That's why your movement is doomed.

Without a unified front that actually centrally agrees to specific changes they want, they will get nothing.

And when you guys need to start reverting to violence and riots, how are you guys going to get the true 95% to agree with you?

Go ahead and gridlock the city down to a halt, you'll see your lives will not improve.


I witnessed the same kind of thing back in the 1980's and 1990's when Quebec tried to separate with Canada. The working poor French class chased away many of the rich English class with their referendums and riots. When the wealthy English with their investment capital left by the hundreds of thousands, the entire province descended into increased poverty that took over a decade to recover from. In the end, the poor working class didn't end up getting what they wanted, just increased poverty and a bunch of wealthy English people leaving.

What would have been dumb: a strike that shuts down nothing.

When you stop businesses and capital from being able to make a profit with riots and gridlocks.

That will only entice the businesses to shut down or take their capital elsewhere. How does this help Oakland residents in any way?

They really have to start organizing and taking this battle to Washington.

It will force those who remain into understanding that the community has an expectation that the government will serve the people.

The problem is that strikes rarely hold sympathy for a long time. While the community at large might agree with the aims of the 99%ers, shutting down the city will quickly turn a lot of them against the movement. Its an extremely EXTREMELY high risk move which significantly is effecting the actual 99% more than the 1%.

I mean i dont even get the logic of it at all. Seriously. What does the port have to do with wall street and the incestuous relationship between government and corporations?

Oh and Nazis are extreme right on the spectrum, not extreme left like the communists.

Ports exist in a posited realm without time or space.

Phill; the port is a symbol of goods flowing in from China. They shut it down at night when it was slower and only for a few hours and they even gave notice they were going to do it. It want really that disruptive, it was more symbolic.

lol if you think the general strike had anything to do with OWS. It was an action against the city for last weeks police action, which was due to Oscar Grant supporter violence and taken over the top by a police force who hates their mayor.

Period.

That's what you want to happen.

What will actually happen when the protestors gridlock / riot / cause violence is that businesses and the wealthy will simply take their capital and leave the area.

How does this help the 95%er who loses his job because businesses close down or investment capital flees the area? It took a long time for the working class of Quebec to realize that chasing away the rich English with violent riots / demonstrations / referendums just made them even poorer.

Keep it peaceful, organize, and take it to Washington. It's your only chance.

And on the credit were credit is due podium...

The OWS'ers who did participate did a great job, from what I saw on local tv, of keeping the masked troublemakers at bay and distancing themselves from them. For instance, one report showed video and masked Oscar Grant'ers gathering up dumpsters and blockading a street, after which, the OWS'ers (or other levelheaded people) uprighted the dumpsters and moved them out of the street.

I have no control over the movement. It is completely beyond my scope of authority. It would be nice if I could snap my fingers and focus the national angst at the most pragmatic goals. I can't, no one can.

I think gridlock is a great way to enact change. It has worked in the past and I think it can work here. It is like the people's filibuster. It's a last resort for when things are so far broken that the system cannot fix itself.

I'm not a Mike Clark that thinks the majority of OWS are bums.

They're good people with good intentions.

I'm afraid that without organization and concentrated goals the moderate ones will simply go back to work leaving the radicalists to have their way with the movement.

More gridlocks won't help your cause.

I mean, I WANT change to happen. I'm not happy with what's going on in Washington either. But change isn't going to happen when radicalists stage more and more gridlocks and borderline riots.

The movement really needs to work on a more defined message. Why was the port selected. Which business is it targeting. etc.

a nice generic statement is ok but when you start to actually strike agencies and shut down businesses there needs to be a developed theme. Otherwise it is going to appeear that the movement is against all business and all government and looking to cause economic harm. Which is when your going to lose support of the blue collar working man. To me the only thing this march did was mess with truck drivers, dock workers, cause property damage and make the movement appear to be run by a bunch of juvenile college kids.

Your nice generic theme has no relationship to the movements action that I can tell.

That's already been talked about. You think the dock workers are against it? lol ILWU is all for OWS.

http://news.yahoo.com/occupy-protest...161355762.html