SUPPORT VICTORIA AND PHIL

*The paypal donations are made out to the Big Idea Cooperative – the money will still be given to the anti-fascist arrestees. The Big Idea is a cooperatively-run radical bookstore in Pittsburgh, some of whose members are helping with the legal defense fund*

Let it be known that on the night of November 17th, tuition paying students at the University of Pittsburgh were forced out of the spaces that exist and are maintained solely for their use by brutal force wielded by policemen who are paid through the these students’ tuition.

Let it be known several of these policemen were not in uniform yet still brutalized and intimidated students with tear gas canisters, pistols, and batons, students who were literally just standing in the wrong place. Police snatched two people at random and slapped them with several felonies and misdemeanors. All funds from this campaign will go directly to the legal costs.

The Pittsburgh police endorsed Donald Trump; we all know why they were so prone to violence that night.

Whose interests are the police protecting?

The action on November 17th was initially planned by Pitt Against Debt to protest tuition hikes. After the election, it was decided that we can no longer pretend all of the issues that impact us are not connected. PAD, Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition, NightShade, Socialist Alternative, Pitt Students for a Democractic Society, the autonomous student network, the Fourth Wave, United Students Against Sweatshops local #31, the Pitt chapter of the International Socialist Organization, and several other groups came together to mobilize in explicit opposition to this system.

Youth today look toward a future deflated by ecological and economic collapse; a future where opportunity is postponed in light of the immediacy of debt, stagnating wages, and corporate oligarchy. A future where the promise of sustainability is found exclusively on billboards advertising “clean” coal, “green” skyscrapers, or hope, change, and vote; a future where even the most optimistic visions of climate change include mass migrations, displacements, and extinctions.

Youth today live in a reality of racist, misogynist, anti-queer, and colonial violence; a reality where our very identities become targets for both right-wing and state-sanctioned violence.

There is a fascist movement rising in the united states. Which side are you on?

We stand in unconditional solidarity with the two anti-fascists arrested that night. Only the State is guilty.