community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
ways to help make M20 a success
by looking forward to m20
Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004 at 8:59 AM
some suggestions on how to help make sure M20 is effective and a question
some info from pog
Specific ways to help make M20 a success:
1: Consider participating in the sit-in at CMU on March 20th. If you're considering this please contact pog@mutualaid.org, as there are a number of meetings coming up that you can attend. The sit-in is meant to be an inclusive event that hundreds of people can participate in. It will be a non-violent act of traditional civil disobedience. Because we have no idea how long it may end up lasting we’ll be encouraging people to bring guitars, games to play, food and water, books to read and study with. Think of it like a vacation! We hope to have an M20 logistics page up soon on our website.
2: Help the sit-in be a success by doing direct support work:
A: We need everyone who wants to see these actions be effective to march with the direct action contingent assembling 1:00pm at flagstaff around 4 giant flags. If you don't want to (or aren't able to) participate in the sit-in itself then taking part in the DA contingent- making sure it reaches its goal and remains safe from police attack- is the single most important way to be involved.
B: helping do logistical things (bringing things to the rally, helping with set-up and carrying things to and from the sit-in)
C: providing a solidarity presence outside the sit-in location
3: Help distribute flyers, you can come by the Thomas Merton Center during business hours and pick them up or go to our website [http://www.organizepittsburgh.org] and download them. We will also mail them to you (just include how many and what size- email pog@mutualaid.org).
4: Bail Money and other expenses: In order for people to take part in the civil disobedience we need to make sure they won’t languish forever in jail. Therefore, we need generous individuals to step forward with commitments of bail money (you would get the money back- it would be kind of like a short term no interest loan) in case there are arrests. We also, of course, need outright contributions since almost all of the money for M20 is coming from members pockets- donations can be mailed to: POG PO Box 10215 Pittsburgh, PA 15232 or contact us for other ways to donate.
______________________________________________________
I like what pog is trying to do, but it does seem possible they will be violently repressed. So I was thinking, what are suggestions of ways people can be prepared to take action if the sit-in is crushed by force. Anyone have ideas? Depending on the idea you may not want to post it here, but it's probably a good idea to start thinking about this stuff.
protection
by .
Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004 at 11:49 AM
for all participating in da contingent:
be sure to come prepared for police violence. wear protective padding to soften blows from police batons. wearing goggles can protect from mace/pepper spray and bandanas soaked in vinegar tied around the nose and mouth will help block out tear gas and other chemical agents.
Bitch & Advice
by FluxRostrum
Saturday, Mar. 13, 2004 at 10:03 AM
earth
Advice - Protection
http://www.actagainstwar.org/article.php?list=type&type=17
Bitch
Let them eat war!
If you're marching on the 20th; be safe, be peace, but let's not shirk from the responsibility to tell those who didn't vote for the right candidate that the march is entirely their fault.
If enough of U.S. had voted for Dennis Kucinich this march would be a celebration.
Granted, this is the opinion of someone who worked hard for the cause of a Dennis Kucinich Presidency. But it is also someone who is completly politically aware of the importance of this election and someone who is fully aware of what a horrible place the US will be after 4 more years.. of either of the Bonesmen.
Bush & Kerry are playing good cop bad cop with the world. The are both Skull & Bones members. They are both liars. They are both completly UNrepresentitive of the American people. They are both fascists, war criminals and corporate whores.
THE NEXT PRESIDENT WILL BE SELECTED BY THE SKULL & BONES!
http://www.kucinichwatch.com/support/John_Kerry_Video.htm
During the last couple of weeks before the election one of the 2 Bonesmen will say something very stupid. The other Bonesman will win. Just as they've planned it. With out rigging a single voting machine.
The election is over, the rest is just for show. The people, deciding to forgo freedom, have lost once again to the corporations that we have allowed to steal our rights, our power, our resources...
What I would like to say to the millions that will rally on March 20th to bring our troops home and end the occupation ... Where the hell were you when it was time to VOTE for that?
If you didn't vote for Kucinich you have no right to march on the 20th for you will not stand up for your own convictions when given the opportunity. Who cares what such a person thinks. Why would "Washington" care what these people think; they will not vote for their convictions anyway.
This march will have no effect because the time to march was on primary day... on caucus day... the time to march was when it would accomplish putting a president in the white house that would actually stop the occupation.
What I would like to say to the millions of people who are now unemployed or uninsured and are now looking to the skull & bones member of their choice to fix these problems... Where the hell were you when it was time to vote for these things? If you didn't vote for Kucinich you have no right to whine about your poverty striken disease riddled shell. Nobody, in Washington, cares about people who's sole act of democratic participation is whining.
What I would like to say to those whose city, county or state representitives have voted that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional ... Where the hell were you when it was time to vote for the only candidate who agreed with you? You've done nothing to protect your rights and therefore deserve none. Who can waste their time with such people who bitch & moan but refuse to help themselves when a clear answer presents itself?
Last night I watched "The Passion" (the Mel Gibson Christ movie). I went because I thought it would make me feel good about my life to watch Jesus get the shit kicked out of him for 2 hours. I was right. More importantly, I was awed by the fact that the bulk of the people just stood around watching, making a big show of their grief, letting it happen, taking no intervening action, feeling powerless to stop the otrocity. When the folks who wanted Jesus tortured and crucified, chanted and marched and refused to take "just" torture for an answer... the followers of Jesus said nothing, crying in the background like deer in headlights. They didn't VOTE.
So when you hit the streets on March 20th to end the occupation; if you didn't vote for for Dennis Kucinich I'll thank you for your presence and if harm comes to any, I hope that you are between me harmsway. I would make no sacrifice for those who would stand by and DO nothing; because I'm not Jesus. I'm your brother and you who refuse to vote for your convictions have failed your family.
Info About March 20th >
http://www.unitedforpeace.org
http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/m20/index.html
solidarity,
~FluxRostrum
Whining
by Maliboohoo
Saturday, Mar. 13, 2004 at 12:37 PM
Seems to me that Mr. Malibu is the one doing the whining. And he isn't even in Pittsburgh. I guess we'll just trot out our Kucinich supporters in Pittsburgh who actually do direct action, and the rest of us will stay home and meditate, do yoga, and contemplate the fictionalized events of the life of Jesus. God forbid we should put aside our political differences, do something together, and back each other up. This was one of the more ridiculous, hate-filled comments I have *ever* read on Indymedia. Israel "Deaf Messenger" makes a whole lot more sense.
peaceniks are bedwetting cowards
by Matt
Sunday, Mar. 14, 2004 at 9:14 AM
Have we become little more than one big 'Sissy Nation'?
Sunday, March 14, 2004
By Michael J. Bowers
Last Sunday at the Anita M. Stone Center in Flossmoor, a roomful of people
attended a lecture on the fence that Israel is building around the West
Bank to protect its people from being blown to bloody, fleshy bits by
Palestinians with bomb belts.
Sagit Kaufman, an endearing, life-loving young woman from the Israeli
consulate in Chicago, laid out the facts. The fence is a sensible project
that so far has more than 200 entrances. Palestinians will retain all
their property rights.
In a logical world, the fence would cause no controversy. It would be
simply common sense.
But this is not a logical world. This is a world where fighting back has
become wrong. This is a world where self-defense has become wrong. This is
a world where even athletic competition in schools has become wrong.
In this unbrave new world, effete journalists and leaders assign all of us
in the Western world, especially Israelis, to live as geldings. And so the
fence has been condemned.
I'd like to tell you a story from the autobiographical novel "Black Boy,"
which was written in 1944 by Richard Wright. The pages that most strike me
describe how young Richard's mother taught her son not to flee from
bullies.
It's about 1918. The city is Memphis. The mother sends Richard to the
corner store to buy the family groceries. Richard loops a basket over his
arm and heads down the street. But he meets up with a gang of thugs who
knock him down and take his money.
Richard runs home, but his mother will not let him in the door. "Don't you
come in here," she says in a deadly tone. " … You just stay right where
you are. I'm going to teach you this night to stand up and fight for
yourself.
"Take this money, this note and this stick. Go to the store and buy those
groceries. If those boys bother you, then fight."
Richard resisted, but his mother would not relent. "Go now. If you come
back into this house without those groceries, I'll whip you!"
And so Richard went. And so the thugs returned. And so Richard fought:
"I let the stick fly, feeling it crack against a boy's skull," he wrote.
"I swung again, lamming another skull, then another. … I fought to lay
them low, to knock them cold, to kill them so they could not strike back
at me. I flayed with tears in my eyes, teeth clenched … I hit again and
again."
And what do you know: The boys scattered. Wright wrote: "That night I won
the right to the streets of Memphis."
Richard was blessed to have a mother with such bravery. She represented
what America used to be — a nation that rejected nonsense like, "Violence
never solves anything."
Back then we knew better. We knew that violence sometimes is quite a fine
way to solve a problem. Does anyone remember slavery or Hitler?
But that was then. This is now. If the "Black Boy" incident were to take
place on school property today, Richard would surely be arrested and
expelled in accordance with the lunacy called "zero tolerance." I think
that's disgraceful.
But not only has "fighting back" become an unseemly concept in the West,
so also has "athletic competition." For instance, in Australia, schools
are replacing win-and-lose games with games that foster peace and love.
Games like "beanbag pickup" and "stranded sheep."
Excuse me, but kids don't earn pride from "Kumbaya" games. They earn it by
testing themselves against others. If God is good, he will spare my
children from ever playing any game called "stranded sheep."
Of course, not just our schools are at fault. It is all our institutions.
A foremost example is that John Kerry promises that the first thing he
will do if elected is to travel to the United Nations and apologize for
President Bush's "mistreatment" of the organization.
Yet more disgrace. The U.N. is predominantly populated by tyrants who
believe that a single country of 7 million people is the source of all the
problems in a world of 6 billion. They never blame themselves. Of all the
resolutions issued by the U.N. since the 1967 Six-Day War, nearly half
have been to condemn Israel.
And now Kerry wants to apologize to these thugs. That's a good enough
reason, all by itself, to defeat him in November.
Elsewhere on the battlefront of spinelessness, nations like Canada and
Britain give free passage to Muslim extremists whose goal is to destroy
Western democracy and replace it with Sharia — Islamic law.
Journalist Mark Steyn recently did some reporting that jolted me. He wrote
that the Muslim who was arrested on his way to blow up the Los Angeles
airport had made his plans while on welfare in Montreal. The "20th
hijacker" for 9-11 became an Islamic radical while on welfare in London.
And Abu Hamza became Britain's most venomous radical Muslim while on
welfare in London.
So not only do we let in the enemy at the gate, we also pay for him to
plot warfare against us. We saw one example of the results last week in
Madrid. In America, 9-11. In Spain, 3-11.
In 1994, Elizabeth Wurtzel, a pretty young woman from Harvard, wrote a
compelling book about depression. She titled it "Prozac Nation." I think
the label fit the Western world well at the time. But now that the '90s
have passed, perhaps a new label is needed. No longer are we "Prozac
Nation." Now we have become "Sissy Planet."
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