Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project: Summit Report

"Capitalism is like a spider, the web is getting tighter
I'm struggling like a fighter, just to bust loose
It's like a noose, asphyxiation sets in
Just when I think I'm free, it seems to me the spider steps in."
- Boots Riley

The announcement that the G-20 would be meeting in Pittsburgh, PA, this coming September surprised everyone -- radicals, locally and across the country; media commentators; even the White House Press Corps [see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm2xH4plPXI ]. Immediately, a flurry of conversations popped up, over list-serves, in homes, at work places: the leaders who represent 85% of the world's economy were coming to our hometown to decide (once again) the fate of the rest of the world. There was no question for us that we were going to confront them. The only question was how to do it.

It was clear that for our resistance to be effective, our planning and preparation needed to be collectively crafted. As such, a two-day summit [see: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090531213049472 ] was proposed for all who were interested in organizing in an explicitly anti-authoritarian manner. From that summit emerged the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project (PG-20RP).

Over 60 anarchists, radicals, and anti-authoritarians from the Pittsburgh area attended the summit. We discussed the group's structure, how to approach the various challenges inherent in organizing around the G-20 meeting, and the PG-20RP's purpose for existing. To that extent, we consensed that for us to act most effectively, the project would:

• Provide mobilization infrastructure on the ground in Pittsburgh;
• Organize and maintain a convergence space;
• Create Working Groups to tackle all organizational aspects of the convergence;
• Make websites for information dissemination;
• Create hype and propaganda for resistance;
• Reach out to allies, known and potential, across the country;
• Create an action framework and a space for it to succeed;
• Build our own movements locally.

Another outcome from our summit was coming to consensus on the PG-20RP's points of unity, adapted from those created ahead of the 2008 Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities. We feel that with a group as diverse as ours, it is important to have explicitly voiced desires, not only in our resistance to the G-20, but also for the communities that we are working to create. These points of unity are as follows:

• Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including
  but not limited to those rooted in patriarchy, racism, classism, homophobia,
  capitalism, imperialism and the state;
• Resist the commodification of our shared and living Earth;
• Organize on the principles of decentralization, autonomy, sustainability,
  mutual aid and respect;
• Oppose the police and prison-industrial complex, and maintain solidarity
  with all targets of state repression;
• Use a diversity of tactics to directly confront systems of oppression by
  advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed
  peoples’ rights, and construct local alternatives to global capitalism.

With less than 14 weeks until the G-20 meeting, we are working hard to build the framework we are envisioning. Within the next few days, our site [see: http://resistg20.org ] should be coming together with updates and more information, including contact information for the various working groups--check back often.

We look forward seeing you in our pocket of the Rust Belt this coming September.

Love,
The (Im)Materials Working Group of The Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project
http://resistg20.org