Occupy shuts down US West Coast ports
Published: 12 December, 2011, 19:35
Edited: 13 December, 2011, 08:48
Occupy Boston protestors react to the news that their encampment will not be evicted (AFP Photo / Kayana Szymczak)
Up and down West Coast, protesters have begun a massive blockade on the Pacific Ocean ports as part of a day of action under the umbrella of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In cities such as Oakland, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Seattle and Anchorage, demonstrators awoke early Monday morning to storm shipping facilities in America’s ports, in what organizers say is an attempt to “disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations."
Before noon on Monday, ports were successfully shut down by protesters in the cities of Portland, Longview and Oakland, with demonstrators waging similar strikes in other cities on the Pacific Coast. In Canada, the port of Vancouver, British Columbia, was also closed and operations at Long Beach, California were slowed due to protester action.
In Oakland, California, around 150 workers were sent home after it was decided that continuing the work day would be too troublesome. Two shipping terminals were taken down in Portland, Oregon, as well.
Approaching its fourth month of ongoing demonstrations, protesters aligned with Occupy Wall Street launched a similar campaign earlier in the movement, effectively closing shipping ports in Oakland, California. In that protest in November, the fifth-busiest port in all of America was successfully shut down for the day.
“We will not stand for corporate profits at the expense of working people, we will not stand for attacks on workers, and we will not allow our schools to be closed, social services slashed, and families to be impoverished by your greed!” Kari Koch, organizer with Shut Down the Ports Working Group of Occupy Portland, says in a statement to the press.
In the days since the movement began, demonstrations on the Pacific Coast have grown, with Oakland, California becoming an integral locale for the protests, serving as a West Coast hub of sorts for the demonstrations. The movement itself was launched back in September from New York City’s Zuccotti Park.
"We are occupying the ports as part of a day of action, boycott and march for full legalization and good jobs for all to draw attention to and protest the criminal system of concentrated wealth that depends on local and global exploitation of working people, and the denial of workers' rights to organize for decent pay, working conditions and benefits, in disregard for the environment and the health and safety of surrounding communities," organizers for the slew of events write on their website.
The protests of the ports launched as early as 5 a.m. California time Monday morning, and continued throughout the day. Even though police threatened protesters with mass arrests, and in the case of Long Beach, California, attacks with police dogs, demonstrations continued with no major incidents reported.
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Jim Britt wrote in
"This is an act of treason and terrorism. The US Army should have been called and ordered to shoot to kill these scumbags".
I would have to make cerains assumptions based on your comment. It must be one of these.
1. You are a qaudraplegic and cannot change the channel- you're nurse leaves it on Fox News 24/7.
2. You are actually the Master of the Port, and this is affecting your paycheck.
3. You are a paid verbal provacatuer with the intention of inciting peoples emotions to a fevered pitch.
4. You are a sad little man that can't stop wetting the bed at night, and this frustration has spilt over into your political commentaries.
5. You are late for your shift as a patrolman for the local precinct.
6. Your self inserted cucumber is beginning to mold, and it is having an adverse effect on your rational mind.
7. You fell asleep again with your copy of Mein Kampf laying on your face, and now you're cranky.
8. You failed to pay your internet bill at home, and are at the library, and connot take the time to elaborate/justify such an imbicilic comment.
9. You did not get enough love as a child. (I'm so sorry...neither did I, but still.....)
10. And ten....you are just a mean spirited, small minded, nihilistic sadist with a raging hangover; due in part to heavy drinking as an escape from the dispicableness of your own being, of which you are so obviously aware. (Or, well, at least that I am aware).
nachtan wrote in#8
michael mazur has it right.
The legitimate beef the OWS movement has is with the banksters, boardroom fraudsters, crony capitalists, the Federal Reserve and the corrupt feral government that serves them. Oh yes, and Obama, Newt and Mitt, too.
To go after the ports may be handy, but targets wrongly.
The Occupy movement is an honest outpouring of dissent to the above. I hope it doesn't squander its legitimacy and cohesiveness on bogus anti-capitalist ranting.
Capitalism is what brings us goods that cannot be manufactured under a tree or in a basement. It's the corruption of capitalism that's the enemy.
Greed isn't making more money than your neighbors. It's conniving to take that which doesn't belong to you.
I want to see the fraudsters, banksters, crony-capitalists and politicians who gain through corruption in jail.
All the best to the Occupiers!
wrong, monetarism or the subclass capitalism is the root cause for such aberrant behavior, corruption is rewarded. the structure of the system is the actual cause to all our problems, from poverty to crime to corruption to environmental degradation and pollution. We need to transcend this obsolete wasteful, inefficient, scarcity generating, debt based, mind wasting, slaving, destructive system. But in order for that to happen people must loose allot, the system must be crashed before it crashes itself for good so that people can seek alternate solutions and maybe if we act in time repair the damage we have done to the environment and the people it generated.







WE exported so many so-called “colour revolutions” as we did the Coca-Cola, the MacDonald’s, and the rest of Bomb’s & Nut’s …fought for freedoms and democracies for the Coca-Cola, the MacDonald’s, and the rest of Bomb’s & Nut’s …in the END nobody came to our rescue.
WAKE UP YOU FOOLS!
Or were you that foolish they (DO YOU really know who they are and what is their agenda(?)) colonised that country, exterminated the natives, fooled you with some “liberties & freedoms” in order get you from all over the world to slave them - juuust because they loved you?
WAKE UP YOU FOOLS!