Anti-capitalists shut the Port of Oakland for a day

Questions are being asked by those affected as to why they, the 99%, should be made to suffer for the greed and incompetence of the 1%. Even some Occupy activists are reportedly concerned that their actions are too confrontational with a potential for violence, detracting from Occupy’s stated intention of narrowing the chasm between rich and poor.

“Support is one thing,” Robert McEllrath, president of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union, wrote to his members last week. “Outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another and one that is destructive to our democratic process.”

The Occupy Wall Street movement is engaged in planned protests against ports on the West Coast used by Walmart and Goldman-Sachs that has a 3% minority interest in SSA Marine, one of Oakland’s terminal operators. It had called for “Shutdown Wall Street on the Waterfront” protests, hoping the day of demonstrations would cut into the profits of the corporations that run the docks and send a message that their movement was not over.