I had been somewhat concerned at OccupyOakland’s call for a general strike, since failure to have a tangible impact would undermine rather than enhance the notion that the movement has power. A visible failure could easily produce a shift in the tone of ever-fickle press coverage.
But this first effort by an Occupation at flexing its muscles seems to have gone well. One indicator: the Financial Times took note of the strike, placing the story on the front page of its Web edition.
Key extracts:
As many as 5,000 protesters gathered in Oakland, California, for what organisers called the first general strike in the US since demonstrators shut down business and government operations in the same city in 1946.
Picketers on Wednesday blocked and pounded on the doors of bank branches and defaced ATMs and brought operations to a halt at the Port of Oakland, the fifth-busiest port in the US, in a demonstration aimed to expand on the broader Occupy Wall Street movement.
Note that 5,000 people is not all that many, but closing the port sends a big message.
No comments:
Post a Comment