While in Pittsburgh for the G-20, I have bee hearing about the US Social Forum. Being here for the G-20, I am convinced that meeting with other activists around the nation and around the world , face to face has value. As I type, I am at an event called the People's Tribunal. It is across the river from the down-town area where there is a heavy police presence. This meeting is one of the activist gatherings that did not get shut down by police. I came here to have meaningful interaction. I did not have a sense of what was getting accomplished in the streets of downtown Pittsburgh amidst the shouting and chanting. I invite Free Press readers to give their answer to that question. My guess is that taking better care of each other and of the planet requires a variety of tools, one of them being protest , civil disobedience and other forms of dissenting from the conventional wisdom. But also a valuable tool are get togethers outside the arena of street protests, per se--meetings such as this People's Tribunal.