Occupy Pittsburgh march, rally set for Saturday

The working mission statement of the Occupy Pittsburgh movement is predictable but crucial:… The working mission statement of the Occupy Pittsburgh movement is predictable but crucial: occupy.

Members of the Occupy Pittsburgh movement met Wednesday night for the movement’s third General Assembly meeting in the First Unitarian Church in Shadyside to finalize plans for Saturday’s kick-off protest and to agree on an overall goal. In a meeting that was considerably more fast-paced than Sunday’s General Assembly discussion at Schenley Plaza, the group hastily pushed forward working proposals and “living documents,” or statements that can later be built upon and revised, in an effort to make the meeting more efficient.

Nathanial Glosser, part of the media relations working committee, said that the short-term goal of the group is to “start the occupation.”

“We’re building a movement here,” Glosser said. “As time goes by, we’re going to look at solutions to the problems we’re identifying.”

During the three-hour meeting, the group’s primary action item was deciding on a location for the Pittsburgh occupancy camp. The body reached a consensus to plan the occupation for Mellon Green Downtown, although the group isn’t sure whether it will be legally permitted to camp at the location for an extended period of time. For those unwilling to risk arrest, an alternate occupation will take place at the Monumental Baptist Church in the Hill District.

The group submitted a permit request to the city for the demonstration Saturday, proposing that the march and rally begin at Freedom Corner at the intersection of Centre Avenue and Crawford Street and conclude at Market Square in Downtown. The march will begin at 11 a.m. and conclude at 1:30 p.m., at which point the protesters will stage a rally. The city has not approved the permit yet, but it is required to make a decision within three days.

The general sentiment coming from the group was that it was confident the city would approve the permit in time for Saturday’s march and rally.

Jibran Mushtaq, who is part of the location working committee, said the city asked the group to revise the permit. Previously, the group planned to rally at Point State Park, but the city asked them to stop the march at Market Square because of conflicting events at the park.

About 250 people attended the third General Assembly meeting, and the group hoped that at least 400 would turn out for Saturday’s march — a number that would reflect the turn-out for the group’s first meeting, which took place last Wednesday.

The protesters have plans to stop at certain locations along the march to hold rallies. Current locations include Bank of New York Mellon; Citizens Bank; the U.S. Steel Tower, which holds corporate offices for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; the former Federal Reserve Building; Liberty Center and One PNC Plaza.

The group decided last night that it will operate under the same goals of Occupy Wall Street, which aims to stop the injustices resultant from “corporate forces,” according to the demands published on its website, nycga.cc.

“Corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments,” Occupy Pittsburgh’s mission statement states.

The complaints in the mission statement include inequality and discrimination in the workplace, corporate bailouts, student debt and colonialism at home and abroad.

Several participants expressed concern over the current demands’ focus on pointing out system faults rather than suggesting a plan of action for rectifying the injustices.

One attendee, John, a 1985 civil engineering Pitt graduate who declined to give his last name, asked the body what he would tell his daughter when she asked what he was fighting for.

“This says what we’re against,” he said, referring to the New York General Assembly’s demands. “I want to say what we’re for.”

Occupy Pittsburgh is an extension of the demonstration involving thousands of protesters in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, who say that they are tired of the corporate greed coming from the economic top one percent of the American population.