Occupy Oakland General Strike: What Are Protesters Demanding?
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Among the day's events, protesters will march on banks, participate in teach-ins and try to close the Port of Oakland this evening.
According to USA Today, however, there are already unconfirmed reports that the Port of Oakland, which is the fifth busiest in the country, has already been shutdown.
[Update: The port is confirmed closed as of Wednesday evening.]
The Los Angeles Times has more on the day's happenings: "Wednesday's events began with a celebratory air, with some attendees in clown costumes and a wide range of ages represented. Rallies and marches were planned on issues pertaining to the Occupy movement's concern over "the 99%" -- those who have increasingly struggled in an economy that has simultaneously benefited Wall Street and the wealthiest 1% of individuals and corporations."
According to Oakland officials, about 5% of the city employees did not show up to work on Wednesday.
The demonstrations on Wednesday come following a call for general strike last week by The General Assembly of Occupy Oakland, the governing body of the protesters. However, as CNN noted, despite the vast majority of the governing body voting in favor of the strike, it is still not entirely clear what exactly the group is actually demanding.
According to the group's proposal, which is posted on the Occupy Oakland website:
We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.
We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.
All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.
The group called for a strike after a police crackdown on October 25, which resulted in the injury of Iraq War Veteran Scott Olsen.
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We are asking for:
Free Markets - free to fail or succeed, break up the TBTFs
Honest Money
Constitutional constraints on ALL our institutions
Liberation of small business - Tax, regulations smothering.
End to forcing Americans to compete with $12/day Chinese(or whomever) labor
A presence in enough industries to give our citizens a broad selection of job types.
An end to hatchet agencies: IRS, FED
An end to Rule By Unelected Bureaucrats, Czars etc
Audit the Federal Reserve...
Everyone is asking is it the Banks, is it Wall Street, is it the Government, is it the Federal Reserve, give me a break...its all of them...it's corruption and cronyism across the board...and its systemic...Get rid of monopolies- To Big To Fail- for who...Bring back the Glass Steagall Act...re instate our Bill of Rights and leave our Constitution alone... Investigate the Banks and all of their Subsidiaries and bring charges against them ... Wage Disparity is outrageous in this country..no wonder so many are angry... End Tax Loopholes... Tax the Filthy Rich according to their haul... if they had to pay their fair share they might be more in the mood to even things out...End Off Shore accounts... We need more transparency in this country not more secrets...
What Are Protesters Demanding?
You can stop asking this question. It misses the point completely. We are not demanding anything. Making demands would be pointless when there is no left one to hear the demands. We're not making demands. We are changing things.
These occupations are not for the benefit of the corporate-owned politicians and these occupations are not for the benefit of the corporations that control our government. This is an uprising. This is the great coming-together. it's the gathering.
This is about us. It's as simple as that.
We're not demanding that politicians or corporations change their ways; they can't do that; that's impossible. We're not making demands. We are making change. We are going to evict corporate owned politicians and the corporations and special interest groups that control them. We are going to ammend the constitution to let all human citizens have an equal voice by booting all corporate and other non-human money from the political process and force government to work for the interest of human people.
Demanding this of government is pointless since government is owned and controlled by corporate and special-interest money. No demands are being made, but change is on the way.
XXVI
What we want is for the 1% to acknowledge their poor stewardship of America and it's ideals.
To demonstrate in radically clear way that they totally embrace the concept of "one for all and all for one"
That they develop new economic metrics to manage the financial and business institutions of America.(not profit based only.)
That they create an environment where all able bodied Americans can be educated and have the opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness.
Basically speaking you want to overthrow the government and establish a communist regime. Communism has NEVER worked.
lol