Chris Hedges: Go to Pittsburgh, Young Man, and Defy Your Empire

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Go to Pittsburgh, Young Man, and Defy Your Empire

Posted on Aug 31, 2009
By Chris Hedges


Globalization and unfettered capitalism have been swept into the history books along with the open-market theory of the 1920s, the experiments of fascism, communism and the New Deal. It is time for a new economic and political paradigm. It is time for a new language to address our reality. The voices of change, those who speak in powerful and yet unfamiliar words, will cry out Sept. 25 and 26 in Pittsburgh when protesters from around the country gather to defy the heads of state, bankers and finance ministers from the world’s 22 largest economies who are convening for a meeting of the G-20. If we heed these dissident voices we have a future. If we do not we will commit collective suicide.

The international power elites will go to Pittsburgh to preach the mantra that globalization is inevitable and eternal. They will discuss a corpse as if it was living. They will urge us to remain in suspended animation and place our trust in the inept bankers and politicians who orchestrated the crisis. This is the usual tactic of bankrupt elites clinging to power. They denigrate and push to the margins the realists—none of whom will be inside their security perimeters—who give words to our disintegration and demand a new, unfamiliar course. The powerful discredit dissent and protest. But human history, as Erich Fromm wrote, always begins anew with disobedience. This disobedience is the first step toward freedom. It makes possible the recovery of reason.

The longer we speak in the language of global capitalism, the longer we utter platitudes about the free market—even as we funnel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the accounts of large corporations—the longer we live in a state of collective self-delusion. Our power elite, who profess to hate government and government involvement in the free market, who claim they are the defenders of competition and individualism, have been stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of our money to nationalize mismanaged corporations and save them from bankruptcy. We hear angry and confused citizens, their minds warped by hate talk radio and television, condemn socialized medicine although we have become, at least for corporations, the most socialized nation on Earth. The schizophrenia between what we profess and what we actually embrace has rendered us incapable of confronting reality. The longer we speak in the old language of markets, capitalism, free trade and globalization the longer the entities that created this collapse will cannibalize the nation.

What are we now? What do we believe? What economic model explains the irrationality of looting the U.S. Treasury to permit speculators at Goldman Sachs to make obscene profits? How can Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, tout a “jobless recovery”? How much longer can we believe the fantasy that global markets will replace nation states and that economics will permit us to create a utopian world where we will all share the same happy goals? When will we denounce the lie that globalization fosters democracy, enlightenment, worldwide prosperity and stability? When we will we realize that unfettered global trade and corporate profit are the bitter enemies of freedom and the common good? .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090831_hedges_pittsburgh_g20_defiance/

[happyslug]

1. The City of Pittsburgh are putting the protesters 3 miles upstream

The City of Pittsburgh has designated South Side Park for protesters. It has limited parking.

Protesters will have access to the point on September 23 only:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/g20/20474794/detail.html
The Point has no place to park your car, plan either to walk or take the bus (and bus service will be restricted so plan to walk).

I recommend you take a Kayak or canoe (or maybe some other boat) and tie it up on the South Side Park and camp there (if that is the designated area for protesters). Then take the boat, Kayak or Canoe to Point State Park. I recommend a Kayak or Canoe for the simple reason you can launch it without having access to a boat ramp. Now South Side Park has a boat ramp and places to park cars with trailers, but I expect it all to be shut down for the duration of the G-20 meeting, thus I go with Canoes and Kayaks.

In a boat you have several ways to enter downtown Pittsburgh. First most and easiest is Point State park (I expect the point to be heavy patrolled for this very reason). The other approaches are almost as easy to land, but then you are cut off by the various highways built on the river shores since the end of WWII. These all tend to be limited access and as such impossible to cross over except at designated underpasses or bridges, but if you are careful easy to bypass.

The oldest of these are the bypass on the Mongahelia Rivers. Now these are now dominated by I-376 (Called locally the Parkway East) but when built had extensive parking so various passages exists. Best handed on a hit everywhere option to find out where the Police are weakness. The Allegheny River is similar but have more landing spots. The City has a bypass that acts as a barrier but once over it (And the traffic, while heavy, is not as heavy as I-376 on the Monongahela River). You then have the use of the access to the Three "Twin Bridges" built by the county in the 1920s. Notice I use the term access, the bridges themselves I expect to be blocked off, but the access area to all three bridges is wider and once pass the bypass a the best way to get by only police blockade. Notice I suspect this is the weak link in shutting off Downtown Pittsburgh and why the protesters where put on the South Side NOT the North-side.

As I was saying the Three Twin Bridges are the weak point for even Point State Park, which as a much wider area for people to land by boat, can be contained by blocking the three underpasses under the Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne Bridges, and then again at Stanwix Street (The Widest street in that part of Downtown, it is the widest street for when Downtown Pittsburgh went through it "Renaissance" starting in the 1950s the old Wabash railroad terminal and tracks ran parallel to it. When that terminal and tracks were torn out it was easy to expand Stanwix Street to a proper four-lane road. If I was the city that would be my second line of Defense against protesters from Point State park (The primary line would be the three underpasses of Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne Bridges, with a "fall back" line at the edge of the Park, then the final line on Stanwix street).

The walkways along the Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt Bridges are to narrow and easily blocked. Traffic is to heavy on both for protesters to take them over to use the car lanes. I would avoid them for those reasons (Through a small group should try just to keep the Police Busy on those bridges, i.e. to tie up the police so their are less police for use elsewhere).

On the Monongahela River you have three bridges you can use. Smithfield, Liberty and 10th street. Liberty is the most heavily used of these three bridges, its sidewalks are wider then the Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne bridges but still easily blocked. Traffic is to heavy to use the car lanes for a protest. Thus you are stuck with the 10th Street and Smithfield Street Bridges. These two bridges have wide walkways, but low enough traffic for protesters to take over and walk across every car lane. Thus like the three Twin Bridges on the Allegheny Rivers the best Bridges to use to get into downtown Pittsburgh by foot. Unlike the Twin Bridges the 10th Street Bridge runs into a cliff side. You then have to force your way into and through the 10th street tunnel to get to Forbes Avenue or turn to the left and force yourself through the narrow passageway between the Cliff side up to Duquesne University and the Parkway east and Monongahela River. This is Second Avenue. The worse part once in Downtown, Second Avenue spits and ends where the Boulevard of the allies enters downtown Pittsburgh. The Beloved of the Allies was built in the 1920 as an access road for both the Liberty Bridge and the East End of Pittsburgh. In effect it blocks all access via its design, which was for cars not pedestrians. Like the access from Point State Park possible to do but difficult. You have the Bridge, which can be blocked, the Tunnel, which can be blocked, and then the narrow area where the Boulevard of the Allies enters over Second Avenue. All easy to block.

Now Smithfield Street Bridge is the oldest Bridge in Downtown Pittsburgh and as such the easiest bridge to get to, cross and enter downtown Pittsburgh. As Such it will be the heaviest patrolled for like the Twin Bridges once crossed people can expand outward into all of Downtown.

Now when I described how to stop a protest from the South-side, I pointed out it is the same way to block any protest from Second Avenue. Thus the only other three ways to get into downtown Pittsburgh is the Fifth-Forbes route, The Center Avenue Route from the Hill District and the Penn Avenue route from the Strip District.

Now these "land routes" (and even second avenue as explained above) are all cut off by the extension of the Liberty Bridge Access roads built in the 1960s as the cross town expressway and then again in the 1990s with the completion of the East Street Expressway (Sometimes called the parkway north). The Strip District is further cut off by the old Main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad (Not Norfolk and Western). When the Pennsylvanian Railroad (PRR) rebuilt its mainline around 1910, the PRR built its route taller to minimize conflicts with road traffic, including Downtown Pittsburgh. Together, the Access to the "Veteran's Bridge" to the East Street Expressway and the Railroad bridge chokes all access from the strip district (And this is NOT helped by the fact the Strip district is between the Allegheny River, then three streets, then the Main line of the Railroad and then a Cliff side separating the strip District from the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Like Second Avenue, easy to block at various points (and I suspect the Police to draw a line before the Veteran Bridge, use the Veteran Bridge as a "Fall Back Line" and then a final line at the Railroad Bridge).

Now the Forbes-Fifth route is separated from Center Avenue and the Hill District by a Ridge line, but a ridge line that is easy to cross and has cross street connecting Fifth and Forbes with Center Avenue Starting in Oakland and continuing to downtown Pittsburgh. This is unlike the ridgeline between the Strip District and the Hill District and the ridgeline between Second Avenue and the Forbes-Fifth. Those ridgelines are true ridges, to hard for any large group to climb up.

As to the remaining land routes, Fifth-Forbes and Center Avenue (Hill District) both, while interconnected, are easy to block. The biggest impediment is the Cross town Expressway, which cuts off Downtown from the Civic Arena (I am a traditionalist, I can NOT bring myself to call it the “Mellon Arena”) and the Hill District. The Civic Area has a huge parking lot around it (It was built at the same time as the Civic Arena in the 1960s, the claim was for parking, but the blacks in the Hill District believe, and I agree with them, that it was to cut them off from downtown). The “Lower Hill” as it was called before the Building of the Civic Arena is now one huge parking lot with a handful of businesses on its ends (Mostly on the side of the Fifth-Forbes route). It is the area where the police fear problems will arise but given that it is nothing but parking lots today good for a series of blocking points, ending with a final blocking point along the cross town Expressway. This is more a result of the 1967 riots in the Hill District, i.e. isolate the blacks from being able to get to downtown to protest then anything else.

Thus this leaves Fifth-Forbes route. This is the traditional route between Downtown Pittsburgh and the Oakland section of town. It is how General Forbes entered the area when he took Fort Duquesne in 1758 (Later on his lieutenant General reset the road along liberty avenue and the strip district, the Hill District was always a local access road not a main route into Pittsburgh except from Oakland and the East End). It is NOT subject to flooding along the rivers and avoids the cliff sides tied in with both rivers. It is flatter then Center Avenue and the Hill District and thus the preferred route between Oakland and Downtown. Being old has narrow roads (Both Forbes and Fifth are one way roads today, Forbes from Downtown to Oakland, Firth Oakland to Town). The Oakland sections of both roads are wider but as you near downtown both narrows. While accessible to the Hill District, my sister told me about going to Collage on the Bus via Fifth and Forbes during the 1967 riots. National Guard Troops isolated Forbes and Fifth from the Hill District via those cross streets so it has been done in the past. While not as isolatable as Second Avenue or the Strip District, can be isolated at various choke points between Oakland and downtown Pittsburgh. The final line would be at the Cross-town expressway. The old county jail separated Fifth and Forbes at that point along with other tall buildings. Choke point after choke point and the cross streets only go to the Civic Arena area and its choke points.

I bring this up for it is easy to shut off Downtown Pittsburgh from the rest of the City. If you want to protest the best way in is by boat, via the Allegheny River or the Monongahela River up stream from the Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt Bridges. If you can not do that then go to the Civic Arena area and try to force your way via the bridges over the cross town expressway.

Alternatives: How about a huge posting sign along the Monongahela escarpement known as Mt Washington? This is opposite downtown Pittsburgh, easy to get to (by foot) and if you have a large group of people to carry and quickly attach parts of a sign together you could unroll it down the Cliffside.