LONG BEACH, CA, December 12 — Seven hundred workers shut down business at the Long Beach Port. This march revealed a split between the Occupy movement’s liberal organizers and the rank-and-file occupiers, including Progressive Labor Party comrades who gave key leadership at the protest.
The liberals’ plan, orchestrated with the Long Beach Police Department, was to funnel the march along a narrow sidewalk, with the ocean on one side and the cops on the other. But with PL leading a communist chant of “Shut it down, shut it tight, workers of the world unite!” the march quickly turned militant. PL’s friends in the movement were evident as we crossed the line of cones and took the streets leading to the port.
The kkkops responded by attempting to use their motorcycles as barricades, splitting the protest into two halves. It was a potentially dangerous situation, with one group facing a wall of cops in riot gear. But we quickly organized ourselves and led the march back and sandwiched the police! At first, the other half of the march was hesitant to walk through the police barrier, but our comrades again led the way and soon the whole march followed.
An hour later, as the Long Beach police tried to push the protesters back onto the sidewalk, they were met with heavy resistance. The protesters stood their ground in open defiance, linking arms, chanting and singing. The standoff lasted for nearly an hour. It ended only after rank-and-file occupiers discovered that some trucks were getting into the port through a back entrance. After a brief discussion, the protest was moved to a location where we could better block all entrances. Traffic at the port was shut down for five hours before the police could disperse the crowd. Port workers who walked to the gates to watch the protest told us that they didn’t believe any work would get done that day.
While our PL leadership was critical in organizing the Occupiers to defy the liberal leadership, we were weak in organizing our own base from the jobs, schools and campuses to participate. We also need to distribute more CHALLENGEs.
We do have a small but active base within the Occupy movement, however. After this action, more than 20 young people met with us over breakfast to debrief. While there is a lot of potential to deepen these relationships and build the Party, we must struggle harder to make the Occupy fight more prominent in our workplaces and classrooms. The struggle continues.