Wave upon wave… 30 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, Sex / Reproductive Health, The Battle for New Orleans.57 comments
Hurricane Alex delays Gulf oil clean-up efforts
A containment boom is placed along a beach in Elmer’s Island, Louisiana as efforts to clean the beach from effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill arehalted due to bad weather. Hurricane Alex disrupted the BP oil spill clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico as the storm gathered strength and was expected to make landfall.… Read more »
(AFP/Getty Images/Joe Raedle)
hmmm they don’t mention that Elmer’s Island is FEDERALLY protected beach… public land. Or, I should say, previously open to the public.
HOWEVER, after a few days of unfettered access following the explosion of Deep Water Horizon, a truck from the sheriff’s office appeared, parked at the single road turn-off leading to EI, telling media and others, locals too, that if they wanted access they had to go to a BP center and APPLY.
Glory in our freedom. To be serfs.
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I snagged this directly from a thread at The Oil Drum… a handy comment from someone shut-in today and thus spending some productive time looking at Corexit and its banning in the UK:
[new] k3d59 on June 30, 2010 – 5:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I brought you all a present. Have to wait for the weather to improve to go outside, so I spent the day researching previously discussed TOD topics. Ever wonder why Corexit was banned in the UK? Here’s excerpts from the documents of the entity that is responsible for monitoring and approval over there. BTW, note that the Rocky Shore Test used an exposure period of six hours followed by rinsing. That’s not even close to what’s going on in the Gulf. Brits They have a nice way of handling bioremediation products too. EPA could take lessons. All protocols are on the Marine Management site as are the results for each product approved for use in UK.
Oil spill treatment products approved for use in the United Kingdom
All products approved after 1 April 1996 have been required to pass both the Sea/Beach and Rocky Shore Toxicity Tests. Any products coming up for renewal that have only passed the Sea/Beach toxicity test in the past are required, before they can be renewed, to pass the Rocky Shore Test also.
The following products have been removed from the list of approved products because they did not pass the Rocky Shore Test when submitted for renewal:
Chemkleen OSDA JAC (removed from list 21/01/1998)
****Corexit 9527 (removed from list 30/07/1998)
Corexit 9500 (removed from list 30/07/1998)****Sea Test
“This test is based on the premise that if oil treatment products are correctly applied to an oil slick at sea,marine organisms will be exposed to a mixture of oil and product, rather than to a suspension or solution of product alone. The test therefore compares the toxicity of oil dispersed under standard conditions of mechanical agitation, with that of the same amount of oil treated with the product in question under the same conditions of mechanical agitation.
Research has shown that concentrations of oil especially dispersed oil) under slicks reduce rapidly in the first few hours (Cormack, 1977). It was, however, technically difficult and unrealistic in a routine andreproducible laboratory test to reproduce this phenomenon. Therefore, it was decided to base the test on the exposure of a marine organism to a fixed concentration for a fixed period.”Rocky Shore Toxicity Test
“The intertidal zone is of great value both in amenity and ecological terms. Toxic effects of beached oil treatment(dispersant spraying etc.) are likely to have only limited impact on commercial fisheries e.g. cockles etc., on sandy beaches and will be relatively benign on dynamic pebble beaches where there is good drainage and a relatively impoverished species community. Therefore,for these environments (i.e. sandy/pebble amenity beaches) it is assumed that a product passing the Sea Test will be of an acceptably low risk. However, the death of grazing organisms (e.g. winkles and limpets)that inhabit rocky shores can lead to a much more significant deleterious ecological change due to extensive uncontrolled growth of seaweed. Consequently a toxicity test was developed using a typical intertidal grazing organism, the common limpet (Patella vulgata L.).
“…When products are used to clean oil from beaches,animals are exposed to very different conditions to that experienced at sea. Both oiled and unoiled animals may be exposed to neat product and left exposed until they are washed by the next incoming tide or the use of water hoses. The Rocky Shore toxicity test for all dispersants and bioremediation agents has therefore been based on these exposure conditions…
“Preliminary tests in the laboratory showed that the mortality of limpets exposed to oil is high and the detection of a toxic effect due to the product over and above that of the oil would be difficult and less accurate than determination of the effect of the product alone. Additionally, a product is likely to be applied over wide areas of shore and the evaluation of a particular product should also take into account the effect of the product on those parts which are un-oiled as well as those which are oiled. Therefore, the test finally adopted was designed to assess the effect of application of the product on un-oiled limpets. The amounts of product applied to the test organism were based on the density of application likely to be encountered in practice. Similarly, the test sought to simulate the initial exposure to a product for an ***average period of 6 h followed by successive tidal rinsing***. In order to compensate for seasonal variations in the susceptibility of the test species, the effects of a standard oil alone were also assessed…”
Apparently tar balls — from whatever source — have hit Texas beaches… and at today’s presser Admiral Allen somehow already knows it is seepage from the Keys.
Ex-ray eyes! Mind reading! He tele-ported! Communication with the shell fish down in the Keys…! A great big sea shell called him up!! E-mailed him! One of the Hemingway cats told him! The coral soon to be under threat told him!
He just knows.
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THIS via the People mag for politics… gave me a laugh. Calling him on his hypocrisy.
Gay soldiers subpoena Obama
The gay soldiers arrested outside the White House protesting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will annouce today that they’re demanding that President Obama testify in their trial on minor civil disobedience charges.
Their novel argument: Obama himself called on gay rights advocates to pressure him, so they were just following orders.“Don’t Ask” has energized gay rights activists frustrated with the White House’s deliberate pace, even as Democratic leaders are frustrated with continued protests, as repeal is on track for next year.
The subpoena in the defense of Lieutenant Dan Choi and Captain James Pietrangelo’s arrest [….]
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President Obama, accompanied by Mayor John Dickert, tries a pecan kringle during an unscheduled stop at O and H Bakery in Racine, Wis., Wednesday, June 30. [AP Photo/Charles Dharapak]
Oh just have a kringle and shut up. Be happy…
Could it possibly look angrier? 29 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans.74 comments
Oil clouds the surface of Barataria Bay near Port Sulpher, Louisiana [Sean Gardner/Getty Images]
Or more like a bloom of cancer?
I don’t know that anyone has the heart for it… but I left the gallery of 20 photos at the Guardian at a section of several images of Barataria Bay and Bay Jimmy in Louisiana… and they are so very sad.
The battle, what there was of it, was lost. Has been lost. Is being lost…
I had almost not opened the gallery, feeling it might be national propaganda for BP, even at a quasi left media resource…
At the same time I am looking at the pictures of bits of soaked boom and masses of oil, deep thick sludge and tiny hoses, etc… film of Haley Barbour is on my TV, saying he has to be ”honest” (!) there is not enough boom, nor skimmers, for all that is “headed north”.
Of course, “north” is where he been, for weeks. Whether Dallas, DC, Central Park (yes, with the missus), other points N.. at R fundraisers for his supposed run for pretzel.
I say he is just dropping in on the national bag men.
Biden and Mabus, the former MS gov who is Ob’s part time Czar for the oil, are on the coast today. Not that it matters much, full or part-time, I read yesterday Durbin wants Ob to appoint a WH Czar for the Chinese carp that are invading the Great Lakes.
More toadies. With titles. And collection plates.
Line them all up, with Haley, and punch their lights out.
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Cracking heads… 27 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, NORCOM, The Battle for New Orleans.21 comments
Protesters demonstrate during demonstrations
Protesters demonstrate in front of a line-up of riot police during demonstrations in Toronto Saturday, June 26, 2010, as the G20 Summit got underway.… (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Oh yeah, so scary. Obviously it was not all sandals, drums and tutus… but come on Toronto.
I saw that the VP of Boeing was there cheering them on. “Them” being the boychicks and two chicklets (Merkel, Kirchener…did Gillard even go?) who ostensibly run the world. FOR the Boeing suits.
So, basically, we had the G-8 and G-20 conflab of waiters and waitresses, there, in a huddle to take orders.
Something they do just as well at home in the provided mansions.
Etc.
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I caught an extended caller last night on our local talk radio… I admit I am no longer energetic enough to google up and plow thru reports on HB – – – -, the bill that has bounced back and forth between H and S, and has to do with extending Unemployment payments to the long term unemployed (as it is characterised)… Currently it sits tagged onto a mess of a bill. I did read that Olympia Snowe (you know, horrors, a R… of course from the officially designated ”moderate” NE) has formally (by letter to Reid) suggested that Unemployment benefits be addressed in a stand alone bill.
However this caller, who HAS been tracking the bill said the current reality is NOT just that those at the full extension of Unemployment need it continued and are left bereft, but for now, unless you are inside the course of either the initial 26 weeks, or in the course of receiving benefits thru a program that extends it for 13 or 6 weeks, or any of the various other lengths… YOU ARE CUT OFF.
It is not just people who have exhausted the full (current) 99 weeks.
Absolutely horrifying.
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Something worth hoping for… reading around, as Alex waxes and wanes in the Western Gulf, I see some commentary that if the oil drenched coastal areas can get rain, with no wind to drive the oil inland or deeper into the marshes, the effect MAY be a dilution, a flushing.
I’ll extend a little hope on that one.
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It’s not “chocolate milk” anymore… 27 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, Mexico, The Battle for New Orleans.26 comments
Oil being “corraled” at the surface with fireproof boom, then ignited. Photo courtesy Dr. Oscar Garcia-Pineda – via SkyTruth.
Dr. Oscar Garcia-Pineda of Florida State University has been out in the Gulf this week on the research vessel Brooks McCall. He’s collecting samples and observations of the BP oil slick, and will compare results with simultaneous acquisitions of aerial remote sensing overflights being conducted by NASA. We at SkyTruth are also collecting near-simultaneous satellite imagery to assist this effort. We hope to get a better understanding of how well aerial and satellite remote sensing are detecting oil at (or near) the surface.
Oscar sent us a stunning series of photographs taken on June 22 near “Ground Zero” in the Gulf, the site of the leaking Macondo well, showing the cluster of response vessels there, and the collection and burning of oil. You can see them all in SkyTruth’s Deepwater Horizon Blowout gallery (look for the photos with “FSU Sampling Cruise” in the title).
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Thanks to comments at The Oil Drum, where posters took a timely peek at Gene Taylor, US representative for Bay St Louis, Mississippi. Yes, that fellow who on May 1 declared the “spill” not so bad, and like “chocolate milk”. He also said it was “not Armageddon”. It was some small comfort reading the old article, the thread in the May 1 report hated him with a passion.
Don’t worry, the Democrats have no corner on brain power equal to fried okra… from the same report, a R buddy, representing Tupelo, was even more specific.
What shits lead us:
Earlier Saturday, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Tupelo, said at a news conference in Fountainbleu that once the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is under control, and wildlife and wetlands are secure, the federal government will be asking BP Plc some tough questions.
“Clearly, they haven’t gotten the job done, but I don’t want to point fingers,” Wicker said. “I think it’s important that we take this like Mississippians do — analytically and responsibly with resolve, purpose and determination. There are some allegations on a Washington level that the response wasn’t quick enough. I’m not ready to say that. At this point, I want to get the flow of the oil stopped and keep it away from the shorelines. There will be a time for the serious questions.”
Well, GT, long beloved of the orange pasties at Dkos and also beloved of the old Christian Coalition (do they still coalite? Or did they dry up and blow away?) took another fly over.
No skimmers in sight as oil floods into Mississippi waters
GULFPORT, Miss. — A morning flight over the Mississippi Sound showed long, wide ribbons of orange-colored oil for as far as the eye could see and acres of both heavy and light sheen moving into the Sound between the barrier islands. What was missing was any sign of skimming operations from Horn Island to Pass Christian.
U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor got off the flight angry.
“It’s criminal what’s going on out there,” Taylor said minutes later. “This doesn’t have to happen.”
A scientist onboard, Mike Carron with the Northern Gulf Institute, said with this scenario, there will be oil on the beaches of the mainland.
“There’s oil in the Sound and there was no skimming,” Carron said. “No coordinated effort.”
So… not spilled chocolate milk anymore? He’s probably fishing for hush money, from BP or whoever… but …
Taylor slipped a note to a fellow passenger.
It said: “I’m having a Katrina flashback. I haven’t seen this much stupidity, wasted effort, money and wasted resources, since then.”
Back on land in Gulfport, Taylor let loose.
“A lot of people are getting paid to say, ‘Look! There’s oil’ and not doing anything about it,” Taylor said. “There shouldn’t be a drop of oil in the Sound. There are enough boats running around.
“Nobody’s in charge,” Taylor said. “Everybody’s in charge, so no one’s in charge.
“If the president can’t find anyone who can do this job,” he said, “let me do it.”
He’s having flashbacks.
BTW, our local FOX affiliate did a segment from Bay of Campeche Mexico, where Ixtoc I oil washed up 30+ years ago. Killed the oysters. There are still oysters, but inedible. They very surprisingly taste like…. oil. AND, in that part of coastal Mexico, they are expecting Deep Water Horizon oil to hit them by Fall.
The Go ‘Round is not so Merry.
And, how’s that war against the oil going? And all the other wars? Secret wars too? CIA wars? Aerial bombardment wars? Border wars?
Ob? Snob? Knob? Well, Knob will be on the Gulf coast on Tuesday. Ready to helpful, no doubt, which will mean running that mouth of his…. What utter shits lead us.
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Is that oil!? 25 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.55 comments
Governor Charlie Crist and Barack Obama at Casino Beach, Pensacola, Florida, June 15, 2010 [Jim Young/Reuters]
Is it headed here? Who’s in charge? Shouldn’t somebody be doing something?
(The gulls on the beach were listening…)
Just hearing on the news, Thad Allen saying they have a “very robust hurricane contingency plan”.
HOUSTON (Reuters) – With a storm threatening to disrupt oil-siphoning efforts at BP Plc’s blown-out Gulf of Mexico well, the U.S. Coast Guard on Friday said collection efforts would be suspended five days before the forecast onset of gale-force winds.
A tropical disturbance over the western Caribbean could deal a big setback to efforts by BP to contain oil gushing from the well, estimated by the U.S. government at up to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) per day.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the U.S. government’s point man on the oil spill, said it would be necessary five days before gale force winds are forecast to arrive to take down operations involving ships and other equipment siphoning some of the oil spewing from BP’s ruptured deep-sea well.
During this period, the oil could flow unchecked from the ruptured well into the sea for up to 14 days, Allen said.
The U.S. National Weather Service defines gale force winds as 39 mph to 54 mph. When referring to gale force winds, Allen mentioned “about 40 knots,” which is 46 mph.
“Our threshold to begin taking action is 120 hours before gale force winds are forecasted,” Allen said.
Two oil-capture systems siphon oil from the leak to a drillship and a service rig a mile above the well at the water’s surface. Both use fixed pipes that require days to disconnect and allow the vessels to move out of the path of a storm, officials have said.
The report goes on to say it now has a 70% chance of increasing in power…
Currently a Tropical Depression #1, but expected to move to Tropical Storm over the next 6 – 12 hours…
I did see one projection that shows it moving past the Yucatan, to Mexico, Texas. And it could break up over the Yucatan, as well…
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BI picks up a report from OilPrice.com. I read it (OP) referred to as a hyperbolic site… hmm this seems pretty straightforward, restrained even.
[T]he winds of a hurricane are so strong that the normal interface between ocean and atmosphere disappears. The winds begin to generate large waves. Spray is blown off the top of the waves. That spray mixes with the air so that after a short time there is no real boundary between what is ocean and what is the atmosphere. If a large hurricane moves over the spill, this chaotic mixture of water and air will inevitably also contain oil. The oil will become airborne and travel with the hurricane.
When hurricanes make landfall the winds push the ocean onto the land in what is called a storm surge. The height of the surge on land is dependent on several factors. The strength of the wind and the rate of forward motion of the storm is critical as to how much water is forced up onto the land. The diameter of the hurricane will also determine how much water is blown inland. The wider the storm the more water is pushed in and over a greater area. If the water is shallow offshore, the surge will be deeper on land. Naturally, the elevation of the land is important as well. The water off the gulf coast is shallow. The elevation inland is only a few feet. This area is prime territory for devastating and deeply penetrating storm surges.
Should a major hurricane push the spill towards the gulf coast there will be nothing that can be done to stop it. No amount of planning or engineering will help. No number of visits to the gulf by the president or any other official will stop the inevitable. The storm surge will drive the water and the oil miles inland. Everything in its path will be coated in a greasy bath of crude. Even the wind may have oil in it. In New England, I have seen hurricanes and tropical storms that have blown salt spray many miles inland from the coast. The leaves of the trees eventually turn brown and fall off. In the case of the gulf it will be oil that will spray the trees, buildings and everything else in the way. How far inland this oily mess will blow is anyone’s guess but it will be unprecedented in its economic and environmental damage. snip
Carry on… The Unified Command has it all in hand.
Read more: Business Insider report from Oil Price
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On a related matter: what Our Leaders do on their day jobs. I am so tired of meddling, misguided, interfering “reformers”, I could spit.
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Thursday… 24 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems.58 comments
Reputed to be 6,000 years old, the world’s largest baobab tree stands proudly at Sunland Nurseries in Limpopo, South Africa [Jonathan Brady/EPA]
Whew. Sometimes it seems there is too much news, too much tumult… but NOW it really is too much at once. And, nothing looks like it ends soon.
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Let’s all faint! 23 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, WAR!.35 comments
U.S. Central Commander Gen. David Petraeus
FILE – In this June 15, 2010 file photo, U.S. Central Commander Gen. David Petraeus is surrounded by staff after appearing to pass out on Capitol Hillin Washington, while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. President Barack Obama has named Gen. Petraeus to succeed Gen. Stanley McChrystal as top war commander in Afghanistan (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Somewhere in the Rose Garden comments Ob said we are going to succeed.
At what I wonder.
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So — how long… 22 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Afghanistan War, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War, Pakistan, WAR!.65 comments
President Obama swats at a fly buzzing around his head as he delivers remarks on health care reform, Tuesday, June 22. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
…to Wikileaks letting loose with the film taken at the Garani massacre? 2009, possibly a hundred killed, women and children among them. And clearly on the Foundling’s watch.
From the RS article:
[I]t doesn’t hurt that McChrystal was also extremely successful as head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite forces that carry out the government’s darkest ops. During the Iraq surge, his team killed and captured thousands of insurgents, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. “JSOC was a killing machine,” says Maj. Gen. Mayville, his chief of operations. McChrystal was also open to new ways of killing. He systematically mapped out terrorist networks, targeting specific insurgents and hunting them down – often with the help of cyberfreaks traditionally shunned by the military. “The Boss would find the 24-year-old kid with a nose ring, with some fucking brilliant degree from MIT, sitting in the corner with 16 computer monitors humming,” says a Special Forces commando who worked with McChrystal in Iraq and now serves on his staff in Kabul. “He’d say, ‘Hey – you fucking muscleheads couldn’t find lunch without help. You got to work together with these guys.’ ”
Even in his new role as America’s leading evangelist for counterinsurgency, McChrystal retains the deep-seated instincts of a terrorist hunter. To put pressure on the Taliban, he has upped the number of Special Forces units in Afghanistan from four to 19. “You better be out there hitting four or five targets tonight,” McChrystal will tell a Navy Seal he sees in the hallway at headquarters. Then he’ll add, “I’m going to have to scold you in the morning for it, though.” In fact, the general frequently finds himself apologizing for the disastrous consequences of counterinsurgency. In the first four months of this year, NATO forces killed some 90 civilians, up 76 percent from the same period in 2009 – a record that has created tremendous resentment among the very population that COIN theory is intent on winning over. In February, a Special Forces night raid ended in the deaths of two pregnant Afghan women and allegations of a cover-up, and in April, protests erupted in Kandahar after U.S. forces accidentally shot up a bus, killing five Afghans. “We’ve shot an amazing number of people,” McChrystal recently conceded. snip
What next, I wonder.
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Just a thread… 22 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.40 comments
Oil slicks move toward sunbathers lining the coast of Gulf Shores, Ala., on June 5. Its beaches are closed to swimming, but Alabama’s Tourism Department recently unveiled an ad — funded by BP — to assure travelers that the area is safe. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
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Sunday Blockade 20 June 2010
Posted by marisacat in California / Pacific Coast, Cuba, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Israel/AIPAC, Viva La Revolucion!.23 comments
Victory at Oakland port: Israeli ship blocked from unloading — First ever boycott at US port in solidarity with Palestine
Full text by Gloria La Riva, from the only report Google News offered up…at Party for Socialism and Liberation dot com:
In a historic and unprecedented action today, over 800 labor and community activists blocked the gates of the Oakland docks in the early morning hours, prompting longshore workers to refuse to cross the picket lines where they were scheduled to unload an Israeli ship.
From 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., a militant and spirited protest was held in front of four gates of the Stevedore Services of America, with people chanting non-stop, “Free, Free Palestine, Don’t Cross the Picket Line, and “An injury to one is an injury to all, the apartheid wall is going to fall.”
Citing the health and safety provisions of their contract, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers refused to cross the picket line to report for duty.
Between 8:30 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., an emergency arbitration was conducted at the Maersk parking lot nearby, with an “instant” arbitrator called to the site, to rule on whether the workers could refuse to cross the picket line without disciplinary measure.
At 9:15 a.m, after again reviewing the protests of hundreds at each gate, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the union that it was indeed unsafe for the workers to enter the docks.
To loud cheers of “Long Live Palestine!” Jess Ghannam of Free Palestine Alliance and Richard Becker of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) announced the victory. Ghannam said, “This is truly historic, never before has an Israeli ship been blocked in the United States!”
The news that a container ship from the Zim Israeli shipping line was scheduled to arrive in the Bay Area today has sparked a tremendous outpouring of solidarity for Palestine, especially in the aftermath of the Israeli massacre of volunteers bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza on May 30.
With 10 days advance notice of the ship’s arrival, the emergency “Labor/Community Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People” was set up. On Wednesday, 110 people from unions and community came to help organize logistics, outreach and community support. Initiating organizations included the Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the ANSWER Coalition, the Bay Area Labor Chapter of USLAW [US Labor Against War] , and the Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice.
This week, the San Francisco Labor Council and Alameda Labor Council passed resounding resolutions denouncing Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Both councils sent out public notices of the dock action.
The ILWU has a proud history of extending its solidarity to struggling peoples the world over. In 1984, as the Black masses of South Africa were engaged in an intense struggle against apartheid, the ILWU refused for a record-setting 10 days to unload cargo from the South African “Ned Lloyd” ship. Despite million-dollar fines imposed on the union, the longshore workers held strong, providing a tremendous boost to the anti-apartheid movement.
Among the many solidarity statements that came in anticipation of the protest were those of Palestinian and Cuban workers. The Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions said, “Your action today is a milestone in international solidarity from honest and brave U.S. workers and trade unionists. Greetings to you from the trade unionists and workers of Palestine … from the trade unionists and workers trapped in Gaza.”
The Central of Cuban Workers (CTC) wrote: “Our people have lived for 50 years of an unjust and abominable blockade by the U.S. government, so we understand very well how the Palestinian people feel and we will always be in solidarity with their just cause. Today we send you our most sincere support. Long live the solidarity of the working class! End the Blockade of Gaza! Respect and justice for the people of Palestine!”
Today’s Oakland action, in the sixth largest port in the United States, is the first of several protests and work stoppages planned around the world, including Norway, Sweden and South Africa. It is sure to inspire others to do the same.
The goal is for a 24-hour shutdown of the docks where the Israeli ship is docked, so the protest is planned again for 4:30 p.m.
Bit by little bit… small bits..
Marisacat 