Pittsburgh says no to U.S, wars in July 4 parade

Pittsburgh, PA – On Saturday July 4, anti-war activists disrupted the Brentwood, Pennsylvania Independence Day parade. While the parade messaging called the U.S. “the land of the free,” protesters rejected this notion, bringing attention to the many ongoing crimes of Donald Trump and the U.S. government.

The protest was organized by the International Solidarity Committee of Pittsburgh (ISCPIT), with the support of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). Protesters held a banner reading, “No more endless war!” and signs with slogans including “U.S. out of everywhere!” and “No ICE! Stop the deportations!”

“They’re calling this ‘250 years of freedom’ and we are here to say that there is no freedom in genocide!” said FRSO organizer Marigold Cameron. “There is no freedom in endless war, in deportations, in police crimes. For 250 years, and longer, the people of this land have been struggling to achieve really the freedom that they claim to have given us 250 years ago. Right now, Donald Trump and his billionaire friends have been wreaking havoc across this country, leading a campaign of terror against the people who actually built this country. We want to fight Trump’s agenda and make the U.S. ungovernable.”

Over the course of two hours, only two people tried to speak out against the protest, whilst nearly a dozen attendees as well as some parade participants stopped to offer the group encouragement.

ISCPIT chair Dot Bodwell stated, “While you’re waving your flag and celebrating here, we’re still at war in Iran and Lebanon; we’re still throwing billions of dollars to the wholesale slaughter of children and families; we still have ICE officers arresting people in their homes and their workplaces: and we don’t think that’s something to celebrate.”

ISCPIT is currently in the process of launching a new campaign against Palantir, a major defense company that processes data for the U.S. military as well as ICE, helping billionaires and their armed forces spy on the working-class from Palestine to Minneapolis. As Pittsburgh’s capitalist class tries to establish the city as a hub for tech investors, ISCPIT wants to draw a clear line to keep Palantir and their bloody business out.

The biggest foothold Palantir currently has in the city is on Carnegie Mellon University’s campus, where the capitalist administration regularly invites recruiters to court graduates of the U.S.’s number one machine-learning programs for genocide.

#PittsburghPA #PA #AntiWarMovement #Palantir #Iran #July4th