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Scott Olsen Cannot Talk, General Strike Nov. 2!
Shut Down the 1%
General Strike & Mass Day of Action called for by Occupy Oakland
Everyone to the Streets!
No Work! No School!
General Strike & Mass Day of Action called for by Occupy Oakland
Everyone to the Streets!
No Work! No School!
[Photo: Scott Olsen]
Scott Olsen Cannot Talk Due to the Brain Injury Caused by Police Violence
General Strike and Mass Protest on Weds. Nov. 2!
Drop the Charges Against All Occupy Protesters!
By Steven Argue
On October 25, at about 5:00 AM, over 500 and cops including the Oakland Police and cops from 16 other jurisdictions attacked peaceful protesters at the Occupy Oakland encampment on 14th and Broadway. They moved in with armored vehicles and full riot gear and viciously attacked the Occupy Oakland protesters. Through the day the number of protesters grew to about 3,000 people despite continued police violence with protests moving to a number of locations. The protests were repeatedly attacked by the police, who clubbed demonstrators, fired concussion grenades, fired tear gas at least four different times, and shot protesters with wooden slugs, bean bag canisters, and possibly rubber bullets. Eighty five people were arrested.
Scott Olsen, a 24 year-old Iraq War veteran and member of Iraq War Veterans Against the War, was shot in the head by the police with a projectile. Scott was seriously injured and was knocked out in critical condition with swelling on his brain. He has now woken up, but cannot talk due to the brain injury caused by police violence. He has sustained an injury to the speech center of his brain.
Police forces across the country have been carrying out repression against the Occupy protesters with brutality and arrests in New York, Denver, Boston, Chicago, Oakland, and elsewhere. Unarmed protesters have been repeatedly beaten, maced, tear gassed, and arrested for exercising their right to free speech. Meanwhile, armed Tea Party protesters who have pushed an extreme rightwing agenda of austerity for the working class have showed up at protests armed, but are not touched by the police.
There is no question that there has been a brutal response by America’s rulers to working class people and students demanding change to benefit the majority. It is a mass movement has emerged because people are fed up with a society run by and for the wealthy. We are fed up with a society where a CEO’s salary is 475 times higher than the wages of the average worker, where unemployment has gone through the roof with official figures a lie and the real numbers at 17%, where the Democrats and Republicans are spending trillions of dollars on imperialist wars and dictators that are terrorizing the people of the world, where the Republicans are blaming Social Security and Medicare instead of war for the debt and Obama goes along with it putting “everything on the table” for cuts, everything that is except the war budget, a society where much of the working class is without health care and without a job, where Wall Street is bailed out but Obama waits for a Republican controlled congress and a looming election to unveil a half ass jobs program that now predictably has not passed, where youth who go to college face a depressingly downwardly mobile future, where U.S. corporations are making record profits at a projected 1.6 trillion dollars this year but the majority does not benefit, where the planet is in a deep crisis with climate change but Obama and the Republicans are easing environmental restrictions and not even considering the actions needed to save our world, where innocent people like Troy Davis are put to death, where Bradley Manning sits in prison for allegedly exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq, and where the average person has absolutely no voice in mainstream politics and the mainstream media.
The capitalist government’s response to the protests? Typical violence and repression. At the heart of the capitalist system is a police force whose job it is to abuse labor, people of color, the poor, the homeless, and leftists. It is their job as professional thugs to protect Wall Street from the 99%. The hierarchies of police forces have purposely protected and promoted the most brutal police with the least connection to humanity in order to have a police force that is always loyal to the capitalist government and capitalist class at times like this. They work for the wealthy 1%, not us.
General Strike and Mass Protest on November 2nd
In response to the Oakland violence, on Wednesday October 26, 2011 nearly 2,000 people reclaimed the square that police violence drove them from, renamed it Oscar Grant Plaza, and voted for a general strike and mass demonstration to be held on November 2nd.
Oscar Grant square is a fitting name. Oscar Grant was a working class Black man and father of a young daughter who was handcuffed and executed by an Oakland Bart cop while laying face down in 2009. The BART cop who murdered Oscar Grant is named Johannes Mehserle. It was only due to cell phone footage and mass protests that Mehserle was finally charged with murder. Yet, the criminal injustice system, which is routinely unfair to people who aren’t rich, unfair to people of color, and unfair to people who are leftists, let Johannes Mehserle off the hook despite overwhelming evidence murder. Mesherle was given a slap on the wrist and convicted of “involuntary man slaughter”. He did lose his job, which is unusual in cases of police violence, but he walks free today.
At renamed and retaken Oscar Grant Square 1607 people voted on the resolution for a general strike and mass protest on November 2nd. The vote tallies were 1484 in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained, and 46 voted against it. This passed the proposal with 96.9% voting in favor. The Oakland General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes proposals with 90% in favor and with abstaining votes removed from the final count.
Some claimed this was not the decision of a union so it had little meaning. Yet, with polls showing the current popularity of the Occupy movement at 37% combined with the shock and anger caused by police brutality and repression, this call for a general strike was far more than some empty gesture. Unions are indeed taking it seriously.
Backing the call for the general strike is the 3,000 member Carpenters Local 713 that voted to join the strike and join protests at Oscar Grant Square. They passed a resolution that ends by saying they “resolve to support the call of the 2,000 Oaklanders at Occupy Oakland for a one-day strike in Oakland for Wednesday November 2nd, 2011, to protest our country’s rising inequality and the brutal actions of the police in the city of Oakland, California.”
Also supporting the strike are key leaders of the ILWU and IBU in the Bay Area who put out a statement titled, “Defend Occupy Oakland with the Power of Organized Labor”. They state, “As a first step, in defending our union and others against economic and political repression, we need to mobilize our members to participate in the rally and occupation November 2 in Oscar Grant Plaza. Shut it down!”
That ILWU / IBU statement also denounces other police violence including a 2003 Oakland Police attack on anti-war protesters using the same potentially lethal munitions as were just used. That police attack injured six longshoreman including Billy Kepo’s.
“Local 10 longshoreman Billy Kepo’o was hit in the hand by a police tear gas canister causing a bloody mess. Now, Iraqi war vet, Scott Olsen, was hit in the head with a police projectile, causing a fracture and putting him in critical condition in Highland Hospital. This is exactly what killed one of the strikers in Seattle in the Big Strike of 1934. That history of police violence against strikers is why our Local 10 Constitution bans cops from membership in our union.”
Further strengthening the coming strike on the Port of Oakland is a resolution passed unanimously by the Occupy Oakland strike assembly on Friday October 29 that calls for a march to blockade of the Port of Oakland. The statement reads:
“On Wednesday, November 2nd as part of the Oakland General Strike, we will march on the Port of Oakland and shut it down. We will converge at 5pm at 14th and Broadway and march to the port to shut it down before the 7pm night shift.
“We are doing this in order to blockade the flow of capital on the day of the General Strike, as well as to show our commitment to solidarity with Longshore workers in their struggle against EGT in Longview, Washington. EGT is an international grain exporter which is attempting to rupture longshore jurisdiction. The driving force behind EGT is Bunge LTD, a leading agribusiness and food company which reported 2.4 billion dollars in profit in 2010; this company has strong ties to Wall Street. This is but one example of Wall Street’s corporate attack on workers.
“The Oakland General Strike will demonstrate the wide reaching implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The entire world is fed up with the huge disparity of wealth caused by the present system. Now is the time that the people are doing something about it. The Oakland General Strike is a warning shot to the 1% – their wealth only exists because the 99% creates it for them.”
A shut down of the ports by the ILWU and IBU will be a powerful step in defense of democratic rights against the brutality being dished out by the Oakland Police and Mayor Jean Quan. The Port of Oakland is the fourth largest port in the United States and its shut down will be costly for the capitalists. In addition, this is an opening shot of proletarian power versus the repression of the capitalists and their state. The capitalists and their government want to avoid this type of action. Those in power would prefer the proletariat continue to feel helpless under a police state and two party system rather than begin to feel our power by shutting down production and transport.
It is no coincidence that after the General Assembly voted for a general strike Mayor Jean Quan tried to make an apology for her actions to an Occupy Oakland meeting the next day. She said, "Ultimately, it was my responsibility, and I apologize for what happened," and then claimed: "We can change America, but we must unite and not divide our city. I hope we can work together." Obviously she is feeling the pressure, but the fact she was willing to use police violence in the first place to shut down the constitutional rights of protesters indicates that she is a representative of the wealthy 1% who feels threatened by the Occupy movement. She was rightly booed out of Oscar Grant Square by people demanding she “resign!”
California Nurses Association Treasurer Martha Kuhl, an Oakland RN, rightly denounced this Democrat Party mayor saying, “This unwarranted attack on peaceful protesters places Oakland Mayor Jean Quan in shameful company with mayors like Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and other cities whose response to public expression of protest is repression rather than respect for the rights of free speech and assembly.”
On November 2nd we will teach the ruling capitalists and their government that needed respect by shutting them down. Join the general strike and mass march November 2nd.
Shut Down the 1%
General Strike & Mass Day of Action called for by Occupy Oakland
Everyone to the Streets!
No Work! No School!
Mass gatherings at 14th & Broadway:
9:00am • 12 noon • 5:00pm
5:00pm start at 14th and Broadway and march to the port to shut it down before the 7pm night shift
All banks and corporations must close down for the day or we will march on them
Liberation News joins the Oakland Occupy General Assembly in Demanding:
• Solidarity with the worldwide Occupy Movement
• End Police Attacks on Our Communities
• Defend Oakland Schools & Libraries
• Against an economic system built on inequality & corporate power that perpetuates racism, sexism & the destruction of the environment
And Liberation News adds the additional demand:
Drop The Charges Against All Occupy Protesters!
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free.
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
Read About the 1934 San Francisco General Strike
The Big Strike, by Mike Quin
http://www.archive.org/details/bigstrike00quinrich
Scott Olsen Cannot Talk Due to the Brain Injury Caused by Police Violence
General Strike and Mass Protest on Weds. Nov. 2!
Drop the Charges Against All Occupy Protesters!
By Steven Argue
On October 25, at about 5:00 AM, over 500 and cops including the Oakland Police and cops from 16 other jurisdictions attacked peaceful protesters at the Occupy Oakland encampment on 14th and Broadway. They moved in with armored vehicles and full riot gear and viciously attacked the Occupy Oakland protesters. Through the day the number of protesters grew to about 3,000 people despite continued police violence with protests moving to a number of locations. The protests were repeatedly attacked by the police, who clubbed demonstrators, fired concussion grenades, fired tear gas at least four different times, and shot protesters with wooden slugs, bean bag canisters, and possibly rubber bullets. Eighty five people were arrested.
Scott Olsen, a 24 year-old Iraq War veteran and member of Iraq War Veterans Against the War, was shot in the head by the police with a projectile. Scott was seriously injured and was knocked out in critical condition with swelling on his brain. He has now woken up, but cannot talk due to the brain injury caused by police violence. He has sustained an injury to the speech center of his brain.
Police forces across the country have been carrying out repression against the Occupy protesters with brutality and arrests in New York, Denver, Boston, Chicago, Oakland, and elsewhere. Unarmed protesters have been repeatedly beaten, maced, tear gassed, and arrested for exercising their right to free speech. Meanwhile, armed Tea Party protesters who have pushed an extreme rightwing agenda of austerity for the working class have showed up at protests armed, but are not touched by the police.
There is no question that there has been a brutal response by America’s rulers to working class people and students demanding change to benefit the majority. It is a mass movement has emerged because people are fed up with a society run by and for the wealthy. We are fed up with a society where a CEO’s salary is 475 times higher than the wages of the average worker, where unemployment has gone through the roof with official figures a lie and the real numbers at 17%, where the Democrats and Republicans are spending trillions of dollars on imperialist wars and dictators that are terrorizing the people of the world, where the Republicans are blaming Social Security and Medicare instead of war for the debt and Obama goes along with it putting “everything on the table” for cuts, everything that is except the war budget, a society where much of the working class is without health care and without a job, where Wall Street is bailed out but Obama waits for a Republican controlled congress and a looming election to unveil a half ass jobs program that now predictably has not passed, where youth who go to college face a depressingly downwardly mobile future, where U.S. corporations are making record profits at a projected 1.6 trillion dollars this year but the majority does not benefit, where the planet is in a deep crisis with climate change but Obama and the Republicans are easing environmental restrictions and not even considering the actions needed to save our world, where innocent people like Troy Davis are put to death, where Bradley Manning sits in prison for allegedly exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq, and where the average person has absolutely no voice in mainstream politics and the mainstream media.
The capitalist government’s response to the protests? Typical violence and repression. At the heart of the capitalist system is a police force whose job it is to abuse labor, people of color, the poor, the homeless, and leftists. It is their job as professional thugs to protect Wall Street from the 99%. The hierarchies of police forces have purposely protected and promoted the most brutal police with the least connection to humanity in order to have a police force that is always loyal to the capitalist government and capitalist class at times like this. They work for the wealthy 1%, not us.
General Strike and Mass Protest on November 2nd
In response to the Oakland violence, on Wednesday October 26, 2011 nearly 2,000 people reclaimed the square that police violence drove them from, renamed it Oscar Grant Plaza, and voted for a general strike and mass demonstration to be held on November 2nd.
Oscar Grant square is a fitting name. Oscar Grant was a working class Black man and father of a young daughter who was handcuffed and executed by an Oakland Bart cop while laying face down in 2009. The BART cop who murdered Oscar Grant is named Johannes Mehserle. It was only due to cell phone footage and mass protests that Mehserle was finally charged with murder. Yet, the criminal injustice system, which is routinely unfair to people who aren’t rich, unfair to people of color, and unfair to people who are leftists, let Johannes Mehserle off the hook despite overwhelming evidence murder. Mesherle was given a slap on the wrist and convicted of “involuntary man slaughter”. He did lose his job, which is unusual in cases of police violence, but he walks free today.
At renamed and retaken Oscar Grant Square 1607 people voted on the resolution for a general strike and mass protest on November 2nd. The vote tallies were 1484 in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained, and 46 voted against it. This passed the proposal with 96.9% voting in favor. The Oakland General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes proposals with 90% in favor and with abstaining votes removed from the final count.
Some claimed this was not the decision of a union so it had little meaning. Yet, with polls showing the current popularity of the Occupy movement at 37% combined with the shock and anger caused by police brutality and repression, this call for a general strike was far more than some empty gesture. Unions are indeed taking it seriously.
Backing the call for the general strike is the 3,000 member Carpenters Local 713 that voted to join the strike and join protests at Oscar Grant Square. They passed a resolution that ends by saying they “resolve to support the call of the 2,000 Oaklanders at Occupy Oakland for a one-day strike in Oakland for Wednesday November 2nd, 2011, to protest our country’s rising inequality and the brutal actions of the police in the city of Oakland, California.”
Also supporting the strike are key leaders of the ILWU and IBU in the Bay Area who put out a statement titled, “Defend Occupy Oakland with the Power of Organized Labor”. They state, “As a first step, in defending our union and others against economic and political repression, we need to mobilize our members to participate in the rally and occupation November 2 in Oscar Grant Plaza. Shut it down!”
That ILWU / IBU statement also denounces other police violence including a 2003 Oakland Police attack on anti-war protesters using the same potentially lethal munitions as were just used. That police attack injured six longshoreman including Billy Kepo’s.
“Local 10 longshoreman Billy Kepo’o was hit in the hand by a police tear gas canister causing a bloody mess. Now, Iraqi war vet, Scott Olsen, was hit in the head with a police projectile, causing a fracture and putting him in critical condition in Highland Hospital. This is exactly what killed one of the strikers in Seattle in the Big Strike of 1934. That history of police violence against strikers is why our Local 10 Constitution bans cops from membership in our union.”
Further strengthening the coming strike on the Port of Oakland is a resolution passed unanimously by the Occupy Oakland strike assembly on Friday October 29 that calls for a march to blockade of the Port of Oakland. The statement reads:
“On Wednesday, November 2nd as part of the Oakland General Strike, we will march on the Port of Oakland and shut it down. We will converge at 5pm at 14th and Broadway and march to the port to shut it down before the 7pm night shift.
“We are doing this in order to blockade the flow of capital on the day of the General Strike, as well as to show our commitment to solidarity with Longshore workers in their struggle against EGT in Longview, Washington. EGT is an international grain exporter which is attempting to rupture longshore jurisdiction. The driving force behind EGT is Bunge LTD, a leading agribusiness and food company which reported 2.4 billion dollars in profit in 2010; this company has strong ties to Wall Street. This is but one example of Wall Street’s corporate attack on workers.
“The Oakland General Strike will demonstrate the wide reaching implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The entire world is fed up with the huge disparity of wealth caused by the present system. Now is the time that the people are doing something about it. The Oakland General Strike is a warning shot to the 1% – their wealth only exists because the 99% creates it for them.”
A shut down of the ports by the ILWU and IBU will be a powerful step in defense of democratic rights against the brutality being dished out by the Oakland Police and Mayor Jean Quan. The Port of Oakland is the fourth largest port in the United States and its shut down will be costly for the capitalists. In addition, this is an opening shot of proletarian power versus the repression of the capitalists and their state. The capitalists and their government want to avoid this type of action. Those in power would prefer the proletariat continue to feel helpless under a police state and two party system rather than begin to feel our power by shutting down production and transport.
It is no coincidence that after the General Assembly voted for a general strike Mayor Jean Quan tried to make an apology for her actions to an Occupy Oakland meeting the next day. She said, "Ultimately, it was my responsibility, and I apologize for what happened," and then claimed: "We can change America, but we must unite and not divide our city. I hope we can work together." Obviously she is feeling the pressure, but the fact she was willing to use police violence in the first place to shut down the constitutional rights of protesters indicates that she is a representative of the wealthy 1% who feels threatened by the Occupy movement. She was rightly booed out of Oscar Grant Square by people demanding she “resign!”
California Nurses Association Treasurer Martha Kuhl, an Oakland RN, rightly denounced this Democrat Party mayor saying, “This unwarranted attack on peaceful protesters places Oakland Mayor Jean Quan in shameful company with mayors like Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and other cities whose response to public expression of protest is repression rather than respect for the rights of free speech and assembly.”
On November 2nd we will teach the ruling capitalists and their government that needed respect by shutting them down. Join the general strike and mass march November 2nd.
Shut Down the 1%
General Strike & Mass Day of Action called for by Occupy Oakland
Everyone to the Streets!
No Work! No School!
Mass gatherings at 14th & Broadway:
9:00am • 12 noon • 5:00pm
5:00pm start at 14th and Broadway and march to the port to shut it down before the 7pm night shift
All banks and corporations must close down for the day or we will march on them
Liberation News joins the Oakland Occupy General Assembly in Demanding:
• Solidarity with the worldwide Occupy Movement
• End Police Attacks on Our Communities
• Defend Oakland Schools & Libraries
• Against an economic system built on inequality & corporate power that perpetuates racism, sexism & the destruction of the environment
And Liberation News adds the additional demand:
Drop The Charges Against All Occupy Protesters!
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free.
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
Read About the 1934 San Francisco General Strike
The Big Strike, by Mike Quin
http://www.archive.org/details/bigstrike00quinrich
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(Hide Comments)
The Bolshevik Revolution of Nov 7, 1917 accomplished many things, before Stalin's capitalist counter-revolution that resulted in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, and in spite of the fact that the German Revolution which ended World War 1 and caused the Kaiser to flee to Holland failed, thus ending the broader scope needed to further the success of the Bolshevik Revolution and in spite of the Civil War that followed, where rich reactionary Russians, the Tsar's allies, were aided by the imperialist armies of the world, including from the USA, in a failed attempt to destroy the Bolshevik Revolution.
Accomplishments of the Bolshevik Revolution:
1. Ended World War 1 and its bloody carnage, which only existed to make the rich richer.
2. Women won the right to vote in 1917 in Russia thanks to the Revolution; so of course, the capitalist world, such as the USA, where women had been fighting for the right to vote since 1848, finally had to grant the concession of the right to vote in 1920 in the USA, because they could not be outdone by the Reds!
3. The right to vote was granted to all people at least 18 years old in the Soviet Union in 1917; in the USA the voting age was finally lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971, in an attempt to appease the growing anti-Vietnam War peace movement which was based on college campuses as students were subject to the draft.
4. The dictatorship of the Tsars, private property and private ownership of the means of production were abolished and a planned economy, controlled by the workingclass was established, the first in a nation in history.
5. Jews could finally walk the streets of Moscow as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution; the Pale of Settlement was abolished. Here is more on the Pale of Settlement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
6. It initiated a massive literacy campaign, as education is the foundation of an industrial society. Remember, most people in the world including in the USA, did not even have a high school education. In the USA, we had child labor in 1917.
7. From http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/trotsky.shtml
The new government, with Trotsky as people’s commissar for foreign affairs began negotiations to end Russia’s involvement in the war. It announced the separation of state and education from the powerful Orthodox Church, and instituted full freedom of religion, ending the oppression of Jews that had existed in Russia for centuries. Education was made free for all and a massive literacy campaign was initiated. Welfare services were provided for the first time. Homosexuality ceased to be a crime. All the countries of the old Russian Empire were granted the right to self-determination.
All legislation that had served to oppress women was swept away. Equal pay was established by law. Marriages could be dissolved at the request of either partner. Children born out of wedlock were given equal rights with the children of married parents. Legal restrictions on abortion were removed. The state provided welfare services for mothers and their children, setting up maternity homes and free nurseries, and women’s departments were established around the country with the aim of bringing women together to play an active role in changing society.
The vibrancy of the new society was reflected in a huge surge of activity in the cultural field. There was a flowering of artistic endeavor in the visual arts, drama, filmmaking, and literature.
Victor Serge, an anarchist who joined the Bolshevik Party shortly after the revolution, described the atmosphere:
Such a thirst for knowledge sprang up all over the country that new schools, adult courses, universities, and Workers’ Faculties were formed everywhere. Innumerable fresh initiatives laid open the teaching of unheard-of, totally unexplored domains of learning….
Every evening the theatres, now nationalized, presented their customary repertoire, but to a new sort of audience.... [T]he gold vaulted theatres were thronged with working men and women, with young Communists, their skulls shaved as a precaution against typhus-carrying fleas, and with Red soldiers on leave from the front.
8. All this was done in a country that was barely out of feudalism because the Bolsheviks promoted a planned economy. It was that planned non-profit economy that enabled the building of a strong industrial society so that it could defeat the Nazis, who had been paid by the entire capitalist world to attack the Soviet Union, at the turning point of World War 2, the Battle of Stalingrad August 1942-February 1943 and the Soviet Union won that victory almost single-handedly as American Lend-Lease aid did not arrive until after the Battle of Stalingrad and of course the Race to Berlin, the Second Front, was not opened until June 1944, and the Red Army won that too, being the first to enter Berlin, with a Red Army woman major planting the Red flag in Berlin.
9. It was this same planned economy that made the Soviet Union a world power with a high level of education and a high level of cultural, education and scientific achievements, as well as being a resounding success at the Olympics. The USA never achieved the excellent public school system that the Soviet Union had, and now the USA's school system is almost gone. Here are some facts on comparing the science/math education in the Russian Federation vs the USA today:
From: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1
The educational systems that outperformed the United States in fourth-grade mathematics—namely, Chinese Taipei, England, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, the Russian Federation, and Singapore—all were located in Asia or Europe.
The educational systems that outperformed the United States in eighth-grade science were in Chinese Taipei, the Czech Republic, England, Hungary, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Slovenia, and Singapore.
***
Functional illiteracy in the USA is estimated at being between 25% and 45% of the adult population.
REMEMBER, WOMEN ARE AT LEAST 50% OF THE POPULATION. ANYTHING THAT IMPROVES THE LIVES OF WOMEN IMPROVES THE WHOLE SOCIETY.
Here in the USA, with a larger material base, and almost 100 years after the Bolshevik Revolution, WE CAN DO BETTER IF WE MOVE QUICKLY. NOW IS THE HOUR TO TAKE STATE POWER. GENERAL STRIKE NOW! WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS; WE HAVE A WORLD TO WIN!
Accomplishments of the Bolshevik Revolution:
1. Ended World War 1 and its bloody carnage, which only existed to make the rich richer.
2. Women won the right to vote in 1917 in Russia thanks to the Revolution; so of course, the capitalist world, such as the USA, where women had been fighting for the right to vote since 1848, finally had to grant the concession of the right to vote in 1920 in the USA, because they could not be outdone by the Reds!
3. The right to vote was granted to all people at least 18 years old in the Soviet Union in 1917; in the USA the voting age was finally lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971, in an attempt to appease the growing anti-Vietnam War peace movement which was based on college campuses as students were subject to the draft.
4. The dictatorship of the Tsars, private property and private ownership of the means of production were abolished and a planned economy, controlled by the workingclass was established, the first in a nation in history.
5. Jews could finally walk the streets of Moscow as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution; the Pale of Settlement was abolished. Here is more on the Pale of Settlement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
6. It initiated a massive literacy campaign, as education is the foundation of an industrial society. Remember, most people in the world including in the USA, did not even have a high school education. In the USA, we had child labor in 1917.
7. From http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/trotsky.shtml
The new government, with Trotsky as people’s commissar for foreign affairs began negotiations to end Russia’s involvement in the war. It announced the separation of state and education from the powerful Orthodox Church, and instituted full freedom of religion, ending the oppression of Jews that had existed in Russia for centuries. Education was made free for all and a massive literacy campaign was initiated. Welfare services were provided for the first time. Homosexuality ceased to be a crime. All the countries of the old Russian Empire were granted the right to self-determination.
All legislation that had served to oppress women was swept away. Equal pay was established by law. Marriages could be dissolved at the request of either partner. Children born out of wedlock were given equal rights with the children of married parents. Legal restrictions on abortion were removed. The state provided welfare services for mothers and their children, setting up maternity homes and free nurseries, and women’s departments were established around the country with the aim of bringing women together to play an active role in changing society.
The vibrancy of the new society was reflected in a huge surge of activity in the cultural field. There was a flowering of artistic endeavor in the visual arts, drama, filmmaking, and literature.
Victor Serge, an anarchist who joined the Bolshevik Party shortly after the revolution, described the atmosphere:
Such a thirst for knowledge sprang up all over the country that new schools, adult courses, universities, and Workers’ Faculties were formed everywhere. Innumerable fresh initiatives laid open the teaching of unheard-of, totally unexplored domains of learning….
Every evening the theatres, now nationalized, presented their customary repertoire, but to a new sort of audience.... [T]he gold vaulted theatres were thronged with working men and women, with young Communists, their skulls shaved as a precaution against typhus-carrying fleas, and with Red soldiers on leave from the front.
8. All this was done in a country that was barely out of feudalism because the Bolsheviks promoted a planned economy. It was that planned non-profit economy that enabled the building of a strong industrial society so that it could defeat the Nazis, who had been paid by the entire capitalist world to attack the Soviet Union, at the turning point of World War 2, the Battle of Stalingrad August 1942-February 1943 and the Soviet Union won that victory almost single-handedly as American Lend-Lease aid did not arrive until after the Battle of Stalingrad and of course the Race to Berlin, the Second Front, was not opened until June 1944, and the Red Army won that too, being the first to enter Berlin, with a Red Army woman major planting the Red flag in Berlin.
9. It was this same planned economy that made the Soviet Union a world power with a high level of education and a high level of cultural, education and scientific achievements, as well as being a resounding success at the Olympics. The USA never achieved the excellent public school system that the Soviet Union had, and now the USA's school system is almost gone. Here are some facts on comparing the science/math education in the Russian Federation vs the USA today:
From: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1
The educational systems that outperformed the United States in fourth-grade mathematics—namely, Chinese Taipei, England, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, the Russian Federation, and Singapore—all were located in Asia or Europe.
The educational systems that outperformed the United States in eighth-grade science were in Chinese Taipei, the Czech Republic, England, Hungary, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Slovenia, and Singapore.
***
Functional illiteracy in the USA is estimated at being between 25% and 45% of the adult population.
REMEMBER, WOMEN ARE AT LEAST 50% OF THE POPULATION. ANYTHING THAT IMPROVES THE LIVES OF WOMEN IMPROVES THE WHOLE SOCIETY.
Here in the USA, with a larger material base, and almost 100 years after the Bolshevik Revolution, WE CAN DO BETTER IF WE MOVE QUICKLY. NOW IS THE HOUR TO TAKE STATE POWER. GENERAL STRIKE NOW! WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS; WE HAVE A WORLD TO WIN!
I'm concerned about the call to march on the Port of Oakland in the late afternoon instead of the early AM .
That's contrary to what's been done successfully in the past . Community pickets that ILWU #10 have honored have ALL BEEN IN THE EARLY MORNING NOT THE EVENING .So i think the goal should be to gather several hundred to set up a picket by 6 AM not Pm .
The Morning shift is usually far bigger and if that picket is successful of course thry to set up one for the evening .
But the Morning should be the priority The most recent example of this is the action against the loading/unloading of the Israeli Zim line ship last year .
That's contrary to what's been done successfully in the past . Community pickets that ILWU #10 have honored have ALL BEEN IN THE EARLY MORNING NOT THE EVENING .So i think the goal should be to gather several hundred to set up a picket by 6 AM not Pm .
The Morning shift is usually far bigger and if that picket is successful of course thry to set up one for the evening .
But the Morning should be the priority The most recent example of this is the action against the loading/unloading of the Israeli Zim line ship last year .
Strikers and Protesters:
It seems as if this generation has quite suddenly woken up from its stupor, and you should be
so proud. Not all of us can be on the street with you, but know that thousands of us are reading
and praying and crying in solidarity with you. Be careful out there, and don't lose sight of
your vision for a more just society. Change is not only possible, it's our only hope.
Cheers,
Linda Hughes
Portlandia
It seems as if this generation has quite suddenly woken up from its stupor, and you should be
so proud. Not all of us can be on the street with you, but know that thousands of us are reading
and praying and crying in solidarity with you. Be careful out there, and don't lose sight of
your vision for a more just society. Change is not only possible, it's our only hope.
Cheers,
Linda Hughes
Portlandia
I hope there will be a least a perceptable difference from the normal routine in the SF/Bay Area on 11/2. What I expect will happen is a teachable moment....A general strike is a bottoms up action among many workers on the job in a wide variety of already pre existing occupations (as it were) in a given geographical area...Getting everyone on the same page like that takes way more than a week of frantic hyperspeed networking...I think a minority demographic of well meaning protestors,one union, a few "leaders" of other unions [Have they polled their membership???]and a so so effective media blitz won't make the big thing desired happen....How is it right for the consensus of such a minority to dictate to the 99% what they all should do on 11-2?....Isn't that just like 1% thinking? I could very wrong. Whatever happens or not, I firmly expect a learning experience. Good luck!!!
For more information:
http://www.Live365.com/stations/johns805
I share your concerns and I have circulated what you've said.
You make many good points on the Russian Revolution. My one disagreement is where you call Stalin's counter-revolution "capitalist". The murderous political counter-revolution led by Stalin against the original leaders of the October Revolution did not bring back capitalism. That happened in 1992 with Yeltsin. What Stalin did was put a conservative privileged caste in power that opposed the basic concepts of workers democracy which include freedom of non-corporate press, freedom to form political parties (as long as they aren't funded by the imperialists or don't take up arms against the revolution), and universal suffrage. But he did not eliminate the socialist planned economy which remained a major gain of the revolution until 1992.
After taking power the Bolsheviks dealt with 16 invading imperialist armies, an imperialist economic blockade, and the murderous imperialist backed White Army that murdered 100,000 Jews in the Ukraine alone.
The victory of the Bolsheviks over the pro-war and pro-capitalist Menshevik government in 1917 was a world historic gain of the working class, as was the defeat of the White Army and imperialist invaders after. The defeat of the White Army saved countless millions of lives at the hands of anti-Semitic and anti-Communist butchers and saved the gains of the Russian Revolution.
The Russian Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky ended Russia's involvement in the inter-imperialist mass slaughter of World War I, brought about a sweeping land reform for the peasants, abolished capitalism and created a socialist system that was capable of turning one of the poorest countries in the world into an industrial powerhouse capable of smashing Nazi Germany and rebuilding after two major imperialist invasions to provide everyone with a guaranteed job, housing, education, and health care, brought national rights to oppressed minorities legalizing their languages and providing education in those languages while also giving their economies special help through the planned economy, and brought about big advances in women's rights and rights for homosexuals.
Internationally the Russian Revolution helped produce a movement that broke away from the opportunist and pro-capitalist Social Democrats who supported their own bourgeoisies in the inter-imperialist slaughter of World War I and who murdered Karl Leibnecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany. In the United States it also inspired the formation of the early multi-tendency Communist Party and corrected that party's earlier stance, inherited from the Socialist Party, of not putting enough emphasis on the question of Black oppression.
Stalin's political counter-revolution murdered the original leaders of the Russian Revolution and entrenched the power of a conservative and privileged bureaucracy. Some of the gains of the revolution were lost with that. Internationally the USSR no longer played a leading role for the working class because the bureaucracy preferred a policy of sabotaging revolutions in order to gain trade from capitalist countries. In the 1930s Stalin’s policies directly sabotaged the revolutions in Spain, Germany, and China. But one of several gains of the October Revolution that remained was the socialist planned economy that gave the USSR the industrial and political strength to smash Nazi Germany, a capitalist country that brought mass murder to a level of industrial production never seen before or since. The USSR rebuilt after that Nazi invasion devastated the economy and left 30 million citizens dead. They rebuilt with a socialist economy that guaranteed everyone a job, housing, education, and health care. While much of the international policy of the USSR under Stalin was counter-productive, there were a few good things they did. Besides smashing Nazi Germany and liberating Europe, the USSR helped countries like Vietnam and Cuba win their independence from U.S. imperialism, ending the imperialist slaughter of millions through military aid and helping them economically as well. Likewise, they tried to defeat U.S. imperialist intervention in Afghanistan, an intervention where billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to religious fanatics left a million people dead, toppled a pro-woman government, and put the Taliban in power.
Trotskyists defended the gains of the Russian Revolution from imperialist attacks and internal counter-revolution, most importantly defending the socialist planned economy. At the same time we called for a political revolution to sweep away the conservative and repressive Stalinist bureaucracy in power to bring about workers democracy and revolutionary internationalism.
In the time of Gorbachev, the fragility of the deformed workers' state in the USSR was a political question rooted in the privileges of the ruling bureaucracy and the repression the working class had suffered for so many decades. When Yeltsin carried out his disastrous capitalist counter-revolution he created a few wealthy capitalists. At the same time he eliminated guaranteed health care, education, and employment and caused life expectancy to drop by 10 years. Unfortunately, there was not a strong enough working class movement to stop him. This was due to decades of Stalinist repression. But Yeltsin's coup d'etate was a military operation that involved his sending out troops to shoot at protesters and those in the government opposed his coup. Instead of a collapse, it was a counter-revolution led by bureaucrats who thought they could get rich under a capitalist system.
Trotskyists opposed Yeltsin's capitalist counter-revolution as the disaster it was and instead advocated political revolution to defend the socialist planned economy while at the same time sweeping away the repressive Stalinist bureaucracy and creating a workers democracy. In the United States we need to both sweep away the capitalist system and create a workers democracy in a society where the government and economy are presently run strictly by and for the wealthy.
Stalin’s political legacy in the United States includes a fear of socialist revolution. Trotskyists and other left socialists who oppose Stalinism argue that we can have a much much better world if we fight for a system the has both the benefits of socialism and of workers’ democracy.
Stalin’s organizational legacy in the United States is the Communist Party (CPUSA). Their support for the Democrats was Stalin’s policy. That policy went against both the early Socialist Party they came out of and the Communist Party in the United States before Stalin. From Gorbachev to Stalin, that policy of supporting Democrats was never corrected in those many decades while the CPUSA dutifully followed the line given by Moscow. The conservative and repressive bureaucratic caste that Stalin put in power in the USSR by murdering the original leaders of the Russian Revolution actually maintained most of Stalin’s policies, despite denouncing Stalin. That’s why Trotskyists continued to call them and their world followers Stalinist.
The Communist Party in the 1980s quit running candidates in order to put their full support behind the Democrats. They serve to make it look like the Democrats are the opposite of their actions prove. Politically, left parties like the Communist Party who give their support to the Democrats are only serving to give left cover to the enemies of the working class. Yes, the CPUSA is part of the workers movement and has done some good things, like lead the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. But decades of Stalinist leadership has turned them useless on most questions of labor. They even supported the UFCW’s attacks on the Hormel Meatpackers in the 1980s while supporting Democratic governor Rudy Perpich who sent out the National Guard against the workers. Sure, work with the CP when they are willing to work on something useful, but I wouldn’t go searching for the lowest political denominator with them.
Obama is the chief executive of U.S. capitalism and its world imperialist system. As chief executive of that system he dutifully commits policies of mass murder, austerity, environmental degradation, etc. for the capitalists. While he is not a capitalist in the economic sense he is a millionaire, as everyone coming out of the Senate is, and he is a capitalist politician.
The Democrats and Republicans are playing a giant game of good cop bad cop with us, with Obama being extremely bad but the Republican candidates scaring people into supporting Democrats. Both parties are working together and financed by the same capitalists. Both parties are the paid agents of Wall Street, the banks, oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, austerity, unemployment, repression, student debt, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on climate change. Without organization around a political program that directly challenges the Democrats and Republican power will remain in the hands of the capitalists and their two parties and even progressive reforms will remain elusive.
I am part of a project working on a draft proposal for building a unified multi-tendency socialist party with a program for the Revolutionary Tendency within it. Small differences between small socialist parties with a single political line have kept us divided for too long. This project is sparking interest, but the draft proposal is not yet complete. People who are interested in reviewing it, giving input, and potentially signing on to the draft proposal can right me at steveargue2 [at] yahoo.com. Or to receive a completed version, it will be sent out on Liberation News https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
After taking power the Bolsheviks dealt with 16 invading imperialist armies, an imperialist economic blockade, and the murderous imperialist backed White Army that murdered 100,000 Jews in the Ukraine alone.
The victory of the Bolsheviks over the pro-war and pro-capitalist Menshevik government in 1917 was a world historic gain of the working class, as was the defeat of the White Army and imperialist invaders after. The defeat of the White Army saved countless millions of lives at the hands of anti-Semitic and anti-Communist butchers and saved the gains of the Russian Revolution.
The Russian Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky ended Russia's involvement in the inter-imperialist mass slaughter of World War I, brought about a sweeping land reform for the peasants, abolished capitalism and created a socialist system that was capable of turning one of the poorest countries in the world into an industrial powerhouse capable of smashing Nazi Germany and rebuilding after two major imperialist invasions to provide everyone with a guaranteed job, housing, education, and health care, brought national rights to oppressed minorities legalizing their languages and providing education in those languages while also giving their economies special help through the planned economy, and brought about big advances in women's rights and rights for homosexuals.
Internationally the Russian Revolution helped produce a movement that broke away from the opportunist and pro-capitalist Social Democrats who supported their own bourgeoisies in the inter-imperialist slaughter of World War I and who murdered Karl Leibnecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany. In the United States it also inspired the formation of the early multi-tendency Communist Party and corrected that party's earlier stance, inherited from the Socialist Party, of not putting enough emphasis on the question of Black oppression.
Stalin's political counter-revolution murdered the original leaders of the Russian Revolution and entrenched the power of a conservative and privileged bureaucracy. Some of the gains of the revolution were lost with that. Internationally the USSR no longer played a leading role for the working class because the bureaucracy preferred a policy of sabotaging revolutions in order to gain trade from capitalist countries. In the 1930s Stalin’s policies directly sabotaged the revolutions in Spain, Germany, and China. But one of several gains of the October Revolution that remained was the socialist planned economy that gave the USSR the industrial and political strength to smash Nazi Germany, a capitalist country that brought mass murder to a level of industrial production never seen before or since. The USSR rebuilt after that Nazi invasion devastated the economy and left 30 million citizens dead. They rebuilt with a socialist economy that guaranteed everyone a job, housing, education, and health care. While much of the international policy of the USSR under Stalin was counter-productive, there were a few good things they did. Besides smashing Nazi Germany and liberating Europe, the USSR helped countries like Vietnam and Cuba win their independence from U.S. imperialism, ending the imperialist slaughter of millions through military aid and helping them economically as well. Likewise, they tried to defeat U.S. imperialist intervention in Afghanistan, an intervention where billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to religious fanatics left a million people dead, toppled a pro-woman government, and put the Taliban in power.
Trotskyists defended the gains of the Russian Revolution from imperialist attacks and internal counter-revolution, most importantly defending the socialist planned economy. At the same time we called for a political revolution to sweep away the conservative and repressive Stalinist bureaucracy in power to bring about workers democracy and revolutionary internationalism.
In the time of Gorbachev, the fragility of the deformed workers' state in the USSR was a political question rooted in the privileges of the ruling bureaucracy and the repression the working class had suffered for so many decades. When Yeltsin carried out his disastrous capitalist counter-revolution he created a few wealthy capitalists. At the same time he eliminated guaranteed health care, education, and employment and caused life expectancy to drop by 10 years. Unfortunately, there was not a strong enough working class movement to stop him. This was due to decades of Stalinist repression. But Yeltsin's coup d'etate was a military operation that involved his sending out troops to shoot at protesters and those in the government opposed his coup. Instead of a collapse, it was a counter-revolution led by bureaucrats who thought they could get rich under a capitalist system.
Trotskyists opposed Yeltsin's capitalist counter-revolution as the disaster it was and instead advocated political revolution to defend the socialist planned economy while at the same time sweeping away the repressive Stalinist bureaucracy and creating a workers democracy. In the United States we need to both sweep away the capitalist system and create a workers democracy in a society where the government and economy are presently run strictly by and for the wealthy.
Stalin’s political legacy in the United States includes a fear of socialist revolution. Trotskyists and other left socialists who oppose Stalinism argue that we can have a much much better world if we fight for a system the has both the benefits of socialism and of workers’ democracy.
Stalin’s organizational legacy in the United States is the Communist Party (CPUSA). Their support for the Democrats was Stalin’s policy. That policy went against both the early Socialist Party they came out of and the Communist Party in the United States before Stalin. From Gorbachev to Stalin, that policy of supporting Democrats was never corrected in those many decades while the CPUSA dutifully followed the line given by Moscow. The conservative and repressive bureaucratic caste that Stalin put in power in the USSR by murdering the original leaders of the Russian Revolution actually maintained most of Stalin’s policies, despite denouncing Stalin. That’s why Trotskyists continued to call them and their world followers Stalinist.
The Communist Party in the 1980s quit running candidates in order to put their full support behind the Democrats. They serve to make it look like the Democrats are the opposite of their actions prove. Politically, left parties like the Communist Party who give their support to the Democrats are only serving to give left cover to the enemies of the working class. Yes, the CPUSA is part of the workers movement and has done some good things, like lead the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. But decades of Stalinist leadership has turned them useless on most questions of labor. They even supported the UFCW’s attacks on the Hormel Meatpackers in the 1980s while supporting Democratic governor Rudy Perpich who sent out the National Guard against the workers. Sure, work with the CP when they are willing to work on something useful, but I wouldn’t go searching for the lowest political denominator with them.
Obama is the chief executive of U.S. capitalism and its world imperialist system. As chief executive of that system he dutifully commits policies of mass murder, austerity, environmental degradation, etc. for the capitalists. While he is not a capitalist in the economic sense he is a millionaire, as everyone coming out of the Senate is, and he is a capitalist politician.
The Democrats and Republicans are playing a giant game of good cop bad cop with us, with Obama being extremely bad but the Republican candidates scaring people into supporting Democrats. Both parties are working together and financed by the same capitalists. Both parties are the paid agents of Wall Street, the banks, oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, austerity, unemployment, repression, student debt, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on climate change. Without organization around a political program that directly challenges the Democrats and Republican power will remain in the hands of the capitalists and their two parties and even progressive reforms will remain elusive.
I am part of a project working on a draft proposal for building a unified multi-tendency socialist party with a program for the Revolutionary Tendency within it. Small differences between small socialist parties with a single political line have kept us divided for too long. This project is sparking interest, but the draft proposal is not yet complete. People who are interested in reviewing it, giving input, and potentially signing on to the draft proposal can right me at steveargue2 [at] yahoo.com. Or to receive a completed version, it will be sent out on Liberation News https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
I've circulated your statement around and gotten some positive responses.
One response stated the obvious as well, "Bring it to GA! or the General Stike Meetings!"
I live in Santa Cruz and will not be able to do so myself. I don't know where you live or if you'll be able to do this. I'm suggesting that anyone who sees this and agrees with the suggestion of morning vs evening pickets raise this idea in the suggested bodies and circulate the idea as well. What I've circulated:
The following concern was shared with me:
Morning picket would be much better
by Union Activist
I'm concerned about the call to march on the Port of Oakland in the late afternoon instead of the early AM .
That's contrary to what's been done successfully in the past . Community pickets that ILWU #10 have honored have ALL BEEN IN THE EARLY MORNING NOT THE EVENING .So i think the goal should be to gather several hundred to set up a picket by 6 AM not Pm .
The Morning shift is usually far bigger and if that picket is successful of course thry to set up one for the evening .
But the Morning should be the priority The most recent example of this is the action against the loading/unloading of the Israeli Zim line ship last year.
Here is the Occupy Oakland site calander:
http://www.occupyoakland.org/calendar/
One response stated the obvious as well, "Bring it to GA! or the General Stike Meetings!"
I live in Santa Cruz and will not be able to do so myself. I don't know where you live or if you'll be able to do this. I'm suggesting that anyone who sees this and agrees with the suggestion of morning vs evening pickets raise this idea in the suggested bodies and circulate the idea as well. What I've circulated:
The following concern was shared with me:
Morning picket would be much better
by Union Activist
I'm concerned about the call to march on the Port of Oakland in the late afternoon instead of the early AM .
That's contrary to what's been done successfully in the past . Community pickets that ILWU #10 have honored have ALL BEEN IN THE EARLY MORNING NOT THE EVENING .So i think the goal should be to gather several hundred to set up a picket by 6 AM not Pm .
The Morning shift is usually far bigger and if that picket is successful of course thry to set up one for the evening .
But the Morning should be the priority The most recent example of this is the action against the loading/unloading of the Israeli Zim line ship last year.
Here is the Occupy Oakland site calander:
http://www.occupyoakland.org/calendar/
no one is dictating, just providing information so people can make the decision themselves.
I mean, it's happening, so your opinion, while worthwhile and well reasoned, may be irrelevant. The fact is that the occupiers are not hormonal youths. there are raging grannies, 30-somethings, union members, etc all occupying. In sf, the teamsters have been out as have teachers, nurses, machinists, etc etc. SEIU has signed on and others are joining. It's a solidarity issue. Yes, labor has had this struggle for years, but now they have momentum from the occupiers (like myself) who are willing to work for change, deep social and political change. Now's the time to participate, make your voice heard (which I appreciate you doing) and work for the change we want to see. If not, that's cool too, everyone is doing what they can to fix our world.
I mean, it's happening, so your opinion, while worthwhile and well reasoned, may be irrelevant. The fact is that the occupiers are not hormonal youths. there are raging grannies, 30-somethings, union members, etc all occupying. In sf, the teamsters have been out as have teachers, nurses, machinists, etc etc. SEIU has signed on and others are joining. It's a solidarity issue. Yes, labor has had this struggle for years, but now they have momentum from the occupiers (like myself) who are willing to work for change, deep social and political change. Now's the time to participate, make your voice heard (which I appreciate you doing) and work for the change we want to see. If not, that's cool too, everyone is doing what they can to fix our world.
The call for a morning shut down that "Union Activist" advocated here and I circulated has happened. I'm not saying we made it happen, but our voices may have played a part.
The Port of Oakland actually might be open. I got reports it was shut, including a statement that it was reported on NPR that it was shut down, and I jumped the gun. I'm seeing a contradictory report now from NBC that the port is open even though hundreds of workers did not show up. The pickets at the port are not scheduled until this evening although I had been advocating earlier pickets. If the port is not shut down now, it will be this evening.
Oakland General Strike a Success, but Cops Seriously Injure another Vet
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/06/18697923.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/06/18697923.php
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