and feel free to bring your own 
acoustic or percussive instruments if you feel musically inclined.

And a special highlight of the evening…the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center will be 
collecting stories for its G-Infinity Media Project – a local forum for the voices of the 
people who will not be in the room, who are affected by the G-20 economic policies but 
whose stories go largely untold. The G-20 summit brings together 19 national leaders from 
nations controlling 85% of the world’s wealth to make major economic policy decisions; is 
this a democratic forum for decision-making that affects all 203 nations and 6.7 billion 
people in the world? The Pittsburgh IMC (indypgh.org) exists for community-based, 
non-corporate, participatory media. Members are committed to countering the narrative that 
obscures the experience of those individuals and communities who have been left behind by 
economic transition, who continue to suffer discrimination, disenfranchisement, violence, 
epidemic health disparities, and lack of access to opportunity. By bringing together 
people working in their communities to tell their own stories in these forums, the project 
aims to create a full-spectrum media picture much broader than that of the G-20. Come tell 
your story!

This event is sponsored by the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project. We are encouraging 
allies in other parts of the East End and beyond to hold similar gatherings in 
neighborhoods throughout the city. These events will work to bring together community 
members already active against the G-20 with their neighbors, and locals with 
out-of-towners who care enough to come to Pittsburgh to resist the G-20. This is a chance 
to create webs of solidarity between the people of Pittsburgh and the world.

ResistG20.org

Pittsburgh Organizing Group
pog@mutualaid.org
www.organizepittsburgh.org

---------------------------------

September 24: Mass March on the G-20 Summit The People’s Uprising!

Thursday, September 24 at 2:30pm
Arsenal Park, 40th Street & Penn Ave., in Lawrenceville

[Note: This event is organized by the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project, not POG. Although 
we are supporting the work of the PGRP any event questions should be directed to them]

Power from Below, Not Impositions from Above
Community Solutions, Not Corporate Institutions
People Before Financial Profits

Meet: Thursday, September 24 at 2:30pm, Arsenal Park (40th Street & Penn Ave.) in 
Lawrenceville.

This September 24-25 the G-20 will be meeting in Pittsburgh. Finance ministers, central 
bank governors, presidents and lobbyists from the world’s largest economies will come 
together to discuss and plan out the international financial system.

Historically, the G-20 and similar institutions have been instruments of economic 
destruction, helping to promote and construct a world system built on “free” trade 
agreements such as NAFTA, financial consolidation and corporate control, privatization and 
deregulation, and the idea that profit and growth are more important than people and 
ecological sustainability.

On Thursday, September 24, Pittsburghers opposed to the G-20 will hold a mass march in 
recognition that the summit is much more than a simple meeting.. The summit is a big deal 
because governments, global financial institutions and corporations are putting out vast 
sums of money, prestige and media to make it important. This huge media-driven spectacle 
is intended to lull the public into believing that everything is fine, that the world 
should continue on the same basic path it’s been on, and that it’s perfectly reasonable 
for a few people and companies to hold vastly disproportionate power and decision-making 
rights over everyone else.

This Mass March on the G-20 Summit is intended to be a creation of space in which diverse 
forms of resistance can occur. This means it is an opportunity to show the synergy and 
diversity of our struggles, not an attempt to impose one message or theme on everyone. 
Anyone dissatisfied with the state of our society has a reason to resist the G-20. Far 
from a liability we see that as a strength of this global movement for justice.

In such an interconnected world, the many problems people have result from the 
pro-corporate, pro-profit worldview imposed on us by institutions such as the G-20. Rising 
student tuition and unequal access to education are connected to union-busting and 
privatization at home, and to the expansion of sweatshops in the global south. The decline 
in real wages and loss of manufacturing here are tied to "free" trade agreements that 
force farmers off their land, workers into low paying jobs and students out of school. 
Police brutality in Pittsburgh and occupation in Iraq are part of the larger 
militarization of our world.. Environmental justice concerns in rural Pennsylvania and 
West Virginia, just as with health care reform, can’t be addressed without tackling the 
problem of corporate influence and the power of money in our political system. It’s clear 
that the only real change we can believe in requires systemic solutions.

At this march there will be student feeder marches and worker contingents, numerous 
musical groups, and, of course, efforts to disrupt the summit. The march is unpermitted 
and intended to allow people the space and freedom to oppose the G-20 how they see fit. 
The rest is up to you!

At this time in history, with the very architects of the global financial collapse 
gathering in our city we need events that start from the premise that it is people who 
matter, not permits. Our decision to not ask for permission from the system we protest has 
much to do with our belief that our future lies in community-based solutions, in power 
from below, in putting justice before the law, and in a rejection of the G-20 as a 
legitimate body for global decision-making. We build, not beg.

On September 24 we invite you to take to the streets with all of your love and your anger, 
your determination and your defiance, your rejection and your vision.

In solidarity,

Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project
www.resistg20.org

Pittsburgh Organizing Group
pog@mutualaid.org
www.organizepittsburgh.org

--------------------------

September 25: Localize and Broaden the Fight Against the G-20

Friday, September 25 at 11:30am
Everywhere!

[Note: The event below is organized by the PGRP, whose work POG is supporting, and any 
questions should be directed to them]

Sept. 25: Localize and Broaden the Fight Against the G-20

TGIF. The global is local, the local is global and our resistance is everywhere.
Friday, September 25th. Simultaneous actions in different areas of Pittsburgh, all ending 
at 11:30 am

By this point, the G-20 summit circus will be in its final hours in Pittsburgh. Earlier in 
the week, we focused our energy on the summit more directly and now, we will turn towards 
the institutions where the G-20's worldview manifests. The places that symbolize the kind 
of world the G-20 works to protect and sustain. Institutions that pepper the landscape of 
our city, just like most other cities.

We reject the idea that some issues are local and others are global. The local is the 
global and the global is the local: the problems we face locally are overwhelmingly not 
unique and in fact, the "global" problems created by the G-20 have translated into 
problems that are being felt in every locale across the world. When we talk about the 
decline of real wages, we're talking about the sweatshop labor in Asia, we're talking 
about the sweatshop labor in California. When we talk about anti-union activities on 
Columbia, we're talking about anti-union activities in Pittsburgh. And everywhere we're 
talking about housing, healthcare, food and education becoming more expensive and less 
accessible.

With this in mind, we reject the G-20 not just because their meetings are an undemocratic 
farce or because they don't have our interests at heart. We reject the G-20 because the 
world that we have inherited is neither fair nor just and we recognize that our 
governments are either unwilling or unable to help. It is from unjust social and economic 
relations that our misery springs, that these institutions exist and prosper and while we 
make no claims that one day will bring about a new society sometimes you just got to say 
fuck it and get down. Our resistance on Friday is an attempt to show that mass movements 
of people, not governments, are the only things that we can trust to create the world we 
want to see. We are going to undermine the G-20 by exposing and confronting the 
institutions %mdash; institutions that the G-20 protects and defends %mdash; that directly 
affect us.

For Friday, September 25, we've created a (soon to be released) menu of places in 
Pittsburgh at which we're asking affinity groups and organizations to adopt as sites for 
protests and other actions. We don't care when your action starts, but ask that it end 
exactly at 11:30 am For those who want to do an hour-long picket start at 10:30 am, for 
those who want to do a 30-second street theatre piece kick things off at 11:29 am At many 
locations nothing will happen and that's okay as we see part of the point in simply 
drawing attention to those places where oppression and injustice exists on a daily basis. 
Some locations will have previously advertised public protests. Many other spots will have 
creative actions determined by the groups that adopt them. The tactics and the tone should 
be determined by you. We see this as the creation of space in which others can bring their 
visions to fruition while drawing on the strengths of coordination, decentralization, 
diversity of tactics and differing risk levels. We intend to create a way that groups can 
avoid going to the same areas, and we'll later release a more in-depth look at how we see 
this playing out and why we believe it will be successful while some other (in our view, 
more problematic) variations have not met expectations.

Our liberation was never, is not and never shall be, dependent on the G-20 governments, 
ministers or summits.

Make Total Resistance.

Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project
www.resistg20.org

Pittsburgh Organizing Group
pog@mutualaid.org
www.organizepittsburgh.org
=============
* An antiauthoritarian anticapitalist initiative
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://ainfos.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en