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The vast majority of the police at the G-20 are working-class or middle-class people. They obviously are not economic elites deciding on the policies of the G-20.
This reminds me of how some protesters against the US war in Vietnam villified the veterans of that war as "baby killers" and police officers as "pigs". One person by the name of David Aschkenas was along the route of the start of the protest in a section of Pittsburgh called Oakland, taking photos where the route of the march included a sweeping view of the South Side of Pittsburgh where houses and buildings appeared as beige and grey spots in the green hills.
He said "there are good cops and bad cops just like there are good anarchists and bad anarchists." Before going to Pittsburgh, I was concerned that mainstream media outlets would focus on the violence, drama, and whatever they thought were freak-show aspects of the protests, if they reported on it at all.
Once in Pittsburgh, it seemed to me that more just a few of the non-mainstream reporters and activists were focusing on the local drama of the confrontations with police as their primary concern, instead of focusing on the social and environmental issues that--one would think--brought people out to protest in the streets, in the first place.
No doubt, civil liberties issues are among the concerns of people involved with the grass-roots movements that converged in Pittsburgh for the G-20, but those are not the only, nor even the most important, issues.
Demonizing the police, the rich, or big corporations is a form of escapism in which we avoid facing the reality that all of us are part of the problem and part of the solution. Addressing our ecological and social challenges, requires not finger-pointing, but instead, making changes to our political, economic, and other social systems.
Many of the issues people were protesting about cannot be separated from the resource-intensive lives that the vast majority of us lead, whether we are cops, corporate executives, or low-budget nomadic activists calling ourselves progressives or radicals.
This reminds me of how some protesters against the US war in Vietnam villified the veterans of that war as "baby killers" and police officers as "pigs". One person by the name of David Aschkenas was along the route of the start of the protest in a section of Pittsburgh called Oakland, taking photos where the route of the march included a sweeping view of the South Side of Pittsburgh where houses and buildings appeared as beige and grey spots in the green hills.
He said "there are good cops and bad cops just like there are good anarchists and bad anarchists." Before going to Pittsburgh, I was concerned that mainstream media outlets would focus on the violence, drama, and whatever they thought were freak-show aspects of the protests, if they reported on it at all.
Once in Pittsburgh, it seemed to me that more just a few of the non-mainstream reporters and activists were focusing on the local drama of the confrontations with police as their primary concern, instead of focusing on the social and environmental issues that--one would think--brought people out to protest in the streets, in the first place.
No doubt, civil liberties issues are among the concerns of people involved with the grass-roots movements that converged in Pittsburgh for the G-20, but those are not the only, nor even the most important, issues.
Demonizing the police, the rich, or big corporations is a form of escapism in which we avoid facing the reality that all of us are part of the problem and part of the solution. Addressing our ecological and social challenges, requires not finger-pointing, but instead, making changes to our political, economic, and other social systems.
Many of the issues people were protesting about cannot be separated from the resource-intensive lives that the vast majority of us lead, whether we are cops, corporate executives, or low-budget nomadic activists calling ourselves progressives or radicals.