Occupy Movement Attempting Oakland Port Shutdown
From the San Francisco Chronicle, reporting only 200 active protesters marching on the Port of Oakland:
Organizers have pledged to march to the port and shutdown the terminal, one of the busiest on the West Coast. Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike while others, like the longshoremen's union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers.
Carrying signs saying "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront" about 200 protesters marched the three blocks from the West Oakland BART Stationto the port entrances before sunrise today.
Protesters stopped when a line of Alameda County sheriff's deputies moved in front of entrance to the Hanjin cargo terminal on Middle Harbor Road. Officers stared stoically as demonstrators marched in a circle in front of the police line….
Demonstrators are trying to close ports up and down the West Coast.
You can watch the goings-on live on Ustream.
Some past Reason writings on Occupy matters.
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Party on!
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see a couple hundred hipsters get into a brawl with a couple hundred longshoremen.
Oh please God let them piss off the ILU. OWS driving a wedge between public and private labor would be tasty.
“public and private labor ^unions^ would”
Those OWS dumbshits have seen too many movies where the Reds storm a factory and all the laborers turn and march with them as they trash the offices of the managers.
In this case, one of them would probably end up under the wheels of a forklift.
hipsters aint communist agitators…unless it involves gop fund-raising.
derp de derpity derp
o3|12.12.11 @ 10:45AM|#
“hipsters aint communist agitators…unless it involves gop fund-raising.”
I guess Lying is a major at some school; you seem to have mastered it.
Are you implying Urine went to school?
I paid a lot of money for my urine to go to school.
so how much was sevos’ patriotic donation…to stop the commies yeah !
i hates me sum oakland commies !
Good on OPD for protecting the private property rights of Hanjin and it’s employees.
I once blocked a port in the bay area, if you know what I mean 😉
(If you do know what I mean please tell me, because I don’t.)
If your first name’s Sandi, we do.
I wish the police would leave. I’d love to see one of the emasculated hipsters that make up the OWS movement try to physically stop a longshoreman from doing his job.
Hipsters fight dirty and aren’t afraid of the sucker punch/stab.
Longshoremen aren’t quite the physical specimens they were 50 years ago. Now they mostly drive trucks, pilot cranes, and supervise automation. Still, probably enough legacy hires to get the job done.
They’ve both got cheap, bad beer in common, yes?
Arn Shitty!
Just pretend you don’t see them. Nothing of value will be damaged.
A toddler could whip up those OWS hipsters.
What an absolutely brilliant strategy for punishing those Wall Street tycoons: keep all the goods from China and Japan from reaching their destination so the store shelves will all be empty for everyone’s last minute Christmas shopping rush. Think of the the wave of popularity and sympathy that’ll bring to the so-called “99% movement”.
These demonstrators are indisputably the greatest group of American geniuses since the Founders themselves.
The best part? The port of Oakland is a net exporter.
Maybe that port is exporting all the jobs. These fools noble patriots continue to complain that we are exporting too many jobs.
There was a general work stoppage 6 or 7 years ago over automation. Rotterdam (about as busy as Oakland) operates with 1 guy in a control room and some maintenance staff. The union ports weren’t having it. But they’ve since worked out their differences.
These protestors’ actions are so stupid that I wonder if the police could simply drown them by spraying the area with sprinklers that arc the water in a nearly vertical trajectory.
These guys are so dumb that there’s a good chance that they’ll look up to see where the water is coming from and drown.
Occupying Oakland to protest Wall Street greed is like occupying Branson to protest sexist lyrics in gangsta rap.
200 people? Sounds like a Christmas party instead of a protest.
If they’re the 99%, shouldn’t they be attacking someplace where there are only two opponents?
I nominate Tulpa for threadwinner.
seconded.
Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike
There has to be a better way to inject information into the children than to expose them to Goddamn communist over a course of twelve years.
Nah, this just sorts the wheat from the chaff. Those that will fight against it get first hand experience. The others would be lost at the first promise of group work or free gifts.
So you personally can’t imagine a world without them and their drain on resources. Wheat from chaff, indeed.
Ideally, yes. In my lifetime? No.
We live in a time that is going to require great changes just to maintain our current level of prosperity for the next several decades to come. Your current way of thinking is an indulgent luxury.
My nads are so powerful they fear not your empty threat of fist punching. You will soon understand their superiority.
I’m sure a few students have parents in the ILU. They’ll certainly be told their teachers are complete numbskulls.
Those who can’t reason, teach.
They generated a lot more sympathy when they were targeting Wall Street.
Trying to stop international commerce–right before Christmas?
The leaders of this movement should write a book–How to Make Your Fellow Americans Hate You in Three Easy Steps.
Libertardians are not exactly in a position to make fun of people standing up for their principles with low hope of success.
Even if there are only 200 people in the 99%, that makes their courage in actually doing something instead of sitting around typing away at their computers.
It’s the priciples they are stading for (or clear lack of them) that is to be mocked. Also, the fact that there are so few simply echoes the death of the “movement.”
I’ve spoken out in favor of their right to protest.
I’ve spoken out against the police brutality I’ve seen directed at protestors–and Reason has too.
Most of us aren’t criticizing them for standing up for their principles.
But trying to shut down a port isn’t a legitimate action–that isn’t freedom of speech or freedom to assemble and protest. But it is indicative of what this Occupy movement seems to be about…
Imposing its will on the rest of society. If these people were protesting in the name of freedom–the freedom for people to make their own choices–I might be right out there with them.
But what they’re doing in trying to shut down a port is imposing their choices on everyone else by force. I stand by their right to protest. I stand by their right to express themselves. I stand by their right not to be subjected to police brutality.
Given their aims and tactics here? I hope their movement fails miserably.
The Tea Party had the same tactics.
Not the crypto-racist 21st century version, the 1776 version.
Just speaking and assembling is OK as long as people are listening to you. But the Wall Street/Republican hegemony has deafened the 99% to the message they need to hear, so now we need to MAKE them listen.
Occupy is Ritalin for the American soul.
Goddamn you are stupid.
That is all.
^ This
So is Occupy Wall Street now formally dedicated to attempting to overthrow the government by force?
Better be careful what you wish for there, Mr. Phony Revolutionary.
Technically the American Revolution didn’t overthrow any governments, just decoupled the colonial governments from the British government.
Wot ?
You might say the revolutionary colonists “overpowered” the British government, thus leading to the British government being “thrown”.
The original Tea Party was a reaction to using a tax on tea to bail out the East India Company…
The victim of the original Tea Party was the East India Company!
If blockading a port in some way held Wall Street accountable for the bailouts, you might have a case there.
I don’t see the comparison–explain harder.
Actually, if you wanted to make a comparison to the Tea Party of the Occupy movement’s trying to block access to a port?
That would be more like the British reaction to the original Tea Party whey they bottled up Boston Harbor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Port_Act
I have listened to the drivel of the OWS protestors. Not sure why I needed to hear neo-Marxist nonsense spouted by rich, lazy, white kids.
Occupy is Ritalin for the American soul.
Ah, yes. The forcible drugging of healthy children to make them more docile and malleable. What a perfect metaphor for the leftist movement.
Republican hegemony? Seriously?
You know the GOP hegemony controlling the longshoremans union in ultra red San Fransisco? Oh, right, wtf?
They play a deep game.
Moo.
Occupy is Ritalin for the American soul.
Agreed. Occupy is a tool that authoritarians use to crush those who don’t conform.
Read more about drugs like Ritalin at: http://www.mindfreedom.org
What
The
Fuck
?
But the Wall Street/Republican hegemony has deafened the 99% to the message they need to hear, so now we need to MAKE them listen.
Sod off, Swampy.
trying to shut down a port isn’t a legitimate action
But shutting down a campus is.
Imposing its will on the rest of society.
Unless it involves interfering with students who aren’t part of a protest.
If these people were protesting in the name of freedom
See, the only thing that really matters, the only thing separating an illegitimate action from a disruption needed to get attention from the rest of society, is whether I agree with the cause or not.
Hobie Hanson|12.12.11 @ 11:05AM|#
“Libertardians are not exactly in a position to make fun of people standing up for their principles with low hope of success.”
I am 100% supportive of their right to speech.
I am 100% opposed to their message.
What “principle” is being defended by hurting working-class people?
Or do you simply see these workers as “eggs” that have to be broken to make your “omelet”?
What “principle” did they have to begin with?
OWS: Identifying the problem of cronyism and then agitating to have your crony’s enriched instead of those that are now, by protest in the form of camping. None of that speaks of any sort of principle, in fact everything about it is status quo, unprincipled, politics as usual, except for the camping.
Hobie, if there were a nominally libertarian movement that was going to protest by trying to blockade a gun show, then I can assure you we would make fun of them.
And I don’t recall the Tea Party “tactics” including trying to shut down anything.
I think Hobie meant the Tea Party of the Revolutionary war days. When the “tea party” boarded the trading ships and destoyed the tea.
And as Ken rightly pointed out the only similarity of the 2 events is that ships were/are involved.
Got it. I just figured that anything that happened that long ago would be beyond Hobie’s ken.
Yeah, except in this case, their principles don’t make any sense (if they have any) and the thing that they are actually doing is incredibly stupid and harmful to a bunch of people that they are supposedly sticking up for. Of all the stupid shit the OWS crowd has done, this is the shittiest and stupidest.
Hobie, your math is a bit off. Oakland has a population of about 400,000. If only 200 of them join the protest, that makes those protesters the 0.0005%. “Elite masses” is an oxymoron.
I think you’re off by a factor of a hundred. 200/400000 = 1/2000 = 5/10000 = 0.05%
Yeah. I forgot to move the decimal point for when I added the percent sign. Even so, 0.05% is much less than 1%.
Libertardians are not exactly in a position to make fun of people standing up for their principles with low hope of success.
LOL at this goonfiction. The neo-Bolsheviks in OWS are the biggest hypocrites in the world–demanding accountability and openness from those they criticize, while doing everything they can to keep their own skeletons hidden in the closet. They cry about police brutality, but when someone they don’t like is filming them, they’re crying about not granting “consent.” Complaining about not being able to join the managerial class with their libarts degrees and claiming to represent “the 99%,” yet pissing on blue-collar occupations at every turn as something only subliterate brown people should do.
We all know where this ends:
“American journalists, come see our lovely Potemkin village. Is very nice, no starving people here.”
“Standing up for their principles.”
“Actually doing something instead of sitting around typing away at their computers.”
I love this line of reasoning, I hear it often from occupidiots. Basically it boils down to; “I know what we’re doing is absolutely pointless, worse it’s counterproductive and is actually hurting our cause. But hey, at least we’re doing it!”
You know who else stood up for their principles?
Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike while others, like the longshoremen’s union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers.
Teachers have a hard time distinguishing “work” from “not-work”, so this is not surprising.
esp given the genepool occupyin classrooms.
make fun of people standing up for their principles with low hope of success.
If they only had some demonstrable comprehension of either the origin of the problem or a rational solution, instead of dopey slogans like “Globalization is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!”.
I’m convinced that you have to take a test in basic economics to be allowed to join the Occupy movement.
If you pass the test they don’t let you in.
Don’t they do this for the more menial branches of civil service already?
+1
the longshoremen’s union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers.
And, you know, consumers…
That actually does make a LOT of sense when you think about it dude. Wow.
http://www.WebPrivacy.tk
Truck drivers are justified in running them over. Get the cops out the way and let the citizens deal with these brats.
Haven’t we already gone over all of this?
LOL, next on the schedule, OWS will demand we shut down the border opening in El Paso, TX.
Yes, but they’ll do it in Chicago.
Glad to see the brave teachers unions standing up for the shutdown.
Lots of teachers work on ports.
What do we want?
What do we want?
No, really, what do we want?
No, really, what do we want?
Money for nothing and the chicks for free.
Will the battleship be there?