quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Does anybody have a quick rundown on the rationale for why Occupy is targeting ports? I'm not grasping on how that fits with the movements core objectives.
Disrupt commerce, draw attention to the real issues, knock people out of their complacency, shake things up...
Those seem to be the simple answers. Maybe you want an answer from someone more sympathetic to the movement, though.
Well, here are people within the movement discussing the shutdown of the Oakland Port last month, which was wildly successful (in the sense that they successfully shut down the port for a day, not in the sense that it accomplished anything remotely positive). Seems like it was a divisive issue back then.
Here is a similar discussion, started today, far fewer comments though (9 as of this writing), and they seem even more divided, disillusioned and grumpy. Why, you'd almost think they were Tea Partiers, with that violent language in the last comment or two.
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I don't need the opinions of those sympathetic with the Occupy movement, just somebody who understands their perspective. Thanks for the links, I'll review them.
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The information that I have been getting is that it is in support of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union ILWU in WA who are "waging a ferocious battle against transnational EGT, controlled by Bunge Ltd., of the grain cartel that controls most of the world's trade in food products. EGT is trying to break the ILWU in an attempt to drive down wages and destroy the union."
There seems to be some "discussion" about this from the leadership of the ILWU.
quote:The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said it generally supports the Occupy movement but opposes the blockade because the movement appears to be trying to appropriate union issues.
"Support is one thing, organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another," ILWU President Robert McEllrath wrote in a letter to local union branches.
<edit>Kate's link points out that two "men [who] have held elected office in ILWU Local 10" (one of whom is now retired) supported the call for the port shutdown. That's a pretty thin reed for the assertion there's "discussion" among the leadership. Unless there's something else at the link that I'm missing.<edit>