G-20 SUMMIT.

Yes I am aware that G-20 is over, but this is more of me talking about the aftermath and my personal experience of it than a general discussion about the politics of the Summit itself (although that is welcome and encouraged!)

This time around the G-20 was hosted in Pittsburgh, a major East Coast American city (for our non-American members), and I don't know how many of you know/care, but I was born, raised, and attend school in Pittsburgh, so it was very exciting for me to have the world's eyes on our city! However, like most citizens, we didn't get to see the POLITICS of G-20 with our own eyes. Instead, this is what we witnessed.



While many people groaned about the heavy security presence, I had no real opinion about the presence of the 3,000 (!) police officers from all over the country here acting as security for the event. Maybe the revolutionary inside me should have, but I just wanted to work and go to school in peace. However, we really couldn't do that either. I have never seen so many policeman walking the streets in my life. There were police EVERYWHERE, five man patrols walking down busy sidewalks, police cars and heavy tank like vehicles I've never seen before, and even police on horseback. It looked like the city was under military occupation. Okay so let's skip right to what this topic is really about



Yeah so everyone was expecting protests, but what ended up happening was pretty crazy. The biggest deal of the event happened in Oakland, which is an extremely busy part of the city where the University of Pittsburgh, a shitload of businesses and residences, and a lot of the university's affiliated locations such as biomedical research places, the hospitals, and other shit are located. It's also where I work/school and therefore spend like half my time. So what ended up happening was about 100 people, which most of those may or may not have been University of Pittsburgh students, started assembling on Forbes Ave for no real reason. Yes, SOME of those people were actual protesters, but sooner than later what probably started as another protest that no one would care about quickly turned into a mass of crazy anarchists and bored college students.

To give a quick summary (because everything happened in a blur), people start to swell up, the 'protest' turns into a random mass of dozens and dozens of people, the police 'arrive' (which isn't even really accurate, because there had to be a few hundred police offers in Oakland alone all day already), they tell the quickly growing mass of people to disperse, they predictably don't, and some start goading and taunting the police, and others start throwing bricks, setting fire on dumpsters, and breaking storefronts, and then the police start bearing down on the crowd with overwhelming force, which included and probably wasn't limited to; gas grenades, rubber bullets, old fashioned assbeatings, and a hell of a lot of arrests. Luckily I wasn't one of those arrested nor did I have my ass kicked, but I can tell you that tear gas kinda tastes like raspberries or something!

The aftermath of the event the next morning was really evident. A lot of storefronts (and Oakland is extremely busy with both college students, residents, and everyone else) were boarded up, some places were still pretty messy, and I regret to inform you guys that even though a lot of businesses admirably stayed open even though their windows were all busted and taped up, the local Oakland Gamestop was completely boarded up and was closed for a while. Luckily, they fixed the damage and is back open!

Like I said, I wanted to tell you all about the G-20 experience from my end since I think I'm the only guy from Pittsburgh here, so feel free to discuss it from whatever angle you want from here. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it myself!

Greetings From Pittsburgh!