Post-G20 Wrapup

I guess if Luke Ravenstahl can wait until the next official work week to talk about G20, then I can wait until the end of my G20 vacation from Cashiering to give up my feelings about a city's self-defense against unwanted visitors.

I'd like to compare our response to the G20 in Pittsburgh to Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, but I'm not really interested in such pop-adventure metaphors. Thursday's illegal meeting and march was akin to a Parade for Pedophiles, except if we had been pedophiles on parade, the media would have at least let the scared folks inside their homes know about our politics.

After I stayed up all night into Thursday morning, I was ready to crash by the end of the unpermitted march. So I had some more coffee and went back to Oakland, where I had the misfortune of running out of real energy before everyone decided to smash the state after 10:00.
My tattoo artist friend went to jail. She was doubled over coughing on CNN, running up Liberty Avenue with tear gas in her eyes. I later found out another friend and neighbor was arrested, but for not much more than failing to pay attention with riot cops a few feet away.

But now Pittsburgh's seekers of social justice (and property damage) have to apologize to the world for not putting on a big enough anti-capitalist/globalization/free-trade display to burn down our own town. I'm not certain that comparing Pittsburgh to other globalization-focus party host cities that have larger populations is fair. Pittsburgh, as far as I can tell, is fairly local in its allegiance. PrestoGeorge in the Strip took place of Starbucks, which was around for a minute but was deemed inappropriate in such an intimate, familiar setting. Pittsburgh has its chains, and I don't know what percentage of businesses in an average city of over 500k is local or independent, but it could be that we value the local and appreciated it before it became a bumper sticker.


This is where the assumptions jump out: While Pittsburgh is a good home for anarchists because of its cheap living and sometimes empty neighborhoods, greenscape and rich history in class struggle, it doesn't really breed anarchists like the hipper locales across the nation. I've never been anywhere else for an extended period of time, but we're small, we're aging/old, and we have a very large transient student population. We've started to attract new anarchists, but only because anarchists here are starting to advertise Pittsburgh for what it is: Cheaper than where you are now and not what it was 25 years ago.

Maybe other cities with higher cost of living and less winter allow for anarchists to do more romantic training exercises, like, oh, running successful bookstores that compete with real businesses. Or maybe they're forced into being more successful within a slightly more predatory market than the less ambitious, less pricey rustbelt in which we reside, work, and fuck shit up.

But since G20 was announced in May and every anarchist across the country with access to national news had time to save up or request paid time off or hop a train and hitchhike to visit our town and wade in the riot cop moat protecting this summit, I shouldn't even have to come up with excuses as to why Pittsburgh didn't destroy more buildings, businesses and cops.

We didn't have an Alexandros Grigoropoulos to spark stronger resistance and endless riots. I'm happy no one in Pittsburgh had to die to release our hatred for the state.
We aren't appealing to anarchists because we don't really have the best climate; I'm not sure if that's all we don't have going for us, but it has to be a step down from Oregon.
And as much as I can tell, most of our anarchists are pretty busy with other things, even if our infoshop can't legally call itself an infoshop because it would prevent us from donating to prisons.
So while the G20 inconvenienced us without allowing us to inconvenience it too much in return, we really just wanted to act like it wasn't here, even though the itchy pitching shoulder in all of us was covered in poison ivy this entire week.

I will apologize for Pittsburgh's inability to end capitalism before Halloween 2009, but only because I half-promised it to a fellow cashier at work. But I will not apologize for our efforts.
Where were you when cops were running my city? I thought this was about mutual aid?

Oh, you were on the internet talking shit and reading the news. (Which is exactly where I would have been if I didn't live here, minus the shit talking part--I can't make focused, logical points.)

Veggie Dogs for Watch Dogs

I stayed up all night with Landslide kids. We sat on the porch with walkie talkies, looking down at the intersection of Kirkpatrick, Beelen and Allequippa.
This is all I saw all night.

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Nothing happened. There was a scare here and there, but when during a police state the biggest scare of the night comes from a suspicious delivery of the Wall Street Journal at 5 a.m., then I think we're all right.
Actually, when I followed a friend up to the woods after dawn to let the chickens out of their house for the day, two strange cars pulled in. Over the walkie talkies, which make everything inaudible except laughter (which could be maniacal or good-natured, it's never clear), all I could make out was that it was of my friend's concern to return from the woods.
As we were making our way back down the hill, we found out it was a false alarm: two men had pulled over and were having an altercation; the one in the rear smashing the other's back window and driving away before anyone realized that the cars weren't there to raid the house or step on pepper plants.
I ate two-and-a-half veggie dogs with saurkraut and pickled jalapeno peppers from the farm, drank one heavy cup of coffee and pooped at least three times.
I'd like to think I helped keep the farm safe, but I realized as the sun was rising that I had no clue what to do if confronted with a cop and a warrant. This week's special legalities equal total disregard for visiting friends: To anyone with a badge, a visitor is an out-of-town protester with a gallon of fermented piss and a five-gallon bucket of flingable shit.
I forgot to mention the welcome and supportive presence of several ACLU Legal Observers, one of whom is a new Landslide lawyer who was working earlier in the evening at the convergence space in Greenfield.
One could assume that the ACLU would have no trouble dealing with police, but it's hard to remember that while trying to stay up and remain comfortable perched from above the scenic violence.
Helicopters flew overhead once every five minutes before midnight, search lights getting lost in the fog like measuring scoops in a jar of flour. Every time a light on Fifth Ave. turned green, the anticipation for a cop coming up the hill quickly grew to a head, and then deflated just as quickly. If someone was walking up toward the bus stop at Kirkpatrick and Fifth, then it was worth pulling out the binoculars to see what they were up to, even if it really was just a plan to wait for the bus.
Every transistor box with a plexiglass cover and rivets around the edge is a scene-monitoring, electronic cop. Every vehicle without obvious markings is an unmarked police vehicle.

The moon was hiding from our vantage point on the porch last night, but it really wasn't what we were looking for.

A full step behind the Joneses

Other than the hungry, happy people in Friendship Park yesterday, no more of my friends have received visits. I made it to Landslide with a friend last night. I walked up their cobblestone street, past the porch where so much activity is normally common; in the night there was nothing. Signs with my former roommate's handwriting hung from each door of the duplex, instructing ex-inhabitants and visitors to stay out and to call a listed number for legal help if the cops show up and start absolutely destroying shit.
Farther up the hill, the six remaining Landsliders were making coconut pawpaw ice cream and planning ways to secure their entrances to prevent the kicking-in of their doors. Half of them were set on sleeping on the porch just to avoid sleeping in bedrooms that, after having so many people come and go with flea-harboring pets, are nearly as uninhabitable as 5401 Harrison.
I left when we gave up churning the ice cream and left it for a night in the freezer, and I walked back up a hill I normally pedal: The Bus Lane, while normally a quick shortcut up to Oakland from the South Side and Uptown, is worth avoiding when laws are actually being enforced, especially on bikers, since we're all probably anarchists who have seven other, non-local anarchists living with us this week.
We all do.
It's obvious that nothing good will come from another police visit to a friend's house, but I'm hopping back and forth from one cop+citizen rendezvous point to another in an attempt to find the most action. Some houses have watch shifts all night, midnight to four and four to eight, avoiding sleep to keep an eye out for the longest outstretched arm (is it even at full extension yet?) the law has ever had in these parts. This excites me because I never sleep anyway. I'm sure a target community could really appreciate the bags under my eyes providing support for a night's worth of warning call, but I don't belong out there because I'm too safe.
I'm admitting right now that I am jealous. I see a few different types of people right now:
1. People who aren't quite sure what the G20 is or what they're doing here, but are willing to talk about and try to understand it.
1a. People who seem to understand what the G20 is and seemingly disagree with it, but still won't or can't do anything about it.
2. People who have no idea what the G20 is or what they're doing here, but are unwilling to admit that they don't understand it and yet still act like protesters are the real reason our city has become a week-long police state.
3. Friends who have undeservedly been harassed, woken in the middle of the night, forced to leave their city-tolerated but not-yet-purchased homes; who have had to disperse, leave town and regroup in smaller numbers.
4. Friends who have been working hard with their independent media, legal defense, medical assistance, food preparation, hospitality for out-of-towners, writing, organizing, concern.

I have found nowhere to fit into this multi-faceted pinwheel of roles.
I've experienced fear and outright disgust about the stories from my friends. At my job, where political discussion does not come up, I've spoken with civilians, both ignorant and understanding, about these events, making sure they know just how close I was to getting arrested or just how integral my part in the story actually is.
"Oh, I play soccer there every week. I just happened to be gourging myself on an O Pizza with fries and ketchup as toppings during soccer time." A convenient alibi.
"Oh, I used to live with them. I knew them before they were squatters." Similar to, 'I knew the band before they signed to Warner.'
"Oh, I was just walking out when the cops were showing up. (Missed out again.)" Pathetic. It's one thing to have the cops come to you based on who you are; it's another to happen to be with people who the cops want to visit because of who they are.

I don't know how to save myself from wanting to feel watched or important. The admission of my crimes that may not be truthful would feel like a cry for attention. I don't even know if my crimes were/are actually illegal. But I do not want to feel left out when everyone else's rights are being taken away.

Asking for help in this situation of self-created desperation is just another temper tantrum, but a more thoughtful example than putting a "Happy G20!" banner across my front door. I don't know what my friends would do if they knew I was jealous of how much they matter to law enforcement this week. I hope they would slap me and tell me to wait in my house until the end of the week: "We'll be over with cookies when it's all over," they would say.

Because if we really want to be truthful, sitting in my house and waiting for something to happen is all I ever do.

G20 and Inconvenience

The G20 invades communities around the world. It turns poor villages into monocultures, forcing villagers to work for whatever corporation has been appointed to guide the village/town/city toward Western-serving development.
This is all a very vague critique of what I understand happens when globalization and its representatives enter the realm of the undeveloped world. I've got two sentences about nothing specific, when the voices in these villages could tell you much better, if they only had blogs.
I'm watching my friends upload audio and pictures to local G20-related, indy media sites; and then I'm turning around and waiting for another one of our houses to be raided, or another group of us to get accosted for looking or acting the way we do in public. Which, if you're listening, Pittsburgh, flies just fine for the rest of eternity, because this is Pittsburgh. We're scummy by nature, because we don't have to sell out too much to survive here.
And yet, all this inconvenience is a just a concentrated dose of what globalization can do to a community. A village in the undeveloped world is slowly being drowned by a steady flow of watered down orange juice, while Pittsburgh is getting sticky beause of these gobs of frozen orange juice that cops, Ravenstahl and Obama's guests keep throwing at us.

Just like these communities we don't have a choice in the matter. If your city is a bastion of green, with specks of economic stability mixed in, then you may be the next host of a predatory summit. You don't have any voice in it. Writing this blog makes me feel special, like what I say actually has an audience, or is somewhat controversial and worthy of attention from all of Pittsburgh's visitors this week.

But I know that I'm safe: There is no threat that I pose to this status quo. The G20 will be gone next week, and none of these global representatives will have read my blog.

And when the G20 leaves, then the Pittsburghers who packed up and left because of inconvenience will return. Their displeasure with a massive dose of globalism in our town results in a one week vacation. I realize that the precautionary measures that will turn ten-minute commutes into hour-long sit sessions are an inconvenience. I understand this. But leaving town to avoid the strongest representation of our privileged world's raping of those that serve our whims is a great representation of denial.

The G20 is in town. But I was here first.
Even if I know none of my neighbors, This is my community. And even if I help anarchists destroy Pittsburgh and take us back thirty years, I know I'll still be here.

I'm not going anywhere.

Visiting Family

Old news, yes, but an update none the less. From the papers twenty days ago:
"What we know right now is we're both putting in money to get this event and make this event successful and safe."-Luke Ravenstahl, while trying to make a case for the city of Pittsburgh, and not Allegheny County, to receive retribution for its efforts in funding security and accommodations for our special visitors.
































Never mind that traditional outta-towners receive no such love. We have a tourist board for such visits, and while I'm opposed to people making a vacation spot out of my hometown, I like that I can mostly get away with not having to deal with the presence of most vacationers. The G20 has already fucked my week, in the form of excessive police force and arrests under the bridge in Bloomfield (where I would have been playing soccer on any other Sunday evening). It's morning and I still don't know if half of my friends are OK. Can you imagine guests being anymore imposing? (I have no sources but my own two eyes, so I apologize to the purists who may be reading. I didn't forget to link a news story.)

Never mind that Barack Obama invited some very high-maintenance dinner guests to the Phipps and the Warhol, without first asking me, the Mayor of Lawrenceville. Sure, neither of these G20 destination spots are in my neighborhood. Sure, I've never been to either of them myself. But Obama should know one thing: That tip on the table had better be adjusted for inflation. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, and Obama didn't ask me or any of my local friends if it would be OK to bring guests. With weapons.

I used to go to family reunions at my uncle's place in Lancaster, Pa. My family would always stay with my dad's brother on the more vacation-type excursions, but come Reunion Time, there was never enough room for all the visiting family in his house, so we would have to get a hotel. But our G20 guests are all staying in hotels, even though this is not a family reunion of any sort. Why aren't they just staying with local family? It's a global community, and the G20 is here to discuss its global economy. Surely these visitors have address books full of cousins and acquaintances across the globe: Are they ignoring their U.S. brethren?

"Oh, hey, Pittsburgh Charlie. Yeah, mom's doing fine. What? No! Coming to Pittsburgh? Where did you hear that?"

Does this mean that our visitors expected special treatment for their otherwise mundane vacation to a dying little city from the start?

I'd really like to go back in time and find some way to posess Luke Ravenstahl's body and react totally differently at the onset of G20 Fever (which would make amazing knuckle tattoos).





From an imaginary press release dated May 29, 2009, just after the announcement of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.
And Luke Ravenstahl said: On behalf of Pittsburgh and the entire Steeler Nation, I am thoroughly disturbed and embarrassed, saddened even, that Barack Obama has invited the world's economic leaders to our city. Just because he invited our Championship Football team to the White House does not mean that he can treat our town like a long-weekend vegan potluck with a Facebook event invitation that says, "Hey, if you're bringing guests, bring extra weaponry and body armor with which to protect them. Shit, I meant food--bring an extra dish!"
Most economic summits require massive amounts of spending, and loss of spending at local businesses, that is not even included in the city, county, state or national budget provided for such events. Our flailing city is already in debt, and spending more money to protect and chauffeur a small group of self-important vacationers in town on History's Longest Recorded Spending Spree (full of refinancing, speculation, enhanced deregulation, sub-prime mortgages, predatory lending, collapse, bailout and beyond) would just not be a responsible thing for a Hot, Young mayor to do.
And I hear these motherfuckers aren't even interested in donating money to save our underfunded libraries.
So, these weekend guests aren't willing to make frivolous (or not so frivolous) vacation purchases to help our local economy. They're not willing to bring a casserole or baked good to dinner. And they're certainly not willing to apologize for being responsible for the Steel Collapse 30 years ago that left us with nothing but Row Houses and Alleys Full of Heroin Needles and flea excrement.
Some fancy white folks have taken it upon themselves to apologize for slavery.
If confused contemporaries can find it in their hearts to offer an apology for something that, as far as we know (wink, wink!), hasn't been a profitable, productive way for the ruling class to impose its wants and needs on lesser humans, then why can't the World's Richest, Most Powerful Folks apologize for making Pittsburgh Poor, Empty and Unemployed?
I'm sorry, G20, but you're going to have to get yourself a tour guide, a compass and a BikePgh City Street map just like the rest of our visitors. We're not protecting you, and you can get around town just like our only respectable citizens, and that's by bike.
Like always, I'm Luke Ravenstahl, and you can motherfucking quote me.