Category: News & Current Events

A Contract is a Contract: Clarifying the ILWU/EGT Outcome in Longview

by Chris Lowe A contract is a contract… In a previous item in The Occupier, Lester Macgurdy argued that we should not exaggerate the victory achieved by ILWU Local 21 in Longview in their struggle against union-busting and scab labor employed by EGT/Bunge. Nor should we overblow Occupy’s achievement in affecting the outcome, lest we…

Harvard Community Protests Library Cut

This article is from the Occupied Media news wire. It was originally published over at the Boston Occupier. by Julie Walsh On the evening of Thursday, February 16, a circle of about forty picketers marched outside Harvard University’s Lamont Library, chanting and waving signs in an intermittent drizzle. The group had gathered to protest the…

Why Prison is Profitable

by Ahjamu Umi I wrote my Master’s Thesis on the politics of imprisonment and comparative economics. The imprisonment portion of the 70 page research centered on the state of California, where I lived at the time, and the 160,000 people who are imprisoned there. My research confirmed the obvious facts. Eight out of ten people…

Speak Out Against Chemical Weapons

By Rochelle Saliba If you showed up at a seminal Occupy Portland moment—eviction day, Shemanski, Jamison—you either were a witness to, or the victim of, tactics currently being deployed by our local police state. Some people bristle at the notion that Portland does indeed constitute a police state. Portlanders, like most Americans, are understandably shaky…

Portland Charter Review Commission to Take Up Police Brutality Issues

by Mungen Cakes Regardless which way your pleasure tends on the question of police accountability (FTP vs Peace and Love, man) if you had the chance to take weapons out of po-po hands would you take it? If you had the chance to ensure your friends, your brothers, your sisters, were never sprayed with chemical…

Occupy and ILWU Declare Victory as Contract Finalized with EGT

by Cate Patricolo After tense months of speculation, Occupy organizers finally declare victory, as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Export Grain Terminal (EGT) operating at Local Port 21 in Longview, WA have finalized a collective bargaining contract. The contract was signed by representatives of both parties on February 10, 2012, and…

Occupy Portland Marches Against War

by Adam Rothstein On February 12th, Occupy Portland and allies came together to protest the next war, before it even started. The event was billed as “March and Rally to Stop the War of the 1%”. In recent months the rhetoric of aggression towards Iran by the United States has stepped up, with military exercises…