So.....G-20?

[Brill Weave]

The protesting festivities have begun a day ahead of schedule. I personally don't give a shit about G-20, but since it will be personally affecting me for the next two days I figured we needed a thread about it. They've already posted the major street closings so as a result protesters are now moving to the secondary routes to congest them even further.

So here's the rundown as to what's happening. If this turns out like Seattle when the WTO came, I'll be heading into town to get some pictures. Hopefully without getting tear gassed. Here's the headlines coming out of town regarding the preparations for the event.

Emergency declaration allows non-Pittsburgh officers for G-20 - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl issued an emergency declaration this week that allows the city to deputize officers from outside police departments during the Group of 20 economic summit.

"This is something we planned for all along," said city Public Safety Director Mike Huss.

City Council earlier this month approved spending $18 million — most of which will be reimbursed by the federal and state government — for public safety during the summit, which begins tomorrow afternoon.

Huss declined to say how many officers will be deputized or which cities will be represented.

"The agreements are still coming in," Huss said. "I'm very confident and appreciative of all the cities and states that have helped us out with this."

The declaration will be in effect for seven days through Sept. 28. The declaration can only be renewed with the consent of City Council.

To add onto this, heading home yesterday I was greeted by six bomb sniffing dogs walking through Bloomfield. None of them were Pittsburgh Police. The city is expected to have close to 4,000 law enforcement personnel on call and on the streets.

Hill District tent city continues to grow as protesters plan demonstrations - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Crews overnight erected crowd-control fences on streets around the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in preparation for the Group of 20 economic summit.

Workers placed tall metal fences along Penn Avenue near the convention center and Grant Street near the Federal Building, Downtown, and around Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Oakland. G-20 meetings begin Thursday.

Across town, a group of protesters in the Hill District said they expected an influx of people to join their temporary tent city before world leaders arrive for the summit.

"We're going to have to rearrange," said Cheryl LaBash, an organizer with Bail Out The People, as she mingled with campers about 2 a.m. Population at the tent city on Wylie Avenue stood about 60 strong, she said.

"I think it's really been terrific," said LaBash, 60, a retired road construction inspector for the city of Detroit. "The reason we're here with all the violence baiting and the G-20 and what they say is to make people remember those without jobs."

Protesters at the camp — who represent several organizations — came from across the country, including California, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington D.C.

John Parker, 49, drove from Los Angeles to join Bail Out The People and highlight the need for jobs.

"It's important for us to come here," Parker said. "(World leaders are) supposed to make things better, and things have gotten worse. They're enriching themselves."

Representatives from the Minneapolis-based Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign joined the tent city to voice the plight of the homeless. The Rev. Bruce Wright of the Refuge Ministries in Tampa said most of the people in his group are homeless or recently have been, and they came to Pittsburgh to show the world "we're no longer going to be silent."

"What we're trying to do is bring forth our belief that housing, jobs and health care are human rights," Wright said.

Hill District residents have donated water and food and have been supportive of the site, Parker said.

He dismissed worries about upcoming marches becoming violent.

"It's funny, with all these things where folks gather, the authorities put these stories out there that there's going to be violence," Parker said. "They're just trying to scare people from coming out and protesting."

LaBash joked about being considered an "outside agitator."

"I'm 60 years old. I'm retired, and I own a house," she said. "We're not scary. You may not agree with us always, but it's not the way it has been played up."

Some campers participated in a demonstration Tuesday outside BNY Mellon headquarters, Downtown, to protest bank foreclosures. Today, campers will hold a panel discussion at Monumental Baptist Church on Wylie Avenue that will spotlight how G-20 policies affect communities.

Several groups, including Bail Out The People, marched Sunday in the Hill District to demonstrate the need for more jobs.

Another yet-to-be-announced march is planned, and LaBash said her group also would participate in the People's March planned for Friday.

"We're participating in all the events," LaBash said. "We stand in solidarity with others who stand against the G-20 and what it represents."

Supposedly they are expecting "Tent City" to grow into the hundreds of "residents." Good luck competing with the homeless guys down there.

We're big time now, Greenpeace has arrived!
Protesters target West End, Fort Pitt bridges with banners - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Greenpeace is taking credit for taking climbers to the West End and Fort Pitt bridges this morning to unfurl banners stating "Danger — Climate Destruction Ahead. Reduce Co2 Emissions Now."

Pittsburgh police and River Rescue crews swarmed the bridges where an estimated 20 protesters assembled. A banner was unfurled from the West End Bridge, but police intervened at the Fort Pitt Bridge to stop a simultaneous attempt there, said Mike Crocker, a Greenpeace activist who said he was the team leader coordinating the event from the North Shore near Jerome Bettis' Grille 36.

Crocker, who came to Pittsburgh a few days ago from Washington, D.C., said dozens of Greenpeace activists nationwide planned the stunt for more than three months.

He said eight American activists were chosen to scale the West End Bridge because they could skillfully climb and rappel. Four formed human anchors to cinch the flag in place, and four lowered it down.

"As with all large events that we do, safety for everyone was paramount," said Crocker.

They climbed back up to the bridge deck and awaiting police about 1 p.m. Police took them into custody.

Two hours before that, four people wearing climbing gear, helmets and Greenpeace T-shirts, were leaning away from the bridge deck, suspended from ropes and talking with police officers. About 35 feet below them, four more activists dangled above the river holding ropes attached to a banner.

River Rescue crews watched the activists at the bridge from boats below. Officers fanned out across railroad tracks near Carson Street.

"We chose the West End bridge for the main focus of the action because it was an iconic bridge and one of the most important to the city," said Gabe Wisniewski, a Greenpeace activist from San Francisco. "It's a powerful image to see the banner unfurl and it sends a very important message to world leaders."

Greenpeace activists said the banner was an 80-by-30-foot business card telling G-20 ministers that the organization's scientific and legal experts are in town this week and would listen to determine whether promises made at the recent G-8 summit in Italy to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions would be announced before a larger conference in Copenhagen.

Crocker said "about a half-dozen" activists on the Fort Pitt span were supposed to deploy a much smaller banner but police stopped them.

Throughout the morning, activists monitored levels of security, including patrol boats, uniformed officers patrolling the shores of rivers and helicopters circling above.

Picture of Greenpeace idiots.
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...itSith/G20.jpg

[Boyiee]

Damn entered the thread thinking there was a new Logitech Keyboard/gamepad/mouse that I didn't know about.

HOW DARE YOU!

[Brill Weave]

Haha! Point to you Boyiee!!

[Boyiee]

The worst part is now I'm reading this entire thing that I had no intention of doing to begin with. -50dkp brill.


edit: just noticed "Supposedly they are expecting "Tent City" to grow into the hundreds of "residents." Good luck competing with the homeless guys down there." That's really interesting we have 2 Tent Cities in my town full of homeless. Both are in the woods. It's really bad because the local college supplies them with some propane and such (humanities? idk) and once in a while they have a fire in there and 99% of the time it's a fatal. Last fire I had in there was pretty gruesome and it was a homeless guy that every cop/firemen/ems knew because he was a regular, and 20yrs ago he was very highly regarded in the town (was a reverend that built shelters and things etc).

[Brill Weave]

So.....what you're saying is we could "theoretically" take care of tent city before G-20 even begins? Interesting. Not good news for the law enforcement. They lost a case already against protesters who drove here to feed the others. Now they have food AND tents!

[Boyiee]

Our town used to fight against it years ago but it really was a never ending battle that they didn't want to spend money on. It's either live in the streets or live in the woods off the street. We all hate tent city, whenever we get a call there it's like "fuck, not there". They spend some of their day there, then wander into town to get drunk and have seizures, then go back there to sleep.

No one sends them food, but a few church dudes do the soup kitchen thing on certain days of the week in town.

[Byrthnoth]

Some of the hippies on the UPitt campus are funny to watch. I just wish the protesters would stay down town and not bother the other parts of Pittsburgh. Supposedly there was a bomb threat at some art gallery in Shadyside. I mean, seriously? Why a portrait art gallery?

The city's "dirty vagrant" total definitely just went up.

[Brill Weave]

Ah it should be amusing at the very least. As long as the anarchists don't decide to form up a Black Bloc. Then things could get kind of ugly.

[Byrthnoth]

Ah it should be amusing at the very least. As long as the anarchists don't decide to form up a Black Bloc. Then things could get kind of ugly.

w/e, I'm out of the city tomorrow -> Sunday. Hooray for department retreats.

[wipers]

I can't imagine the smell of all the hippies there protesting.

[Kuya]

Why can't these stupid college kids/hippies/extremist liberals just shut the fuck up and stop causing trouble? It's like they think their opinion matters or something. Not only that, they only make the homeless problem even worse by giving them stuff to keep them around. Honestly, adding this to moore's anti capitalist movie, you get a real sense of how crazy these people are.

[Brill Weave]

All that build up for what looks to be, nothing. According to the press the police outnumber the protesters in the city right now. So unless there's a massive influx of stinky ass hippies in the next few hours, it looks like it could end up being pretty damn quiet. Supposedly there are 5k police officers and other law enforcement agencies out and about. I was stopped coming into work by a National Guardsman asking where I was going and why I was out on the road so early. Had to show my work ID and my license etc. They weren't going to let me go because my badge doesn't say where I work. Luckily I had an old paystub in my glove compartment from last month. I thought that was a bit heavy handed considering I was nowhere near town and I'm basically on the outskirts of what is considered "town."

Strange incident to occur before I'm even really awake. Maybe it was a dream....

[ZarakiKujata]

I can't imagine the smell of all the hippies there protesting.

patchouli and pot?

[Demosthenes11]

is this a new gatorade flavor?

greenpeace sucks btw, sierra club is where it's at (minus their stance on nuclear power)

[Brill Weave]

It has electrolytes. We're good.

[guartz]

Why can't these stupid college kids/hippies/extremist liberals just shut the fuck up and stop causing trouble? It's like they think their opinion matters or something. Not only that, they only make the homeless problem even worse by giving them stuff to keep them around. Honestly, adding this to moore's anti capitalist movie, you get a real sense of how crazy these people are.

http://images.encyclopediadramatica....ing_Squint.jpg

[Kuya]

The problem with these leftists is that they think that one year of college education or "heart power" is enough to understand how complicated the world really is. It's not black and white and you need to learn to have patience and compromise. Our political leaders and economic professionals know what they're doing and i don't see how these idiots yelling for days is going to affect a thing. That's the problem. They don't know what's going on because they're ignorant hippies and college douche bags. If they would realize, like we do, that we're just meaningless idiots who only get in the way of professionals trying to solve the world's problems, then they would just shut the fuck up and sit at a computer like we do.

The only thing we can do is work our jobs, buy our stuff, and listen to their informed opinions instead of causing all this shrill ruckus. But because they're so desperate to add meaning to their meaningless lives they can't see the truth for what it is. And the truth is, we're all nothing but worthless bags of flesh who have no power whatsoever in the real world, and they should just accept that, sit on a chair, turn on the computer, and post about michael jackson like the rest of us normal people do. They are only inconveniancing us.

[Brill Weave]

I am sad. Nothing has been set on fire yet.

[wipers]

Wait till Pitt and WV play. Then the fires will begin.

[Brill Weave]

Probably. It's actually been dead here at work.