By Steve Miller
When Occupy Oakland took over the plaza in front of City Hall, they renamed it “Oscar Grant Plaza” in honor of the man who was murdered by BART police in 2009. Young people put their bodies on the line to reclaim a public space that is increasingly denied to the victims of society.
Homeless people, who sleep every night separately and invisibly in downtown Oakland doorways, quickly joined the encampment. Unions responded by sending porta-toilets and thousands of meals. As a failing city, Oakland symbolizes the privatized future of the Race To The Bottom that the 1% offers to society… and everyone knows this.
Occupy Oakland soon reflected three distinct, but closely related, sections of the working class: the long-term homeless, the Youth who work temp jobs when they work at all, and organized labor. The encampment also strongly reflected the city’s multi-racial character. This dynamic, and contradictory, mix has driven the process ever since.
Actor Danny Glover addressed Occupy Oakland in mid-October with one of the great statements so far in the Occupy Movement. He called for a total re-imagining of what we mean by democracy, of work, of public education and what it means to be a human being.
“… it’s not only taking back our democracy. We have to remake it. We have to transform it. We have to build something better than that… It’s let us down. It’s failed us. It’s failed us in our homes. It’s failed us in our communities. It’s failed us state by state. But it’s also failed this fragile planet we live on, this fragile Mother Earth, which nourishes us.” (Search: YouTube, Danny Glover, Oakland)
The police attack on Occupy campers was seen around the world. Later that night, police continued firing tear gas into crowds of protestors and fractured the skull of Iraq Veteran, Scott Olsen, with a direct hit. Their goal was more than to disperse the Occupiers. It was to stop the process of Re-Imagining that has gripped the spirit of Americans and the world. (Editor’s note: As the People’s Tribune goes to press, the world is hearing about the brutal beating by Oakland police of another veteran, Kayvan Sabeghi.)
This attack was not just common police brutality. This was the New Police in action, a squad of 17 agencies that had been welded into a strike-force by the Homeland Security Agency as a part of its policy of militarizing the police across the country.
Rather than be intimidated, Occupiers called for the first General Strike in the US, since the one in Oakland, in 1946. Over twenty thousand people marched and rallied all day and shut down the Port of Oakland, the country’s 5th largest, by blocking access to the gates.
The Port represents the political power of the 1%. Though it produces billions of dollars in revenue a year, and in fact is the port of Silicon Valley, the Port is “legally separate” from the city, which gets nothing at all. The Port should be public space to benefit the people; since it’s not - shut it down!
The Battle of Ideas within the movement moves forward as people consider “Next Steps”. The Democratic Party seeks to tie the Occupations to the timid politics of incrementalism and begging that has so obviously failed. Movements self-organize around ideas.
Do we fight backwards to the old status quo, or do we fight forwards to a new system? Are we here to patch up the system? Or does the public have to seize the corporations, before they destroy society?
Do we continue to fight on the scattered fronts of single-issue politics, or do we unite the movement into a real political battle against the state?
The political independence of the 99% will grow from how these questions are answered.
The Occupy Oakland General Strike
Thousands of demonstratiors participaged in Oakland’s
General Strike that shut down the Port of Oakland,
the fifth busiest port in the U.S.
Photo/Austin-Long Scott
The Uprising of the 99%:
A Century After the Uprising of the 20,000, We Must Rise Again
A Century After the Uprising of the 20,000, We Must Rise Again
On October 5 Labor unions support Occupy Wall Street
with a massive rally and march. Retired garment workers
from Workers United, successor union to the ILGWU,
carried a banner and shirtwaists to symbolize the
Triangle fire, which galvanized the union movement over
100 years ago.
Photo/Roy Campolongo
By Andi Sosin and Joel Sosinsky
With Occupy Wall Street demonstrators encamped in New York City since September, and occupations developing nationwide, protesters are now encountering efforts from corporate media outlets and politicians to silence the occupiers’ voices and shut down their occupations. But demonstrators can be heartened by learning that over 100 years ago activism set a precedent for successful outcomes to solving social and economic problems. Positive changes did not happen swiftly, and did not come without darker moments, but ultimately change did come.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the robber barons of industry used their wealth and political power to oppress the American working class, workers all across the nation engaged in numerous strikes, wherein marchers took to the streets to demand change. In 1909, the power of worker solidarity became clear when New York City’s striking shirtwaist workers picketed outside garment factories. Their strike, called the Uprising of the 20,000, gained public sympathy, and when 146 mostly young immigrant female shirtwaist workers died in the infamous Triangle factory fire of 1911, the funeral procession brought over 400,000 people into the streets to mourn. In the Triangle fire’s aftermath, outrage turned into purpose, forcing politicians to heed the people’s will. New York State and other states passed laws that improved worker safety, prohibited child labor and instituted worker compensation systems. When the national economy collapsed during the Great Depression, unemployed workers raised their voices in frustration and anger. They camped out in “Hoovervilles” across the country, making themselves the evidence of the system’s failure. Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who witnessed the Triangle fire, was instrumental in passage of the many laws that ended the Depression, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Social Security Act, and the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, which authorized collective bargaining and the right to form and join a union. These New Deal laws were designed to end protests and industrial strife, and provide jobs. They created the American middle class, and established a social safety net for all, that is today in peril.
Since the end of World War II, technology has revolutionized industrial production, reducing the need for human labor. In the name of corporate profits, globalism, war and environmental plunder have decimated economic prospects and reduced
freedom for 99% of the American people. Unemployment, the burden of student loans, and the housing foreclosure crisis have taken place because an inhumane and corrupt capitalist system, facilitated by bought politicians, has allowed corporate speculation and corruption to ruin the US and world economies. Exposure of the unfairness and the wide disparity between the 99% who work for a living, and the 1% who possess most of the wealth, now prompts us to raise our voices in protest.
Occupy Wall Street makes it clear that its primary goal is to change an unfair economic system, and to reform politics so that the will of the people is done. Reform may be difficult to accomplish, but remembering the example of the outpouring of citizens’ ire following the Triangle fire that resulted in a strong labor movement and institution of our social safety net, affords a historical model of success. Taking to the streets in solidarity for nonviolent demonstrations, exposing corporate excesses and crimes, and organizing for political power to demand justice has a model in the actions taken by American workers over one hundred years ago. Although the struggle for democracy and a fair and just economic system is unending, it is a struggle that can and must be won by the 99% today.
With Occupy Wall Street demonstrators encamped in New York City since September, and occupations developing nationwide, protesters are now encountering efforts from corporate media outlets and politicians to silence the occupiers’ voices and shut down their occupations. But demonstrators can be heartened by learning that over 100 years ago activism set a precedent for successful outcomes to solving social and economic problems. Positive changes did not happen swiftly, and did not come without darker moments, but ultimately change did come.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the robber barons of industry used their wealth and political power to oppress the American working class, workers all across the nation engaged in numerous strikes, wherein marchers took to the streets to demand change. In 1909, the power of worker solidarity became clear when New York City’s striking shirtwaist workers picketed outside garment factories. Their strike, called the Uprising of the 20,000, gained public sympathy, and when 146 mostly young immigrant female shirtwaist workers died in the infamous Triangle factory fire of 1911, the funeral procession brought over 400,000 people into the streets to mourn. In the Triangle fire’s aftermath, outrage turned into purpose, forcing politicians to heed the people’s will. New York State and other states passed laws that improved worker safety, prohibited child labor and instituted worker compensation systems. When the national economy collapsed during the Great Depression, unemployed workers raised their voices in frustration and anger. They camped out in “Hoovervilles” across the country, making themselves the evidence of the system’s failure. Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who witnessed the Triangle fire, was instrumental in passage of the many laws that ended the Depression, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Social Security Act, and the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, which authorized collective bargaining and the right to form and join a union. These New Deal laws were designed to end protests and industrial strife, and provide jobs. They created the American middle class, and established a social safety net for all, that is today in peril.
Since the end of World War II, technology has revolutionized industrial production, reducing the need for human labor. In the name of corporate profits, globalism, war and environmental plunder have decimated economic prospects and reduced
freedom for 99% of the American people. Unemployment, the burden of student loans, and the housing foreclosure crisis have taken place because an inhumane and corrupt capitalist system, facilitated by bought politicians, has allowed corporate speculation and corruption to ruin the US and world economies. Exposure of the unfairness and the wide disparity between the 99% who work for a living, and the 1% who possess most of the wealth, now prompts us to raise our voices in protest.
Occupy Wall Street makes it clear that its primary goal is to change an unfair economic system, and to reform politics so that the will of the people is done. Reform may be difficult to accomplish, but remembering the example of the outpouring of citizens’ ire following the Triangle fire that resulted in a strong labor movement and institution of our social safety net, affords a historical model of success. Taking to the streets in solidarity for nonviolent demonstrations, exposing corporate excesses and crimes, and organizing for political power to demand justice has a model in the actions taken by American workers over one hundred years ago. Although the struggle for democracy and a fair and just economic system is unending, it is a struggle that can and must be won by the 99% today.
Arrested with Occupy Sacramento
By Tracie Rice-Bailey
From morning till night, police stayed in and around us as we gathered in Cesar Chavez Park. At midnight fourteen of us chose to OCCUPY the park in an attempt to exercise our First Amendment freedom to peacefully assemble. The Riot Squad, in full riot gear, with clubs in hand, one holding a drawn weapon, circled the group of 14 protesting Occupiers. I watched as protesters were arrested, one by one. I was cuffed and taken to 9th Street, where we were booked in the street, with photos taken by Polaroid, each with a number at the bottom. Then they took us in a van to the County Jail. From the holding room, we were taken and fingerprinted and then taken to the nastiest room I had seen in ages, with toilet paper and empty rolls on the floor and a filthy sink. The floor was cement and cold to try to rest on. In the morning, I was with the first group to be released, and was thankful to be free again. Occupy Sacramento at Cesar Chavez Park has continued every day, with rallies, marches, teach-ins, music and the arts, and donated food. We were all glad to be released in the morning— freedom is a beautiful thing, and our City is trying to deny us our constitutional freedoms.
Photo on right: Tracie Rice-Bailey
Photo Credit/Sandy Perry
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