National Rifle Association "Hunt the Rich" Orange Bloc
Pittsburgh, April 17, 2004

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 what 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 liberal "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 middle class and 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@mutualaid.org

Link: pittsburgh.indymedia

The general convergence website for the NRA events is www.goodbyenra.org