After hoofing it in Pittsburgh for three days, these exhausted reporters (my sister and I) don't feel like writing a post. So we're just dumping our pictures and videos here for you to judge for yourselves. We're big proponents of independent thinking. :)
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Obama arrives at the 911th Air Base in Pittsburgh at 3:26 pm. My brother, Wing Commander Colonel Gordon H. Elwell, and his wife Jane greet the President and Michelle. In case you're wondering: 1.) My brother didn't vote for Obama, and 2.) They are talking about football in this video.
The only kids in town.
A lovely ceremony on Pittsburgh's North Shore: President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea laid a wreath on the Korean War Memorial, as South Korean generals and diplomats and American vets joined together for the event. Edward E. Stevens, founder of the Korean War Veterans Association of Western Pennsylvania and orchestrator of the memorial, dedicated in 1999, organized this meeting and hovered all day to get it just right. He is the picture of dignity in the fourth photo. The head of state (and the closest we got to any dignitary) is seen with his head bowed next to Mr. Stevens in the picture just before that.
Police were everywhere. Their massive presence was indisputable, and Julie and I talked at length about the implications of such formidable force. They came in all forms--on bicycles created just for the G-20; on horses; on motorcycles; with dogs; in boats, cruisers, backhoes, buses, Humvees, jeeps, SUVs, and regular soccer-mom vans; and on foot. They came from Tuscon, Chicago, Tallahassee, Baltimore, New York, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and probably many more places. (They wore their own arm badges, and those are the cities we noticed.) As individuals, they were friendly and cooperative. (Well, except that one, and he knows who he is. I didn't know you can't cross a police line! But don't confuse him with that handsome officer in the second to last photo; we thought he had a movie-star quality about him.) But en masse they were intimidating. We didn't see any police brutality, but there is ample footage of some against the students on Thursday night and against the anarchist group (as they call themselves) east of town.
The excessive show of force had major drawbacks: 1.) It had a chilling effect on free speech and movement on the streets, 2.) It was extremely costly, and 3.) It was not a welcoming or friendly sight to the foreign dignitaries, whose impression of this militarized Pittsburgh does not match the reality of everyday life here. The balanced view, of course, takes into consideration the potential for chaos and harm when crowds gather, especially angry ones. That the protesters weren't angry--not a one that I could see--is important, but I suppose the city of Pittsburgh couldn't know that for sure in advance. I like to remind myself that individual cops are hard-working union members who risk their lives and work in the trenches. Still, there was a feeling of inevitability in the air that clashes would occur, simply because they were there. At several points they seemed bored, and at least a few kidded with us that they wished there was more "action." That's a dangerous recipe; it's remarkable there weren't more confrontations, given the number of police.
The protesters were delightful, earnest, and peaceful. We talked with and photographed many of them as they straggled back into town after marching around the streets and across one of the bridges into the North Shore area near Heinz Field (where the Steelers play). A notable exception to the general air of peace were the black-clad, kerchiefed anarchists, who, in response to my questions about their desire for autonomy and masking, freely acknowledged that they didn't want to be identified because of "all the damage" their group does, including throwing rocks at buildings to break windows and stealing from Wal-Mart. They insisted that property damage was a legitimate form of protest; then they added that they probably wouldn't blow up a "Mom and Pop" stand or anything as ambitious as the federal building in Oklahoma because there were too many people killed there. It occurred to Julie and me that this relatively small group--we saw perhaps thirty of them, but there may have been more--were the only people the police really needed to worry about, the only people whose intentions were not necessarily peaceful.
It seems clear to me that news stories and posts which emphasize confrontations between police and protesters are simply not an accurate portrayal of the G-20 this year. They were isolated in both time and space. But it's fair to suggest that dissent was squelched up front, that Pittsburgh looked like a police state and therefore probably kept people from coming out or voicing their views. I do wish more reporters tried harder to ask the protesters what they wanted, what they believed. I think they know that stories about conflict sell; stories with substance about alternative views do not.
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We'll leave you with a beautiful picture of Pittsburgh at dusk. You can see the sun's rays on the buildings.
To see more of Julie's photo's, go to her Flickr page. We'll post video of protesters soon.
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Comments
Were the news stories about the much larger demonstration in D.C. supporting traditional American values also inaccurate? Were there tear gas bombs and rock throwing incidents going on there that the press ignored?
Thanks for the additional evidence that today's press is hopelessly skewed toward Obama's collectivist agenda.
What's more questionable, apparently, is the level of animosity that erupted between the police and the protesters (although you should know that protesters is not the correct word here, since many, many of the people who did show up in groups were curious bystanders and students who may not have had any political agenda at all). I can give you my slice of the truth: I hung around here for three days and saw none of what is shown in the videos of police brutality. I saw a policeman yell at a young man who was walking across the street and appeared not to understand that he was supposed to stop, I saw another policeman shout at a kid who was walking with an ipod in his ears and was about to get hit by a truck, and I myself was yelled at when I tried to cross a police line. That's it. However, while most of the first day was deserted and therefore found row upon row of police lines at ease, chatting and friendly, helpful and courteous, it's true that on Friday, when the heads of state were in the immediate downtown, the groups of police had a different attitude. They were decidedly not at ease; they were tense and moving their sticks and giving the impression that if any of us were to make one false move we'd be jumped on.
But the fact that I didn't see the violence doesn't mean it wasn't there. I can tell you that we had to pick one place or another that first day, and we chose the downtown area where the participants were arriving and staying, and where there were some peaceful Tibet demonstrations and some other events such as the South Korean ceremony. We chose not to go to the Phipps Conservatory that was hosting the dignitaries later on, thinking we'd end up there later on. We did speak to college students, though, who were going back to their campuses for the evening, and we noted a couple of things: 1. They (and from their conversations, most of their peers as well) had zero agenda and couldn't remotely be called "protesters." 2. They were excited at the import of the event and planned to wander about outdoors when they got back. They said everybody they knew planned to do the same. 3. Julie and I specifically worried that those students would be caught in the crossfire, so to speak, given the enormous numbers of cops in the city. We immediately understood, after having watched a few cops interact negatively with the kids--and I mean just those shouts about getting out of the street, etc.--that there would be trouble that night at the Oakland area and voiced that it would be better if police got training in diffusing situations rather than acting like authoritarians right away (maybe they do, but it's not enough, then). It turns out we were right, and the footage shown of Oakland that night suggested that in fact the students were being forced to disperse without any real reason or provocation. But we weren't there. I have no reason to doubt the videos. But I also know that video cameras were everywhere. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that happened that we haven't seen. In other words, what's out there is the extent of the confrontations. Many of the videos are of the same incidents. It's just a judgement call for discerning consumers of news to figure out how representative those events were to the whole affair. In my view, they do not begin to represent the feel of this city in the last three days. I think the notion of police presence to begin with is the more important question.
It was disturbing to me, seeing all of those police in their riot gear. I'm sure cities are going to err on the side of caution, but if you're going to hold a conference in a militarized environment, why not just hold it at the local military base? Why disrupt an entire city?
I'm glad you documented this, and it is comforting to know most of the "conflict" was just cable news channel hype. Great job!!
"Make one false move..."
The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the ability of the people to make *meaningful* communications with their government. Without this ability, the opportunity to be seen and heard by those in positions of power, the First Amendment is absolutely meaningless. "One false move", the least indication of dissent, the least attempt to communicate dissent with official policy, and ... "we'd be jumped on", beaten, gassed, arrested and taken to jail - don't kid yourself, all the stuff you might celebrate on the Fourth of July, that's history, that's all gone now.
The police aren't out on the streets "upholding the Constitution." They're there helping the Government to deny citizens their Constitutional rights to free speech. Instead of looking at officers at ease and joking amongst themselves when "nothing is going on", look at what they do when something *is* going on. This abrogation of Constitutional rights is *now* normal for Pittsburgh, whether you like it or not, it's going to be a part of your life until things change, and change won't come easily, and it won't be fun to do.