Forum Post: Huge west coast action -- total port shut-down 12/12/11
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 26, 2011, 2:08 a.m. EST by Hobohemian
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This content is user submitted and not an official statement
What are your thoughts about this action, OWS? If you support, please send all material, physical, spiritual support. The action is on 12/12/11. We are trying to shut down all major West Coast U.S. ports on this date in protest of the incursion of non-union EGT ports on Portland (EGT is apparently a part of Goldman Sachs, in some twisted arrangement designed to confuse and distract people in general). This will cause U.S. workers to lose union jobs.
I personally feel that union influence on elections is a good counter-balance to corporate influence, but ultimately just as bad. I've heard that the ACLU filed a brief in favor of Citizens United. Connect the dots yourself. But no matter what my feelings are about unions, I'm not in favor of union busting. And that is what EGT is doing in Portland right now.
The march earlier this month was incredible and beautiful; please look at the footage on youtube instead of the corporate media coverage if you doubt it at all. I stand with the ILWU, but to me the reason I'm marching is to gather all the tribes of the 99% that we have here on the West Coast and to say something that is focused at Goldman Sachs.
I am not sure what resistance we will meet. I think it will depend on how much of a cross-section of society we can gather to peacefully protest union-busting and the larger purpose of the Occupy movement. Last time we were safe because we had a lot of people with us; are the people still with us, or are they listening to all the lies out there?
We need all the help and support we can get from the East Coast in the next few weeks. We are on the beginning of a tough road. Talk to me, but also talk to the various action committees in Occupy Oakland, Occupy Long Beach, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy San Diego (? this is the only one I don't know much about), Occupy Seattle, and especially Occupy Portland.
This official call to action is what caused my local occupy to shut itself down, so as not to be associated with a violent action like this. A forcible take over/invasion that results in a blockading of the ports on this scale is a forceful take over, even if it is just by force of numbers, and is not a peaceful action. It may not be calling for bloodshed, but it is calling for a provocative and violent action that is not protected under the Constitution by any stretch of the imagination. Oakland should not let unions lead them down this road to violence, and should take their cue from the truly peaceful (non disruptive non blockading/non invading) camps elsewhere in the country. Toronto has been a model of peaceful even during their eviction this week and could give Oakland major advice. Use as another cue, Westboro Baptist Church, who are well-schooled in freedom of speech under the Constitution and whose lawyers work with it constantly and they do not block anything while still receiving huge news coverage.
Boycotts, strikes, and other such actions are non-violent. Calling such actions violent is nothing more than troll propaganda.
I respect your perspective, but I was at the port takeover on 11/2 and it was a completely peaceful action. If you define blocking the way as being inherently an act of violence, then you would have to also claim that the students at UC Davis last week were being violent. Blocking access to certain spots (usually in a symbolic way -- the people/police could easily have used a different sidewalk or walked around the lawn to avoid the UC Davis blockade) is part of what we have been doing all along. We have closed many banks here in Oakland through this type of activism. I'm not ready to disavow it, as long as it is peaceful, and I'm sure a lot of other Occupy groups would not want to disavow this type of action, but at the same time you're right that we can move towards actions in general that don't disrupt people from the 99% doing their jobs.
The thing is, the company that is trying to break up the ILWU in Portland is partly owned by Goldman Sachs. When you find out more about what is going on in Portland, you realize it is part of the struggle. I don't want the movement to be characterized by what is good for unions, but I'm also against union busting and I think without unions the 99% are much more vulnerable. It has been a big part of the agenda for the Right wing for a long time, to make regular Americans more vulnerable by attacking unionization. It is a big part of the success of Wal-Mart.
And my experience with the port takeover in Oakland was quite the opposite of how you might think of it, I mean we didn't just block the entrance, we went inside and blocked all the entrances. And I have lived in Oakland for 13 years, the Port of Oakland is the financial heart of the city's activity, but I had never been inside the Port until then. It was kind of empowering just to walk those streets, where the ordinary citizens' lives are affected so much by what happens there but we usually aren't allowed to see it or to be there. You don't realize how huge the Port is until you march all through it. It made me feel a part of my city in a way that I wasn't before.