community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
April 17 Dick Cheney/NRA-Hunt the Rich-Orange Bloc!
by POG NRA working group
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 4:31 AM
pog@mutualaid.org
Note: Although this is a completely real call, for those who don’t grasp it, much of the rhetoric is obvious satire. This is a non-violent action.
hunting01.jpgyphcut.jpg, image/jpeg, 700x509
Hunt the Rich Bloc
Note: Although this is a completely real call, for those who don’t grasp it, much of the rhetoric is obvious satire. This is a non-violent action.
From April 16-18th, The National Rifle Association will hold their annual meetings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dick Cheney is scheduled as their keynote speaker. As the billboards they’ve plastered Pittsburgh with so aptly say, “4 acres of guns and gear”. In response, hundreds of people from our region will be gathering to protest what the
NRA stands for.
Do you reject the patriarchy, homophobia, jingoism, and white supremacy of the National Rifle Association, that fat cat lobbying organization which raises funds under the guise of protecting so-called “gun rights” but exists solely to protect and further the rights and interests of gun
manufacturers and the pro-corporate right wing?
And do you also reject the moral rubric of the reformists which takes a “guns are bad” approach without ever addressing the underlying systemic causes of violence in our corporate capitalistic system. Are you looking for a radical alternative? Then leave your black clothes at home and strap
on your safety-orange to join the “Hunt the Rich Bloc” on Saturday, April 17 at 8PM, at 10th Street & Penn Avenue adjacent to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Note- if you don’t have orange wear what you normally would.
The Hunt the Rich Bloc is an attempt to create a space where radicals are free to voice their opposition to the NRA Convention in Pittsburgh, in a venue where the dialogue regarding violence will not be monopolized by simplistic liberal “guns-are-bad, unless you’re talking about the US
military using them to kill tens of thousands of people around the world, or the police using them against predominantly black men in lower-income neighborhoods” chants and slogans.
Given the State’s self-appointed role as the greatest and exclusive perpetrator of violence, one cannot claim to be an adherent of non-violence or a pacifist, while believing in the legitimacy of the
State. As in electoral politics, the middle class and liberal elite share the same agenda as the gun lobby, but use different terms to describe their desire to further disempower and exploit working class and declassed peoples. The desire to play “white savior” is motivated less by charity
and goodwill than by the desire to protect their privilege and the prevailing social order from the same “urban drug gangs,” “porous borders,” “home invasions,” “terrorists,” and many of the other media boogeymen that the NRA are fond of invoking to solicit money from their membership and votes from their pet politicians.
And so, come on out in your seasonal gear and help make the streets a safer place. If the rich are free to roam around the shopping corridors and graze in the grassy hillsides of urban sprawl, they’re bound to eat all the rose bushes, overpopulate, and become diseased. It’s up to us to
make sure it doesn’t happen. Trust us, it’s for their own good. Come on out to our big bright orange bloc on A17 and voice your dissent to the NRA.
POG NRA working group
pog@mutualaid.org
Go POG!
by A. Berkman
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 5:40 AM
Happy Hunting!
CLASS WARFARE !!
by Pogger Dodger
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 6:57 AM
Class Warfare is what you are all about. Glad you admit it. Being rich and being successful is a bad thing to all you idiot leftists (unless of course it is you that happens to become rich). Hey, F you guys. I can only hope some rich bastard mistakes you for racheal corrie and flattens you worthless leech ass with their SUV (Hey, in case you are too stupid to get it, that was rhetorical, and not a call to actually start running over stupid leftists).
Mr. Kramer
by It's R-A-C-H-E-L
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 7:00 AM
Rachel isn't a hard word to spell.
You're working class, too. Just because they give you credit doesn't make you wealthy.
good to see this.
by ....
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 8:24 AM
I'm glad to see a call like this. I usually see leftists treating hunters or people who live in rural areas as "rednecks" or people who are somehow beneath them. I have far more in common with them then I ever will with the leadership of the NRA. We leftists often take ourselves too seriously.
In response to the comment above about class war.
Personally, I have a problem with an exploitative system that ensures that a certain percentage of people will be super rich with vast amounts of privilage and ensures that the vast majority of people will be poor and oppressed. And that is the root problem to me, you can't seperate the individuals who are rich from the system that allowed them to become so. I don't wish ill harm to the rich, I just want them to renounce the privilage they have at others expense so we, as a common people, can move forward together.
Class Conflict
by UPRISING
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 8:42 AM
Glad to see the Pittsburgh Organizing Group is continuing to incorporate the concept of CLASS into its actions.
Privilege at someone else's expense
by Issa Bagayogo
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 9:23 AM
What? That sounds like affirmative action.
The rich do not have "privilege" at anyone else's expense. And you are defintiely not oppressed my friend. In my country the rich ride around in big cars and steal potatos from the poor. Tell me, who is stealing your potato here. NO ONE. You have things pretty f'ing good in this country. Quit your whining and start moving forward. The rest of us are moving forward, and it may be without you. Sorry, but maybe the train left the station while you were all worked up about someone else having a slightly larger ham sandwich than you and that evolved into some grand conspiracy meant to keep you down. Dream all you wnat on that topic, but we are moving forward. In fact, we don't really want to move forward "together" if that invovles you and your ilk, because you will just hold us all back. You may even cause us to move "backward" together. So I guess you will have to wait for the next train.
You know, I agreed with Howard Dean when he said he was opposed to "No Child Left Behind." As anyone who has ever been to junior high school kknows, there are some kids that you not only want to leave behind, but it is pretty clear that for the good of all you should leave them behind. I suspect you were one of those that just shouldn't be getting on the bus, or you might just hold up the bus. This was probably the only intelligent thing that Howard Dean proposed during the campaign. I was all ready to vote for him on that one issue alone.
George Kramer, A Child Left Behind
by Spell Check
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 11:17 AM
You were a Deanie, too? You are delusional. I believe you should be 302'd.
Wealth
by pjd
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 1:48 PM
To those who raise the class-war/class-envy red herring, two points:
1. There is, in fact class war going on - war of the worlds's wealthy, powerful, lazy, martini-drinking, golfing, pheasant-hunting, investing class against the poor hard-working class. Look at every political-economic initiative from Reagan, to the vile Bush II, to the Pgh. Review Board. Who has all this change benefited? Who is the minority who have realized fabulous wealth over the past couple decades and who is the majority who have seen their wealth stagnate or decline? You can visit this web site to understand the magnitude of this mal-distribution of wealth: http://www.lcurve.org/
2. It is not "envy" of their big homes, gas-guzzling Hummers, and proflagrate consumptive livestyles which is the basis for resisting the wealthy. American wealth and consumption is globally-environmentally unsustainable as it is! No, it is the fact that under capitalism wealth confers access to enormous political and economic power not available to the wage earner, who is at the mercy of the greedy whims of the wealthy and those of their (usually also rich) corrupt political buddys. This situation, where we effectively live under "one dollar-one vote", instead of "one person-one vote", is definitely NOT what Democracy is supposed to look like. Unfortunatey, this is an unavoidable consequence of capitalism, which contrary to the Horatio Alger myth, has always rewarded greedy and ruthless individuals over those who aspire to honesty, integrity and hard work.
Further...
by Joe Thrill
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 2:28 PM
We feed the rich, make their profit, clean their mansions, wipe their asses, drive their limos, teach their kids. They couldn't do it without us!!
But also. . .
by Matt
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004 at 6:42 PM
Some rich cure the sick, fund charities, provide jobs, and develop products that make the lives of poor folks easier.
Some rich lie, cheat and steal.
Some poor lie, cheat, and steal.
Some poor raise children, clean cities, and buy products that make the rich get richer.
Generalizations are silly.
If no one had the ambition to attain wealth, our lives would be half as long and twice as difficult.
If all the poor were lazy, life would perhaps be similar to that of 1984, with 80% of the population a drug addicted rabble.
The desire to attain more wealth while remaining lazy is possibly the biggest cause of crime in a socially stratified country such as the United States. There's no cure for it; it's just the way some people are. Unfortunately, the richer the person is who has this problem, the more damage it does.
The Poor
by Ludovic Maklowecz
Thursday, Apr. 15, 2004 at 3:55 AM
The Poor Feed The Rich ... yes, poor sometimes people bring me food. Sometimes the Poor ARE food. I had one the other day. A little gamey, and she did need a little scrubbing up, but nothing a fine Chianti couldn't take care of.
The Poor Make Our Profits ... Do you know how difficult it is to make a profit off of the poor in the market today. The Serf Excahnge has been on a continued downward spiral ever since Bill Clinton commoditized the quality of "poorness". It used to be that you could get a good profit off of some of the poor, like those that might actually want to work or no longer desired being poor. But today all of the Poor have really adopted the "poor as victim" philosophy and sit around waiting for the government to again send some pedophile messiah to soothe their poorness. If the poor really could make a profit they wouldn't be poor, now would they.
The Poor wipe our asses .. Maybe, when the TP roll is empty you can use one of those nappy headed poor folk to wipe up, but it is still a lot rougher than even generic brand TP.
The Poor Clean our houses ... Sometime. And if you can get one of those Rachel Corrie Swiffer you can even get in places like under cabinets and behind the fridge. But really, I would prefer if the poor would just clean up after themselves.
The poor teach our children ... Now that is probably the best thing they do. They teach, by example, to our children that the last thing you want to be is lazy, or else you will be poor. THey teach that you cannot sit around whining, or else you'll be poor. They teach that you can not ignore opportunity in your youth, or you will have none in life. They teach that you should not wait for someone else to solve your life problems, and that you shoudl get off your butt and start working and quit complaining, or else you'll be poor. They teach that class warfare and jealousy only waste energy and detract from you bettering your own lot in life.
Observation...
by pjd
Thursday, Apr. 15, 2004 at 10:05 AM
Isn't it odd that, while we always rebut the various right-wing or "libertarian" heckler's comments point-by-point, they nearly always post responses which totally ignore our agruments. It is as if they don't even read them, repeating the same assertations without a hint they even read our rebuttal.
I have observed this behavior again and again here and elsewhere; in print and in verbal (non)debate. The idiotic (and quite un-funny) racist drivel like the last comment is typical.
So, here we go again: any observation of humanity, from the sweatshops of Vietnam to the janitors of Pittsburgh, clearly shows that the poor are not lazy; they work their butts off. Adopt a ruthless stance and exploit your neighbor or the resources of the earth that sustains us, then you will probably get rich and powerful. But honest hard work usually gets you nowhere. Just look at the tired faces on any outbound evening 86B. But how many "libertarians" have ever been on a bus at all.
Even Panhandlers
by FW
Thursday, Apr. 15, 2004 at 10:40 AM
Even begging is hard work, which appears to be a station in every heirarchial culture. It's not easy, Goddess knows I've tried. I personally couldn't take that kind of rejection for hours every day.
What, the rich don't have to work?
by Motel Kemzoyle
Thursday, Apr. 15, 2004 at 11:00 AM
Tired faces are only on the evening 86B? Take a look at the tired faces in the executive offices. The lights are on usually long before you get out of bed in the afternoon, and they are there long after you have gotten off of that bus and are having your second beer while complaining about the rich bastards. And why do the rich work so hard? To keep the economy rolling and keep you (or your mommy and daddy) and those other tired faces employed. Don't go lying to yourself to try to justify your hate of the other working class.
The people you are out hunting work pretty damn hard to get what you might call "rich". You try it. It involves considerable sacrifice that you are not willing to make. It requires long days (and I am not talking 8 hours plus a couple of overtime). To get to where those "rich" have gotten you need to work on average 7 days a week for extended periods of time. You need to do 14 hour workdays practically every working day. Your weekends are never “time off”. If you get a weekend off you are probably still working. And the “rich” are worrying over decisions of capital expenditure, taxation and your employment. Why are the executives in that conference room for 20 hours for 3 weeks straight? Because they are agonizing over how to make a go of the business, face closing a plant, and how can you get to the best point of a bad situation when you have to lay-off 500 employees. These people are losing a lot of sleep too. And these are the types of daily decisions that the “rich” that you want to hunt must deal with. And these “rich” got to this point through hard work, and a willingness to take on this responsibility, to make these sacrifices. Do you think that the capital for great innovations in health and science happen on a 9 to 5 schedule? If you do, then that is probably a good indicator that you are destined to be poor and stupid. Do you think that jobs just happen? If you do then you should stay out of any political or economic debate. Do you think that unions are not big business that increases the cost of living for all of us? If you do, then you are probably a union member.
Quit this class warfare nonsense. If times are tough, then pick up an oar and start paddling, because there is no room for free-riders on any lifeboat. And don’t go off about those that have what you don’t getting more than you because what they most likely have that you don’t is intelligence, fortitude, initiative, and self-reliance. Everybody faces “hard times” but not everyone is debilitated by the chronic complaining that you all have given into.
HA HA HA
by George K.
Friday, Apr. 16, 2004 at 7:42 AM
vine_swinger_chuckie@yahoo.com
"The poor teach our children ... Now that is probably the best thing they do. They teach, by example, to our children that the last thing you want to be is lazy, or else you will be poor. "
I loved that line!!
Plus, I have grown beyond the bounds of my own head, since there are comments being made by me that I am not making!! HA! I am the all-pervasive meme.
I love Racheaueul Corrie pancakes.
Idiots
by Joe Thrill
Friday, Apr. 16, 2004 at 9:25 AM
It appears what I have said is being taken out of context by the small number of right-wing trolls on this site. I did not say just "poor people" teach. I was referring to class divisons. Some members of the working class are financially better off than others. Most still end-up working for some rich fuck or the government, with few workplace protections, and no say in "their" business -- you know, the "we are one big team" show.
why are any rich immediately vilified?
by George K.
Friday, Apr. 16, 2004 at 9:50 AM
Why do all of you immediately make any person who has accumulated money for themselves through working a bad person? Is your reason simple jealousy? Greed? The world has never seen a pure socialistic or communistic society work, so none of your responses can cite those non-existant examples of why rich people are evil in a capitalistic society, since rich people are the economic-generators in our present-day models.
Empirically, the present day model permits more people to have greater access to more money and better standards of living through public or private means.
Work?
by OB/Gyn
Friday, Apr. 16, 2004 at 11:35 AM
The only work most rich people have done to get that way was being pushed out of their wealthy mother's womb in some private hospital suite.
Maybe if you suck up to them, Kramer, you can join their club, but it didn't work for Martha Stewart.
Orange Bloc NRA Infiltration
by NRA Media Voice
Saturday, Apr. 17, 2004 at 12:41 PM
From inside the convention: Orange Bloc members in protest of NRA policies infiltrate and fondle weaponry.
Fight the good fight!
Orange Bloc NRA Infiltration
by NRA Media Voice
Saturday, Apr. 17, 2004 at 12:44 PM
From inside the convention: Orange Bloc members in protest of NRA policies infiltrate and fondle weaponry.
Fight the good fight!
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