April 17 Dick Cheney/NRA Convention Call to Action

April 17 Dick Cheney/NRA Convention Call to Action
'Hunt the Rich'-Orange Bloc!
Note: Although this is a completely real call, for those who don’t grasp
it, much of the rhetoric is obvious satire. This is a non-violent action.

From April 16-18th, The National Rifle Association will hold their annual
meetings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dick Cheney is scheduled as their
keynote speaker. As the billboards they’ve plastered Pittsburgh with so
aptly say, “4 acres of guns and gear”. In response, hundreds of people
from our region will be gathering to protest what the NRA stands for.

Do you reject the patriarchy, homophobia, jingoism, and white supremacy of
the National Rifle Association, that fat cat lobbying organization which
raises funds under the guise of protecting so-called “gun rights” but
exists solely to protect and further the rights and interests of corporate
gun manufacturers and the pro-corporate right wing?

And do you also reject the moral rubric of the reformists which takes a
“guns are bad” approach without ever addressing the underlying systemic
causes of violence in our corporate capitalistic system. Are you looking
for a radical alternative? Then leave your black clothes at home and strap
on your safety-orange to join the “Hunt the Rich Bloc” on Saturday, April
17 at 8PM, at 10th Street & Penn Avenue adjacent to the David L. Lawrence
Convention Center. Note- if you don’t have orange wear whatever you
normally would.

The Hunt the Rich Bloc is an attempt to create a space where radicals are
free to voice their opposition to the NRA Convention in Pittsburgh, in a
venue where the dialogue regarding violence will not be monopolized by
simplistic “guns-are-bad, unless you’re talking about the US military
using them to kill tens of thousands of people around the world, or the
police using them against predominantly black men in lower-income
neighborhoods” chants and slogans.

Given the State’s self-appointed role as the greatest and exclusive
perpetrator of violence, one cannot claim to be an adherent of
non-violence or a pacifist, while believing in the legitimacy of the
State. As in electoral politics, the liberal elite share the same agenda
as the gun lobby, but use different terms to describe their desire to
further disempower and exploit working class and declassed peoples. The
desire to play “white savior” is motivated less by charity and goodwill
than by the desire to protect their privilege and the prevailing social
order from the same “urban drug gangs,” “porous borders,” “home
invasions,” “terrorists,” and many of the other media boogeymen that the
NRA are fond of invoking to solicit money from their membership and votes
from their pet politicians.

And so, come on out in your seasonal gear and help make the streets a
safer place. If the rich are free to roam around the shopping corridors
and graze in the grassy hillsides of urban sprawl, they’re bound to eat
all the rose bushes, overpopulate, and become diseased. It’s up to us to
make sure it doesn’t happen. Trust us, it’s for their own good. Come on
out to our big bright orange bloc on A17 and voice your dissent to the
NRA.

POG NRA working group
pog [at] mutualaid.org
Link: http://www.pittsburgh.indymedia.org/
The general convergence website for the NRA events is http://www.goodbyenra.org