Occupy Oakland Shuts Down The Docks

Image credit: Found it here

I bet Ian Welsh will be happy to read this, via Al Jazeera:

Thousands of protesters in Oakland, California, have shut down the city's port, the fifth busiest cargo facility in the United States, as they continued calls for a general strike to protest economic conditions and police brutality.

"At this time, maritime operations are effectively shut down at the Port of Oakland. Maritime area operations will resume when it is safe and secure to do so," a spokesman for the port said in a statement on Wednesday.

Protesters 'shut down' vital Oakland port

This is the sort of thing that will have to happen before any real progress is made. Until it's clear that losses will exceed profits, I can't imagine the folks who run things being particularly concerned about our plight.

I think you could say the real Occupy movement was born today.

UPDATE: James Ala has an interesting essay up at his place. The Cliff Notes version is that this has been building for a long time, and anyone who thinks that the Occupy movements are going away is seriously deluded.

I hope he's right, because it's something that has to happen. More importantly, it has to succeed if we are to remain a great power.