community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Benefit Song for Quiet Storm and EEFC
by with apologies to Darell Worley
Wednesday, Jun. 06, 2007 at 6:59 AM
Hopefully this will help the healing begin from this most horrific of tragedies.
I hear people saying that moneymaking's wrong
I say that Garfield is where my gallery belongs
What about our soy milk and this work of art?
Don't you try to tell me, that's how gentrification starts
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend
CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your hangout vandalized
And being told to go away?
Have you forgotten when those windows broke?
We had to wait for tofu scramble
And no Bali Shag to smoke
How much money could vegan brunch have brought in?
Have you forgotten?
I couldn't understand the messages they sprayed
But all our stuff is perfect, organic and fair trade
I support Peduto and whine about Bush every day
I have bumper stickers, that I prominently display
Ironic Pabst hangover; my brain is a fog
They said that they were anarchists, so I guess we'll just blame POG
CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your hangout vandalized
And being told to go away?
Have you forgotten when those windows broke?
We had to wait for tofu scramble
And no Bali Shag to smoke
Developers aren't what our clique has brought in
Have you forgotten?
How dare they say they co-op board's
No better than the police?
They'll pay to bust a union
But they sell nutritional yeast
CHORUS 2
Have you forgotten that we worship glass
Because we're liberals, like the right-wing worships flags?
Have you forgotten that the things we buy
Are the things that make us human
It's how we identify
How much money could vegan brunch have brought in?
Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?
delicious ironicality
by del.i
Wednesday, Jun. 06, 2007 at 4:32 PM
I am glad that the neo-Stalinists of indymedia (co-)opted to hide the other posting for fear of an anarchist meeting/drum circle decide it was libelous and therefore totally not cool brah, but this one is TOTALLY okay, brah.
soundtrack!
by metal meyhem
Wednesday, Jun. 06, 2007 at 9:22 PM
this song would sound great on an accoustic guitar over video footage of cops smashing anarchists into the ground. maybe some footage of anarchists getting tear gassed as well.
soundtrack
by punks dead, you're next
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 8:40 AM
It think a montage of the big ass houses that the people who have used parental and gov't subsidies to transplant their wretched social scene onto Penn Avenue, grew up in.
Please Enlighten Me
by dendrio
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 8:45 AM
dendrio@gmail.com
Someone please explain to me why a community-owned grocery store, which has been in that location serving the neighborhoods of the East End for 30 years, is a more appropriate target for smashing capitalism and crushing the concept of currency than, say, a bank.
I'm also curious as to how vandals - who enjoin us to "stop buying and selling" - have been able to survive in an urban environment without buying (clothing, food, spray paint) or selling (their labor power) ... or stealing and scavenging the left overs of other folks' buying and selling. Such a feat would be truly revolutionary, as opposed to mildly transgressive.
Denny
by community
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 9:44 AM
I think that hypocrisy is the issue here. A bank usually doesn't pretend to be anything but a bank.
The co-op is "community owned" the same way CVS is "community owned". You can buy a membership card that entitles you to a discount.
Since the "community" (suburban socialites) will protect its class interests, the co-op had to hire it's union busting lawyers and other dirty tricks.
I don't doubt that the co-op and maybe the BGC could have been worthwhile 30 years ago, I showed a lot of potential then, too. You can't change the system from within and to survive within the existing social order, they have had to make some terrible concessions and can't remeber any other way.
Please Enlighten Me
by dendrio
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 10:06 AM
dendrio@gmail.com
Could someone explain to me how a non-profit community-owned grocery store that has serve the neighborhoods of the East End for thirty years is a more worthy target for smashing capitalism and crushing currency than a for-profit financial institution like, say, a bank. I don't get it.
Secondly, could the vandals - who enjoined us to "stop buying and selling" - tell how they've managed to survive in an urban environment with buying (food, clothing, shelter, spray paint) or selling (their labor power), including stealing, scavenging, or mooching the left-overs/cast-offs of others' buying and selling. Such a breakthrough would be truly revolutionary - much more revolutionary than breaking & entering and vandalism which are merely transgressive.
Difference
by Dr. Anarchist
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 12:09 PM
The difference to the "neo-Stalinists" is that the other article was dangerously, if satirically, linking a group to a crime which A) it didn't commit, B) is to my knowledge being investigated by the police (who don't tend to like said group to begin with), and C) most in the group disagree with for one reason or another. It was also just really dumb and trite. This on the other hand, A) isn't blaming anyone in particular for anything that they could be sent to jail for, and B) is fucking hilarious. Hahahahaha.
Sorry for the Double Post
by dendrio
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 2:26 PM
The delay between posting my post and the post's appearance on the Web led me to believe that I didn't post my post in the first place.
Re: Community
by dendrio
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 5:14 PM
dendrio@gmail.com
"I think that hypocrisy is the issue here."
What hypocrisy? The EEFC doesn't avow any sort anti-capitalist or anarchist ideology. The closest thing they have to an ideology are the "Seven Cooperative Principles" which you can google.
"A bank usually doesn't pretend to be anything but a bank."
And the EEFC doesn't pretend to be anything other than a cooperative grocery store. It is not, has never been, and probably never will be a revolutionary organization.
"The co-op is 'community owned' the same way CVS is 'community owned'."
This statement is on its face untrue. CVS is a for-profit, multinational corporation. The EEFC is locally-owned, operated, and controlled. CVS trades its stock publicly on the NYSE and the cost of stock fluctuates. Stockholders get voting rights commensurate with the number amount of stock they own. CVS stocks pays dividends as well. EEFC shares cost $100. An individual can only buy one share, and each shareholder has an equal voice in the governance of the co-op.
"You can buy a membership card that entitles you to a discount."
Indeed, members get a 2% discount. Members and non-members receiving WIC get a 20% discount. You find this objectionable?
"Since the 'community' (suburban socialites) will protect its class interests, the co-op had to hire it's [sic] union busting lawyers and other dirty tricks."
I was wondering when we'd get to stereotypes and perjoratives replete with pseudo-Marxian class analysis. Labeling all EEFC members or shoppers "suburban socialites" may make for good rhetoric, but it isn't accurate. Attending a board meeting or simply having a cup of coffee on any Member Day will disabuse you of this notion.
Furthermore, the phrase "suburban socialite" is empty of any practical meaning. I wonder if you've seen just how impoverished some of our suburbs are and if you ever met a "socialite." Probably not since they generally don't rub elbows with the hoi palloi one encounters at the EEFC.
As for the union-busting and dirty tricks. This behavior shamed me, a unionist from a whole family of unionists. It shamed the majority of members as well who protested the board's actions when they came to light and got the board to abandon their anti-union policy and let the drive continue unimpeded.
But let's put things in perspective. In Houston, Texas janitors with the SEIU staged a sit in on the streets and were charged by mounted riot police, leaving dozens hospitalized. In Altoona, PA nurses and other health care workers organizing with the SEIU are currently being followed, threatened, harrassed, and fired as they struggle for recognition.
At the EEFC, prior to the board's capitulation to member demands to cease their behavior, the board hired a union-busting consultant who didn't actually do any work and a manager gave up his manager status in an attempt to organize a made-up union - a stalling tactic which was later abandoned. These were hardly hardball tactics. More like slow-pitch softball.
All the union organizers had to do in the end was to persuade 50% plus one employee to sign IWW union cards. They failed. They were unpersuasive. In a game of slow-pitch softball with management, they couldn't even get a man on base. Then, rather than try again, perhaps with a union that would actually offer some logistical support for a drive, they quit - not that I fault them too much. Failure is frustrating.
"I don't doubt that the co-op and maybe the BGC could have been worthwhile 30 years ago, [it] showed a lot of potential then, too. ... You can't change the system from within..."
And, extending this sentiment, since anyone reading this is in the system, we're screwed. We're all in the system and therefore, hopeless to change it. (Computers, of course, are manufactured with cheap labor in Asia and made from all sorts of minerals (petroleum being one) that come countries either racked with civil war or saddled with brutal dictatorships. The electricity that allows you to read these words, in Pennsylvania, comes primarily from coal and nuclear power.)
I am unfamiliar with the BCE (I googled it, but there's a shitload of outfits with those initials), but I'll assume it's another co-op. Please do share some details of their history if they're instructive.
"...and to survive within the existing social order, they have had to make some terrible concessions and can't remember any other way."
And how, pray-tell, have you survived in "the existing social order" with making concessions? Or are you simply hold EEFC members to a standard you yourself don't meet? (That, of course, would be hypocritical, in which case accusing the EEFC of hypocrisy would be double-hypocritical.)
Additionally, I'd like to know what some of these "terrible concessions" are? Be specific. I only return to Pittsburgh few years ago so I'm unaware of them. I'd be very interested to know 'cause I try my damnedest to live a ethically as I can on this dirty little planet.
However, all of this is academic. As I pointed out in my first paragraph, the EEFC is not an anti-capitalist, anti-currency, or anarchist organization - so "hypocrisy" is not a valid justification for attacking it when there are other institutions and organizations in Pittsburgh that are active decision makers and power brokers in the world of international capital.
As far as Temples to Mammon go, the EEFC doesn't even qualify as a backyard shrine.
Hypocrisy?
by Doug
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 8:03 PM
Well said Dendrio. I understand the thrust of the song, but I really don't think the Co-op is a valid target. Quiet Storm and some art galleries and any number of other places, yeah.
While I think gentrification is definitely problematic, I haven't heard any catchy songs with suggestions for positive change lately. Only criticism. Ideas anyone?
gentrify them back out of town
by el capitan
Thursday, Jun. 07, 2007 at 10:04 PM
Are the perps afraid that they will have to get jobs if the cost of living in this city finally hits the same level as a decent standard of living? which depressed city will they squat at that point? the real people that are ruining garfield will be taking bets at the underground gambling parlor a block down penn from the quiet storm.
Co-op
by Evan W.
Friday, Jun. 08, 2007 at 11:19 PM
The Co-op never agreed to card-check. Let's do some research here.
It's funny
by a pox on your loft
Saturday, Jun. 09, 2007 at 9:19 AM
It's strange that the sheep who bleat the loudest about a few windows are also all too willing to continue to lie about the co-op management's behavior towards the organizing campaign.
Based on the continued spin and distortion being put forth by alleged co-op members, who constitute their "community", maybe the management was simply carrying out the will of the members.
North American exceptionalism is an important component of the liberal mindset, and giving a few coppers to a fair trade coffee farm absolves them of any further responsibility with regards to capitalist exploitation.
Re: It's funny
by Doug
Sunday, Jun. 10, 2007 at 10:14 AM
I think what the co-op did to crush the unionizing movement was shameful.
Co-op
by Evan W
Sunday, Jun. 10, 2007 at 11:14 AM
Of course, the Board of Directors could amend their sacred "policy governance" to allow for voluntary recognition upon a majority showing of interest, which would be easier than arguing for 6 months about the wording of their ends statement and what the meaning of "is" is, but that would probably be asking too much from a group of people who try to figure out what members want with a mandate of less than 3% of the "membership" of the co-op.
Doug
by a pox on your loft
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 6:50 AM
Hopefully that gives a little perspective. I'm not arguing that the broken windows improved conditions for workers at the co-op, but other than time spent sweeping up glass, it didn't make their lives any worse.
The effects of window-busting are temporary, but the effects of union busting keep on giving.
Even though there was no mention of the co-op's apparent contempt for the rights of their workers (some anonymous coffee farmer is important, though) I would have a little more (it's still just some broken glass) sympathy if the co-op didn't behave like Wal-Mart in Birkenstocks when it comes to the workers.
SMASH $
by HULK
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 7:34 AM
POG SMASHES $
by POG_PIG • Saturday, Jun. 02, 2007 at 7:07 PM
POG Hits local fair trade coffee shop - Capitalism is over
The Pittsburgh Organizing Group, fed up with the imperialist policies of the United States Government and the corruption within corporate politics, takes out their aggression on a localy owned fair trade coffee shop / vegetarian restaurant. Rumors were spreading around town that the G8 has been meeting secretly in Pittsburgh and posing as dirty hippies. These so-called dirty hippies were really the masters of the corporate world, dictating what will happen in the world for generations to come.
The broken windows and anarchy spray paint put a monkey wrench in the capitalist system, shutting down the local business for a few hours and shutting down the G8 for at least a year. The expenses incurred from the damage will not be covered by the business' insurance company because it was damage from a "war," as POG has declared on everything that has anything to do with money. The business' insurance policy does not cover war caused damages.
The faux dirty hippies have cut hair, shaved their beards and returned to their lives - now that they are free to sit in the sun, drink margaritas, and listen to the Beach Boys.
Now that capitalism has been overthrown, the world is a much better place and POG will have nothing to whine about.
add your comments
Go back to Lawrenceville
by ...or better yet, home to the 'burbs Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 7:47 AM
Is this a joke?
If this really happened, it sounds way more fun than anything POG would be involved in.
Fair-trade and vegetarian? Capitalism looks mighty fine in that hair-shirt.
If any vandalism did in fact occur, who needs insurance money? All you need to do is sell a few cups of burnt coffee and some bland, slimy food, at those hipster prices, and that should more than cover it.
Maybe it was a local resident who found out that they pay more rent on their one bedroom apartment than this business did?
Maybe the owners broke their own stuff for weed money?
add your comments
oh, anarchies
by wakka wakka wakka Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 8:29 AM
oh, anarchies. will you ever learn to not act so fucking stupid?
add your comments
CAPITALISM 101
by el dude Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 9:04 AM
Since you ignorant ass anarchies are so against capitalism and so busy complaining and crying about everything possible, you weren't able to sit down and analyze the cost of things. We live in a world where things cost money. If you don't like that, then go live in the woods or on Fantasy Island. Cuba has 3 currencies, so don't go there.
COST OF RUNNING A BUSINESS 101:
If you break down the cost of a 6 dollar sandwich, you'll have to consider the following expenses:
-food materials - all ingredients
-rent (even if subsidized like you claim, it still costs something)
-utilities
-business insurance
-time / labor (sure, your time isn't worth money, but to people that get up and go to work, it is)
-taxes - something that you probably know very little about except when you want to complain about pot holes giving your dumpstered bike a flat tire.
If you take all of those expenses and subtract them from a six dollar sandwich, the profit margin is very thin.
You have taken idiocy to another level and as wrong as it is, I'm glad that the FBI has been watching you all.
add your comments
It's a hard knock life
by la bamba Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 9:24 AM
It's funny, because the only whining I hear aside from the typical liberal bleating is about the difficulties involved in being the captain of a gentrification flagship.
Not to mention the typical awe and reverence for law enforcement that is so typical of the pampered.
add your comments
um
by mu Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 9:53 AM
So if the quiet storm is the flagship, the co-op is what - the command base?
add your comments
mu
by um Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 11:29 AM
No, the "co-op" is just another union-busting, greenwashed grocery store where liberals can buy overpriced allegedly "fair-trade/organic" indulgences to absolve themselves of their sins, and Point Breeze was already bougie. Maybe it was really a co-op at one time, I don't know enough about its history.
add your comments
More Victims
by Rick S. Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 11:53 AM
The irony (and you hipsters love that) is that the Quiet Storm is just a placeholder until we can convince Starbuck's to move in. The hobby of owning an art gallery on Penn Ave. will get real expensive then.
add your comments
Moderate, Matt
by Moderate, Matt Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Matt, maybe you should take down this libelous article, instead of whining about anarchies, unless you're the author?
add your comments
since we'll all be in grad school together in 5 years...
by t Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 2:48 PM
...can't we all just get along?
add your comments
grad school?
by ex-anarchy Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 3:47 PM
Hey anarchies, take my advice and skip grad school after you are done with your smashing the system phase. You'll be in less debt (to the man) if you just jump right into the system instead of tippy toeing your way into it.
add your comments
???
by ??? Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 4:53 PM
Did POG leave a signature or something that identifies them as the responsible for this? Something like the mark of the Zorro but for POG.
Or is it just that people want to create buzz?
It's lovely to see how some random person likes to blame things on others for no apparent reason.
add your comments
"liberal" businesses
by pepe le pew research center Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 5:49 PM
I hear the coop is engaged in its own brand of gentrification. there goes the neighborhood. the quiet storm got rid of a lot of those "annoying black kids" [sic] when they dumped their computer. then it just went bougie city from there.
add your comments
please remove article
by - Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 10:21 PM
please remove article. it's libelous and completely untrue.
add your comments
i love you guys
by rapier Sunday, Jun. 03, 2007 at 11:37 PM
Oh you kids with your misplaced anger against the system uselessly lashing out against people you think aren't hardcore enough. Its funny. You anarchy kids are just so damn cute with your little slogans and cans of spraypaint.
Also, the only people that would think the co-op are gentirifiers are addled headed dimwits who don't understand that they've been there longer than they've been alive. Which makes it even funnier really.
add your comments
re: removing article
by ~ Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 7:44 AM
I'm fairly sure that that article would be considered satire. Also, it's sort of funny that people who defend throwing rocks through windows are concerned with libel laws. Way to stick it to the man!!!
add your comments
get your shit together
by come the ·$%3 on Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 9:27 AM
This is just plain pathetic. Whoever posted this lame article is just sad, and obviously hates POG. Stop bashing on them only because they are only out there radical group you know of. Even if we all don't agree with their tactics, they know better than smashing the quite storm. This is just ridiculous...
And stop bashing radicals and anarchists, come on. There are many of us out there, and we all have different views and tactics and people need to stop bashing on anarchists like we are all a bunch of young angry punks. And even if we were angry punks, people have the right to be mad....although the QS has to be a poor target for directing your anger.
add your comments
Longer Than Most
by dendrio Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 10:56 AM
First of all, the original article is clearly a satire mocking the ideological pretentions of so-called anarchists who seem to think that anarchy is synonymous with wanton destruction. It's so obvious that it shouldn't even have to be said.
The East End Food Co-Op has been there for 30 years, well before the East End was being gentrified - whatever that means. However the perpetrators rationalize their vandalism, the fact is they did nothing to "smash the state" or "smash capitalism" or "take it to the man."
All they did was fuck-up the one non-corporate owned grocery store in the entire city of Pittsburgh - and, might I add, the ONLY grocery store that serves the East End and Homewood.
However sad the vandalism at the Co-Op is, sadder still are the muddle-headed comments rationalizing the vandalism. We live in a city with some serious problems with poverty, illiteracy/miseducation, drugs, lack of jobs, police brutality, street crime, and a whole host of other real problems that affect the materials lives of residents every day.
A community-owned grocery store is not one of those problems. In fact, it's one of many small solutions that make lcity living livable.
Finally, someone alluded to the fact that Co-Op management are union busters.
First of all, I doubt most self-described anarchists know what union busting looks like. It usually involves broken bones and busted heads, even in this country. One SEIU sit-in in Dallas last year was broken up by a mounted police charge, i.e. police, mounted on horseback, charged into a mass of peaceful protesters, sending dozens to the hospital. THAT's union busting. In Altoona, PA, SEIU again (the most active and activist union in the country today) is organizing health care workers. The workers and the organizers are followed home at night, they receive threatening phone calls and anonymous notes. Organizers and workers have to meet at odd hours in odd places because if a worker is seen with someone from the SEIU, that worker gets fired. An outside "union consulting firm" has been hired to "educate" workers about the "problems" unions "cause" in the workplace. THAT'S UNION BUSTING. That's not what happened at the Co-op.
What happened at the Co-Op were three incompetant and inept union drives - the last one being a card-check drive, that is, all they had to do was get 50% + 1 staffers to sign union cards. The organizers could not even do that. They couldn't even persuade the people they work cheek-to-jowl with every day that joining the union was in their own interest. The one "dirty trick" came from an aging, bubble-headed hippie who tried to start a rival union out of whole cloth. Pathetic.
add your comments
Leave The Internet
by Alex James Hidell Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 2:12 PM
alex.james.hidell@gmail.com
The POG has declared war on everything having to do with money? Great! Then please stop using this Website, as it costs money to maintain it.
add your comments
satire
by david Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 3:15 PM
david@indypgh.org
this is a difficult call - diminutive satire may not sufficient justification for hiding an article. PGH IMC's editorial policies, however, allows posts to be hidden if they "contain information that is not true and could cause confusion about an event in the future."
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/process/openpub.php
add your comments
Still lying?
by It's still not true Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 4:54 PM
So, if it's not good TV or grad student organizers who have never worked a blue collar day in their lives, encourage working people to get the shit kicked out of them so that Stern and his band of thieves get a cut of their wages and the workers themselves get minor concessions?
You forgot a few wrinkles in the so-called "co-op's" activities that were in no way union busting. The "old hippie" who pretended to start his own union was (and maybe is again) long-time co-op management. The co-op also brought in a consultant with union busting experience, and the manager who pretended to start a union rented an apartment to the consultant. Not to mention the suspicious anti-semitic/anti-union graffiti in employee areas.
add your comments
ha
by Poo Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 5:55 PM
Having the word "organizing" in an anarchist group is amusing.
add your comments
it was probably someone trying to frame anarchists
by me Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 6:50 PM
...it's not hard to imagine that anarchists would have hit whole foods before anything else.
i smell a setup and an easy way to get organized people fighting amongst themselves and breeding distrust.
add your comments
it was probably someone trying to frame anarchists
by me Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 6:54 PM
...it's not hard to imagine that anarchists would have hit whole foods before anything else.
i smell a setup and an easy way to get organized people fighting amongst themselves and breeding distrust.
add your comments
SEIU
by nursing lies Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 9:44 PM
Is SEIU so feared it has to snuggle-up with Wal-Mart and Kaiser Hospital? I didn't see anyone club the SEIU janitors who were fired downtown over the head with a blackjack, but wasn't it an attempt at union-busting nonetheless? And the co-op workers did get over 50% of the union cards signed which was stated in a press release about a card check conducted at the Thomas Merton Center.
Where's John Lacny?
add your comments
Thoughts
by Sam Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 10:48 PM
It's true that the Co-Op and the Quiet Storm -- and "socially responsible" businesses in general -- are ultimately no more defensible than capitalist enterprise in general. Attacks on these establishments, though, are extremely problematic from the standpoint of tactics.
To begin with, whatever the attackers' intent was is not at all clear, which itself reveals the action's ineffectiveness. There are three possibilities: to propagandize against the G8, to wage "direct warfare" against capital, or to inspire others.
Being in no way directly connected to the G8, these were obvious poor targets if the goal was propaganda. And just spray-painting "G8" doesn't help: it makes everyone else who (rightly!) opposes the G8 look like an idiot or a criminal, inhibiting movement-building. Moreover, it detracts attention *away* from the message and *toward* the act of vandalism itself.
The costs to capital of these sorts of individual attacks are negligible. They also reflect and reinforce a *misunderstanding* of capitalism as a.) rooted in the process of consumption rather than production (that is, exploitation of workers) and b.) necessarily producing only things that are socially destructive. (An approach that avoided this misunderstanding would rather be focused on attacking profits by organizing workers to secure their right to the value they produce, and to democratically control their own workplaces.)
And these attacks could never inspire anyone. Historically, Anarchists practiced "propaganda by the deed" -- acts of terror meant to inspire radical action. These days, most disavow the term due to its association with bombings and assassinations, but unfortunately, many still adhere to the general idea, if now preferring the destruction of windows to that of human beings.
The fact of the matter is that revolution is not upon us, and vast majority of workers currently have no sympathy for such actions. These are people who understandably too worried about how to pay the bills to care much about someone attacking a vegetarian restaurant, or who put American flags on their car. It's not pretty, but it's what we have to work with here and now.
Whatever their intentions, it's clear that whoever carried out these actions is completely out of touch with the mass of people who bear the brunt of exploitation and oppression, and that this has led them to think they *know better* than these people, leading them to adopt tactics more elitist in content than the worst "Leninist" sect. I would venture to guess that the workers who had to clean up these messes feel the same way.
add your comments
Also...
by Sam Monday, Jun. 04, 2007 at 10:54 PM
Before anyone says it: no, I don't think whoever did it should go to jail. And no, I don't think that property destruction is absolutely wrong at all times and in all places. (However, I can't think of anywhere it would be appropriate as a tactic *here* and *now*.)
Another thing: yeah, SEIU sucks, and needs to be challenged. Non-union labor sucks more, and needs to be challenged more.
add your comments
I want flicks!
by Jules Bonot Tuesday, Jun. 05, 2007 at 11:03 AM
It's great that your trust-fund sanctuaries got fucked up. Emile Henry in the place to be. All cats need right now are some flicks. I know someone has them. Post them shits! Great action yall! Who ever did this, keep up the good work!!!
add your comments
Have You Forgotten?
by Daryl W. Tuesday, Jun. 05, 2007 at 12:43 PM
I hear people saying that moneymaking's wrong
I say that Garfield is where my gallery belongs
What about our soy milk and this work of art?
Don't you try to tell me, that's how gentrification starts
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend
CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your hangout vandalized
And being told to go away?
Have you forgotten when those windows broke?
We had to wait for tofu scramble
And no Bali Shag to smoke
How much money could vegan brunch have brought in?
Have you forgotten?
I couldn't understand the messages they sprayed
But all our stuff is perfect, organic and fair trade
I support Peduto and whine about Bush every day
I have bumper stickers, that I prominently display
Ironic Pabst hangover; my brain is a fog
They said that they were anarchists, so I guess we'll just blame POG
CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your hangout vandalized
And being told to go away?
Have you forgotten when those windows broke?
We had to wait for tofu scramble
And no Bali Shag to smoke
Developers aren't what our clique has brought in
Have you forgotten?
How dare they say they co-op board's
No better than the police?
They'll pay to bust a union
But they sell nutritional yeast
CHORUS 2
Have you forgotten that we worship glass
Because we're liberals, like the right-wing worships flags?
Have you forgotten that the things we buy
Are the things that make us human
It's how we identify
How much money could vegan brunch have brought in?
Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?
add your comments
shopping
by consumption junction Wednesday, Jun. 06, 2007 at 12:11 AM
looks like i'm going to have to shop at the co-op and eat at the quiet storm twice as much over the next few months. everybody else should do the same.
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Consumption Junction
by Gee Dubya Wednesday, Jun. 06, 2007 at 6:08 AM
That's the same advice I gave folks after the real 9/11, not that the pgh hipster 9/11 isn't tragic, too. You can see how much good it did the US. I'm sure if you spend twice as much money to buy your friends, I mean at your friend's businesses, that'll do the trick.
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hipster 9/11
by oh my Saturday, Jun. 09, 2007 at 6:53 PM
hipster 9/11 ... too cruel!
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Correction
by dendrio
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 9:44 AM
Evan informed me that the last drive was NOT a card-check drive, as I had stated above. After doing some additional research (which I ought to have done before), I found that he was right. I apologize for the misstatement, or rather, over-statement.
Still, my point remains - whatever softball techniques the EEFC managers used to derail the drive, the IWW organizers in no way faced the kind of harrassment and threats that health care workers in this country routinely have to deal with in their attempts to organize. And, oddly enough, there drives are succeeding! Just last Thursday, nurses in the Altoona Regional Health System voted to join the SEIU (http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=12173).
(Of course, based on the comments in this thread, it seems the SEIU isn't ideologically pure enough, so whatever concrete, real-world material gains the nurses make through union in the SEIU doesn't count. Except to the nurses themselves.)(Oh yeah, and Andy Stern has the temerity to sit down with the heads of capital to find common ground on single-payer healthcare. Shame on him!)
And all of this quibbling about unions and whatnot is beside the main topic of this thread, which is the vandalism at Quiet Storm and the EEFC. As far as strategies and tactics likely to bring about the demise of capitalism - which it seems the vandals advocate - smashing windows and painting walls are at the bottom of the list.
If anarchists, anti-capitalists, and radical unionists (like the IWW) want to win people to their cause(s), they're going to have to help folks make concrete, materials gains in their lives. Demonstrations and "direct actions" may make you feel good, but that's not necessarily the same thing as doing good. In this tooth-and-claw world, progress trumps polemic.
Don't Whitewash SEIU
by Sam
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 10:36 AM
http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/1122
"SEIU deserves credit for 'pushing organizing'... But...this new member recruitment hasn't led to any low-income worker take-over of the labor movement—or even SEIU itself..."
Denny
by a pox on your loft
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 12:41 PM
As far as real-world, concrete, material gains that were brought about by anarchists, anti-capitalists, and radical unionists, remember the weekend? Even the folks at West Point will admit that anarchists also brought about an end to divine right monarchy in Olde Europe.
I doubt will we ever find any common ground in regards to the sanctity of private property.
I would also never dismiss any improvement in living and working conditions that the SEIU bosses and lawyers negotiate on behalf of the workers with the hospital bosses and lawyers. Why stop there? But you're right, I'm selfish, and I want more for everyone, myself included, and one thing the business unions have been very good at is in drawing lines and discouraging the rank-and-file from crossing them, as sure as management and the police do. Undemocratic and unaccountable come to mind, too. The miracle of the grad students who organize nurses is impressive in it's own way. The business unions are also very good at giving dues money to the Democrats, those lovable free-trading, terror-fighting, PATRIOT-Acting,border-securing little scamps. It is sincerely better than nothing, though, and the SEIU definitely has a more pragmatic view of the realities of the wily beast of consumer capitalism than the rest of the mainstream labor movement, and in some ways large segments of more radical currents. I'm not looking to take away from the successes of the SEIU and the other business unions, but history doesn't occur in a vacuum, and the radical spirit of early organized labor, and the threat it presented to the ruling classes is the only reason they bother to negotiate with Stern and his ilk.
If there's any single-payer healthcare in the US, it will be because it's what Wall Street wants, not because of anything Andy Stern does.
Andy Stern and the full-time bureaucrats in no way faced the kind of harassment and threats that health care workers in this country routinely have to deal with in their attempts to organize. Nor are health care workers routinely shot at for organizing as they have been in the US in the past and still are in. I'm not sure where you going with that. Would you have been more sympathetic to the IWW had EEFC management kidnapped their pets? How much misery is necessary for you to consider it problematic.
hey a pox on your loft
by works hard for her money
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 8:05 PM
get a job, you bum
!
by Evan W.
Monday, Jun. 11, 2007 at 9:48 PM
Everybody's a critic.
Exiles
by Luigi
Tuesday, Jun. 12, 2007 at 6:56 AM
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07163/793342-53.stm
C'mon, it wasn't POG. It was the Galleanists. Seriously, the accusation of "threats" by Pedudo makes him seem like a "tough guy" after he ducked the Mayoral race.
Exiles (part 2.)
by Mario (Buda)
Tuesday, Jun. 12, 2007 at 7:13 AM
The Galleanistis should issue a statement, then.
hooligans...
by pjd
Tuesday, Jun. 12, 2007 at 10:39 PM
With regard to the co-op or Quiet storm, I guess the responsible anarchists were just too chicken to attack the biggest symbols of gentrification in the east-end - Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and Borders Books (talk about union busting - all three).
What wrong? were they too afraid of the big bad corporations, so they picked on little businesses and an albeit far-from perfect food co-op?
Unlike POG, who take fighting the machine seriously and effectively, these vandalism-cum-protest actions cannot be taken seriously - they were just a vain anarcho-fashion statements by white-bread-suburbia-raised "hooligans" in the classic sense of the word.
Yeah, I know, Stalin called some people hooligans too...
wanna cracker?
by peter and mary
Wednesday, Jun. 13, 2007 at 10:40 AM
I know, and had they broken Borders' windows,"those chickens should have bricked the Zone 5 Police Station, because Borders sells the Nation and Utne Reader".
What's with the macho name calling stuff anyway? You should have just said that "they throw too much like girls to break Trader Joe's windows".
There's always going to be a better window to break, but capitalism is capitalism, whether it's greenwashed or your overpriced coffee purchase makes you part of a "community".
Do you really think there would be a Whole Foods, Borders, or Trader Joe's in the East end, without the subsidized colonization by the creative class? The establishment and preservation of coffee shops is a textbook means for attracting the avant garde and the camp following developers.
Of course POG is to be commended for many reasons, not the least of which is their refusal to play cop with the politicians and their amen corners.
To me, the worst consequence of these actions was the problems that were created for POG.
Peduto Could Still Run
by Sam
Wednesday, Jun. 13, 2007 at 4:14 PM
He's said he might still run as an independent, which is probably why he's taking this stance.
Damn straight
by Dr. Anarchist
Wednesday, Jun. 13, 2007 at 5:43 PM
That's exactly why he's doing this. He wanted to snuggle up to business and the more moderate to conservative law and order types. And now that the news around this is dying down he wants to make good with progressives. Asshole is playing politics with people's reputations and lives.
Missed Connection
by For Billy
Wednesday, Jun. 13, 2007 at 9:48 PM
http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/mis/350690883.html
Peduto
by Evan W.
Wednesday, Jun. 13, 2007 at 10:43 PM
With all of Peduto's talk about threats from POG (none of which have been substantiated in anything I've read or heard), did he not come off as threatening himself in the CP article when he referenced the Thomas Merton Center?
DOT
by Pittsburgher
Tuesday, Jun. 19, 2007 at 12:14 PM
I just heard about this from the CP article. To those who did this while drowning under the weight of their ideologies: Whatever happened to diversity of tactics? In the struggle against imperialist wars and imperialism itself, institutions like the co-op have an very important role to play. Have you forgotten that the co-op sells fair trade coffee and is well stocked with local organic meats (actually, not so well stocked with meat unfortunately) and produce? In undermining the global institutions which rape the earth, we must become more local in our energies. Imperialism grows out of an unwillingness to accept immediate realities and what the local environment provides. Pittsburgh will have an imperialist economy until it can feed and otherwise sustain itself with local efforts. But we need places to distribute local foods.
Have you forgotten that six billion better worlds are possible? A world free of "buying and selling" is not the only one, nor is it the only strategy. I refuse to condemn those who choose to shift the struggle into the realm of physical reality. However, as has been pointed out already, there are plenty of businesses and institutions which are happy to destroy the earth and exploit people and very few which, like to co-op, make very real efforts to move away from that model.
In the future please pull you head out of the ass crack of cowboy style unilateralism and heavy handed ideology. You'll breathe easier and won't push away those who could be your colleagues in resisting the global monster. (In fairness, from time to time the same thing could be said to window-loving progressives.)
Hipster 9/11??????
by FBI Fry Guy
Sunday, Jun. 24, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Hipster 9/11?
Wouldn't that make you a terrorist then?
Alternatives?
by PJD
Monday, Jun. 25, 2007 at 4:59 PM
If gentrification is undesirable, and I admit it has probelems, what alternatives are you proposing? Surely, no one here thinks the boarded-up, dilapidated, status quo of Penn Ave is acceptable. If not cafe's and artist's places, then what? If the cafe's and artists spaces tend to be exclusivist and even racist, they need to be reformed rather than driven out.
And don't the anarchists excercise their own snobbishnessness and exclusivity? I can guarantee you that as a conventionally dressed 51 year old - I would recieve a distinctly unfriendly reception if I walked into places like the Roboto Project or Free Ride.
Roboto
by xxsk8erkidxx
Monday, Jun. 25, 2007 at 9:59 PM
PJD, I guarantee, there are plenty of 20 and 30 somethings who walk into Roboto and get an unfriendly reception. However, Free Ride (at least when it was at Roboto) did community outreach and helped neighborhood kids get and fix their bikes, which is more than I can say for the community utility of some of the places that pass for culture on Penn Ave.
DOT
by "Co-op's role"
Friday, Jun. 29, 2007 at 3:26 AM
Giant Eagle workers ratify contract
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
By Teresa F. Lindeman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Giant Eagle, the region's dominant grocer, and a union representing 5,100 employees in the area announced this morning that workers had voted to accept a new three-year contract.
Retail clerks voted 702-149 while meat and deli department employees voted 211-112 during meetings held Sunday and yesterday. The members work at 36 area supermarkets operated by the O'Hara grocery chain.
"The agreement represents a strong partnership between Giant Eagle and the union to improve wages, benefits and productivity," said Daniel Shapira, Giant Eagle special counsel, at a press conference this morning at One Oxford Centre, Downtown.
Both Mr. Shapira and Ron Lenhart, president of Local 23 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, praised the deal, which took about a month to work out, for helping the grocer compete with nonunion retailers such as Wal-Mart.
The deal includes raises of $1.15 per hour spread out over three years for employees who've been with the company at least three years as well as additional premiums for key positions. Employees will not have to contribute to health care coverage. The company has agreed to increase pension contributions by up to 17 cents per hour.
The union has agreed to be flexible in allowing staff to be moved into different positions throughout the store and in allowing the company to set schedules.
www.postgazette.com/pg/07177/797238-100.stm
Two Questions
by PJD
Thursday, Jul. 05, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Two things.
The questions regarding alternatives to gentrificatons still need to be answered. With regard to the Quiet Storm, wouldn't any vision for Penn avenue include a non-chain coffee house? If the Quiet Storm is discriminating against Garfield residents, this needs to be addressed, but this was mentioned as the reason.
As far as the co-op, I would be more supportive if I saw a union organizing effort, but right now there is none.
Next...
by vison for penn avenue
Thursday, Jul. 05, 2007 at 1:35 PM
I think that the people who live in Garfield should be the ones who decide what is "the vision for Penn Avenue", not the gatekeepers, not the neo-colonial creative class or their bankrollers.
And as far as the self-described "co-op" is concerned, doesn't their union busting count for anything?I remember you being all worked up about Ollie North coming to town a few years ago, but it had been decades since he had committed any war crimes?
Penn Ave
by asdf
Friday, Jul. 06, 2007 at 8:23 AM
Why does Penn Ave belong to the people of Garfield and not the residents of Friendship? it borders both areas. It shouldn't act as a racial redline.
Penn ave
by fdsa
Friday, Jul. 06, 2007 at 4:39 PM
No street should act as a dividing line, but the reality is that Penn Ave is in that area.
Besides, Friendship is an imaginary tiny sliver, from a time when rich folks didn't want to admit to living in Garfield or Bloomfield.
Kinda like East Side or the North Shore.
what Garfield resident want...
by PJD
Monday, Jul. 09, 2007 at 12:32 PM
Fine, interview some Garfield residents.
I think you will find the residents on both sides of Penn Avenue overwhelmingly support businesses like the Quiet Storm over the bar it replaced, and also applauded the closing of the drug-dealer bar across the street.
And, don't you recoginze the basic freedom for a person (or better, a collective), to pursue whatever, economic activity they want as long as it isn't impacting other people or the environment? Is the existence of the Roboto Project dependent on a poll by Wilkinsburg residents?
And I repeat, if there is racial discrimination going on at the Quiet Storm, vigorous legal action should be pursued.
Also, by what authority does a white "anarchist" speak for black Garfield residents!
I was likewise disgusted by he co-ops union busting tactics - although we cannot prove that guy and his phoney alternative union wasn't acting on his own. Anyone who has evidence to the contrary needs to publish it here. Ultimately, the old union organizing effort was poorly organized - I was prepared to organze a membership-fee-witdrawl-boycott on the word of the organizers, but no such word ever came.
Why isn't there a new union orgainzing effort?
I'm trying to find a coherent political point behind the vandalism attacks, but can't find any beyond a puerile reading of a V is for Vendatta comic book or such.
Anti-capitalism is anti-capitalism
by puerile
Tuesday, Jul. 10, 2007 at 6:29 PM
All anarchists and all windowbreakers are white?
union effort
by co-opted
Thursday, Jul. 12, 2007 at 12:04 AM
"Ultimately, the old union organizing effort was poorly organized"
That's not too accurate. The workers decided they did not want to get members to divest. As much as I disagreed that harder tactics were not pursued:
1) to do otherwise would have gone against the majority of those involved in the organizing effort; and
2) it may have served to turn-off prospective union supporters on staff.
Bottom line, even with all the union-busting that went on, the part-time, mostly young workforce didn't want it bad enough. There are lots of campaigns which are well organized, but don't succeed. Their are lots of campaigns that could be organized better and some occasionally succeed.
witnesses
by bologna
Thursday, Jul. 12, 2007 at 1:14 AM
there were witnesses and video footage that proved WHITE MALES WEARING BLACK were smashing the windows.
sure, some anarchists are black and some black people break windows, but in this case, the morons that broke the windows were white. because so many female anarchists look like guys, the sex of the perps isn't as black and white.
it's all the same to me
by can I get a witness
Thursday, Jul. 12, 2007 at 8:32 AM
The witnesses were on Walnut Street.
As fas as roboto goes, I'd have much rather preferred them to get this kind of treatment.
WTF, bologna?
by anarcho-feminist
Saturday, Jul. 14, 2007 at 8:22 PM
"because so many female anarchists look like guys"
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Because it sounds like your saying that you need an anarcha-feminist in a dress to beat the fuck out of you.
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