Longshore Workers Honor Picket Line, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper in Oakland (tags)
This can be an important first step toward the mobilization of workers power to shut down the war machine, but that requires a sharp struggle against the bourgeois politics of the antiwar groups and union officialdom. The OEA calls for money for schools not for war, as if it were a matter of budget priorities, and the PAC poster made a social-patriotic pitch to “Bring the Troops Home Now, and give them the care they need.” Such “peace is patriotic” rhetoric is a staple of the UPFJ, but all the antiwar coalitions make similar appeals to garner support from Democratic Party liberals. Revolutionaries and class-conscious workers, in contrast, emphasize that this imperialist war must be opposed by class war.
Oakland antiwar protest gets ugly (tags)
OAKLAND, California (CNN) -- Police used "sting balls," wooden projectiles and bean bags Monday to control a crowd of about 600 antiwar demonstrators attempting to block two gates leading to a large shipping company at the Port of Oakland.