Oakland Picket Successful

I LOVE IT!

As a Portlander who was at the Wednesday action to prevent the Cielo de San Francisco from unloading, I say WAY TO GO to y'all for continuing the fight down there in the Bay Area. We are keeping the Portland Indymedia site up-to-date with details of your action there so people here will be sure to see how well it's going. Solidarity!

You're just hurting innocent people going about their business - this shipping company has nothing to do with police brutality in Genoa or the Berlusconi Government. The vast majority of Italians do not support what the authorities did during the G8. Where do you stop? Have you given up drinking Italian wine or wearing Italian clothes? And if you have, is that really going to help? Italia Line is just one of many Italian ship operating companies serving America.

the poor, poor shipping company...

Anyone know where Italia ships berth in Long Beach. I was in Oakland yesterday and am now hear in Long Beach and would love to hook up with people planning to picket the docks here if it's in the next couple days

Why this ship?

This is what the flyer that was being handed out to people at the picket said:

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The ship we are targeting, the Cielo di San Francisco, is managed by a company called Italia Di Navigation. The company was privatised in 1998 to the detriment of workers and to the benefit of its owners, who have close personal ties to the right wing government of Italy that directed the police actions in Genoa.

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This is not a boycott of Italian goods per se. Blocking this ship sends an effective message to the Italian Government that while Bush might not have condemned the violence of the paramilitary police, there are plenty of people in this country who do. People will not be silent while G8 protesters remain in prison.

The ship is being made example of.

...to make a government listen than hurt that countries rich?

At this point i think it makes sense to target companies and their bottom line. If they feel enough $$ pain they may lean on the Italian govt to ensure what happened in Genoa with the facist cops doesn't happen again.

I was listening to an old Dick Gregory lp from the 70s a few months ago. In it he talks about having a network of people who do things similar to this. For example, saying to the record companies, "we're not buying any more of your music until x y and z happen." you can bet if they felt actual pain they'd use the same leverage they currently apply to govt officials to get x y and z to happen so people buy music again.

that's a thought anyway.

hurting innocent people. wait a holier than though second.
How else are we to hold the Italian facists police accountable for their midnight raids and actions on the school & the imc spaces, the murder of Carlos G. and the bloody people in the streets, and the remianing people in prison? The G8 summit was about making trade flow slicker and greasing the industry wheels to put money in the fatcat's pockets. This sends a clear message to the top in Italy, that people saw through the corporate media bullshit making the protestors out to be the bad guys. The bad guys are the cops and the G8 higher ups using the blue collar workers to further propagate their agendas and build up their trust accounts. The fact that the dock workers honor the picket lines show that they have integrity and morals. Unlike the cops who just take orders and smash peoples heads in while they sleep. A few days of inconvience for the honest workers, is nothing compared to those who sit in jail presently and face brutality. We as humans need to step up when our brothers and sisters are being punished for speaking out against un-democratic mtgs. being held in secracy.

Your reaction to our demonstration is reminiscent of similar sentiments expressed in response to boycotts against So. African goods during Apartheid and Chilean goods during the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet. There are occasions in which violations of human rights are so egregious and outrageous demand a response. The ships we picketed are owned in part by the Italian government. We demonstrated to block their unloading to send a message to the Berlusconi government that there will be a cost as a consequence of the action of his uniformed thugs. The gross violation of human rights in Genoa deserve the condemnation of all those who value the right to protest against corporate globalization.

Defense of those rights trumps the property interests of the stevedoring company. Under the ILWU contract, once the arbitrator ruled that our picketline constituted a sufficient hazard to the health and safety of the dockers, those longshoremen who were prevented from working continued to be paid until the company released them. It is unfortunate that you are more concerned with the profits that were sacrificed than the life of Carlo Guiliani and the rights of hundreds of demonstrators who were brutalized at the hands of the Italian government.

The Cielo Blockade was broken in LA.

Read the story at the above link