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Jail solidarity update, and THOUGHTS
by JohnRPGH
Sunday, Aug. 24, 2003 at 6:38 PM
Account of jail solidarity as of 9PM, and thoughts on our future.
Me and a few others went down to the jail for solidarity around 8. There were 4 of us, joined by 3 others. The clerk at the desk I believe said that Joey was being arraigned BEFORE 7 am. Don't take my word totally on this..but I am 90% sure those were the exact words. Then I had to leave..but I think Matt went down and will post his account also.
Also..
<br>There are a few things I believe we definately have to do. First off, the attendance i believe was dissapointing at best. We should have had far greater numbers, we only stretched half a block, even when only taking up half the road. We must get a better turnout or we will never be able to defend ourselves from the police. More protective banners are also necessary.</br>
<br>I believe it is time we stop worrying 100% about people's 'safety' when it comes to the police pushing us around. I think we need to start organizing to engage the police if they want a confrontation, and hold the street. The only way we can truly have our revolution is if we throw off the authority of those in power, and not sheepishly back down for fear of being arrested. We need to be more organized, have more tight blocs, more protection, and organization. We have to be prepared to do what is necessary to accomplish our goals, and need to let EVERYONE know what we are doing in the confusion. We need to find out a way to let everyone know a head of time exactly what we are going to do if...the police tell us to leave, arrest some people, even attack us.
</br>
<br> I think the activist community as a whole needs to talk about this...I don't know if we can have a meeting about this at 1877 or anywhere else.
i'm for it
by noah pression
Sunday, Aug. 24, 2003 at 8:33 PM
noah_pression@yahoo.com
hey i'm all for it. personally i don't think we did enough outreach. but we did get one new pitt freshman who had arrived a few days before. so i was happy about that. i think we need to meet and discuss perhaps a local radical seminar where we could talk and try to maybe co-ordinate
still going
by quinten
Sunday, Aug. 24, 2003 at 10:21 PM
Still a small group of people waiting for the arraignment to take place. Latest word was that it would happen "any minute."
jo-jo arraigned
by vincent / blast furnace radio
Sunday, Aug. 24, 2003 at 11:45 PM
eirene@lm.com 1-888-notowar pob 99332 pgh., pa. 15233
jo-jo was arrainged about 2:30am...it was manipulated so none of us waiting for ten hours plus, off and on attended...so we do not know his charges.
tommorow moring folk will be bailing jo-jo out at 10% of a $3000 dollar bail...$325
niters....
in agreement
by unity
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 4:49 AM
Attendance was down but it could have been a tighter march with the folks who came out. We can't stretch it out that far. We've got to stay togther as a collective unit. And there has got to be communication between marchers as to excactly what the goal of the march is and imprompt-to changes. Organization is key - but lets use it as a building block. There were good things about yesterday!!!!!!! Lets use them to our advantage. I think a meeting of all interested parties within the movement is necessary this week. I have video of demonstrations in other cities that would be very helpful for everyone to watch and learn from. The time for a padded bloc is now. I know at least a dozen people who said they were going to attend that didn't. We need better outreach and drive the point home of how important it is for folks to come out and voice their dissent.
update
by vincent / blast furnace radio
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 5:13 AM
eirene@lm.com 1-888-notowar pob 99332 pgh., pa. 15233
pittsburgh police arrested joseph reichenbacher, 22, of oakland, for obstructing highwaays and passageways, disorderly conduct and criminal mischeif
BUSHIT
by load of crap
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 6:49 AM
Those charges are completly ridiculous. Obstructing highways and passageways? HUH? I saw the boys in blue once again blocking the street and endangering the public with their police cars. How about that one fucking deusch bag cop flipping his club around after Jo was arrested. What the fuck was that suppose to prove? That sounds more like criminal mischief or a threat to commit violence. The cops should have been in the street marching with us but they are too fucking blind to the fact that due to the trickle down effect casued by Bush they are losing their jobs.
Another thing we need to consider, I only witnessed two people who were onlookers to the march expressing their "disapproval". One irrate man yelling at us loudly from his car along with (I'm assuming) his wife and another fellow driving a truck who flipped us off. Eveyone else I witnessed was supporting us, supporting the end to US occupation of Iraq, supporting bringing the troops home. The anger at the cocaine cowboy is present more than ever - we just need to collectively organize and mobilize more effectively.
These are the same armed cash registers...
by PCNC Viewer
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 6:55 AM
...who you can watch turning their backs on soon to be laid off city employees who were lying down on Grant St. last week,definitely obstructing traffic.I guess since we aren't part of the same Tammany Hall-style patronage system, we can go to hell or ACJ.
Bail money for Joey
by Tim Vining
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 12:56 PM
tmc.director@verizon.net
The Thomas Merton Center is collecting bail money for Joey. Someone from here is going downtown to bail him out asap.
About F'n Time
by *
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 1:47 PM
Why the hell did you make Joey wait all damn day for bail. The guy is depending on us and we are all sitting around yacking it up on the web, and the FIRST notice that anyone is collecting and that any money is even needed goes out at the end of the day ? That is B.S. Organizing does not mean just organizing the event but being prepared to follow through with stuff like this. I guess since it was only one guy no one saw a great deal of urgency to getting him out. The organization of this event was shabby, and the follow-up was worse. Don't let this happen again if you expect protesters to be ready to risk their own arrest. Maybe if they had arrested Tim Vining there would have been collection cans out the next morning, but not for one of the footsoldiers of the cause?
umm.
by pog'er
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 2:48 PM
what exactly did you want us to do?
some people who knew Joey went down last night. nothing upon nothing happened, then at 3:45am Vince (not with pog) posted the message above and people thought that was the end of it- that he was being bailed out early in the morning. It was only later that we heard he wasn't bailed out this morning. As soon as we found that out people from pog and the tmc collected enough funds to get him out and a couple people went down there. We also secured him free legal representation with the same lawyer who got previous charges against him released. Someone told us recently he actually was bailed out early this morning but we won't know until our people get back.
self inspection?
by anonymous
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 2:49 PM
posting anonymously because my opinion may be misinterpreted or otherwise found to be unpopular
firstly, it was bullshit how the police behaved and that joey was arrested. The police were the ones causing trouble, not joey. But joey was aggrivating them by walking along the yellow line and/or stepping into the street. was that a direct action against the war, or was that just an attempt to piss off the police? if everyone had stayed well on the sidewalk the rally may have ended up going on longer OR the pigs would have arrested someone anyway, but then nobody at all would be able to suggest the arresttee shares even part of the blame
bail update
by on behalf of Vincent (not pog)
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 3:40 PM
Someone biked the bail money down from the Thomas Merton Center and it was paid around 7 pm. Vincent is down there now waiting for J. to be bailed out but it may take another 3 hours for processing.
Pog'er: Vincent (not with pog) was told by someone close to Joey that the money was available and he would be bailed out early this morning, that's why there was a misunderstanding. Had it seemed likely that he wouldn't be bailed out, some other solution would have been sought.
jo-jo released 2:30pm today
by vincent / blast furnace radio
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 6:21 PM
eirene@lm.com 1-888-notowar pob 99332 pgh., pa. 15233
jo-jo's bail was paid earlier today...
he was released at around 2:30pm
Say What ?
by *
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 7:05 PM
So how is it that Jo Jo was out on bail almost 3 hours before Tim Vining is saying that he is going to collect money to get him out, and nearly five hours before vincent was down at ACJ waiting for him to be processed out? Either someone is totally disorganized and clueless, or full of BS. This thing was a complete disorganized failure. We didn't get any message across, we looked lost, and the only F'n arrest was because Joey put his left foot in at the wrong time and got sent to the hokey-pokey where everyone seems to have forgotten about him. I am embarassed for us all.
Jail Solidarity & Bail Solidarity
by Jailbird watcher
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 7:30 PM
Joey, was not forgotten. As fate would have it, he ended up being ransomed twice. When we paid at 6:30, the drones at the courthouse window happily and greedily took the money and wrote another ransom reciept. We could have said we were there to get Mickey Mouse out, and they probably would have written that up, too. That's the level of incompetence in ACJ. I would expect nothing more.
In the future, lets keep better track of our prisoners. We don't want to look stupider than the kidnappers who take them in the first place.
In Solidarity, until we put the legal slave-trade, prison labor system out of its misery.
get the facts
by rebecca
Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 at 8:10 PM
malekincat@mac.com
"So how is it that Jo Jo was out on bail almost 3 hours before Tim Vining is saying that he is going to collect money to get him out, and nearly five hours before vincent was down at ACJ waiting for him to be processed out?"
Well, it could just have had something to do with the fact that what was originally stated (bail had been collected by Joey's friends and would be paid in the morning) turned out to be true (plus a few hours of processing time). The people who bailed Joey out forgot to tell anyone. It's as simple as that, this isn't "Columbo."
It would have been good if more people had been down at the courthouse/jail though.
And can we quit the snide remarks about Tim? Not only is it unmerited but it comes over as kind of cowardly when you don't say who you are and it gives some "participants" on this site a real kick. Plus you don't even know what was being done by people at the Merton Center. Why don't you go down and talk to them about it instead of sounding off here?
whats this crap!
by Stephen Donahue
Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 at 5:23 AM
sdonahue412@hotmail.com
i was not going to get involved in this. please note that i got my REAL name here. Tim Vining did not go out and collect money. Three individuals fronted it when we were told that JoJo was still in the can and it was 4PM. we thought that he was out at 9AM yesterday based on info posted on this indy media site.
Had Tim been arrested you can bet your ass that he would have gotten out quickly. I would personaly made sure of that. I am his partner. There would be no cans out collecting money. Whoever is posting this crap, I would not ask you for a slice of bread.
I just wish that people would stand behind their accusations by putting their real name by their posts. oh yes, while i"m on this rant. Indy media has become a useless organizing tool thanks to the kooks.
Quit the bitching, and go do something! Even if it's wrong, do something
Here's the Crap !
by *
Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 at 9:50 AM
Okay, I am doing something. You may think it is wrong, but I am doing something. I did something this weekend. And it was to be part of a disorganized pointless waste of my energies. We had no direction. We had a message that was diluted to the point of becoming meaningless from all of the different groups and presentations in the crowd. And then one of us even got arrested. And for what. If you justy want to get arrested and then bitch about the police, then you can do that any afternoon by jaywalking or pissing in the street. But if you want to have a meaningful protest you need to be organized and focused, and then getting arrested can be a useful tool of demonstration.
And yes, I know that you and Tim can post using your names. That is great. But I know my position may be unpopular here right now, and I am more than a little frustrated. I know how the groups here and at the actions can hold a grudge. I don't have the patience for the directed reprisals I would expect if I used my name. I do want to stay involved and active, but I am sure that I could not vent this *rant* without getting kicked in the teeth by some out there. Sorry about Tim thinking that this was about him, because it isn't. It is just that he was the one who sent out the email at 5:00 yesterday and it looked like he was attempting to take charge. But because of Tim's prominent role in the activist community he should consider how these things may come back to him.
haha
by johnrpgh
Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 at 3:01 PM
Steve's a badass :)
Radical Seminar?
by Sam
Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 at 3:11 PM
I think that's a great idea, Noah. We could develop some sort of a general, non-binding statement of principles to unify all the groups in the movement.
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