[lbo-talk] Boots Riley on Occupy the Hood

Charles Turner vze26m98 at gmail.com
Sat Dec 17 03:13:31 PST 2011



>From the twitter stream of @BootsRiley, 12/16/2011:

Mayor Quan sez she plans to get rid of crime (drug sales&related violence) in Oakland by havin cops arrest more ppl.

That's been the status quo for half a century in Oakland

That and asking ppl to "Stop The Violence", etc

However, #OccupyOakland is fighting 4 higher wages and better housing, which will eliminate the NEED for selling dope in the 1st place.

Crime is not the problem. Poverty is the problem. Mayor Quan is not the problem either. Capitalism is.

When dope dealers get areested they don't even have enuf money4adequate legal defense. It's a low-paid job.

Most dope dealers on street wld gladly take a $15/hr job instead of sellin dope. How do I kno? Yrs of askin dope dealers.

Fast food corps and places like walmart&walgreens culd pay $15/hr and still make billions. #OccupyOakland culd make that happen.

I think that, in Oakland, $15 an hour is the number that would work.

In the past workers at Walmart & fast food who tried to unionize have gotten fired due to that activity. #OccupyOakland culd protect those

workers with the threat of shutting them down if they fire the workers.

If we made a fast food workers union, we could focus on one chain in Oakland and squeeze it til the corporation renegotiated its deal with

the franchises in order to allow them the ability to pay workers more. McD's culdnt pull out of Oakland&leave the market to BK,4instance.

(@alxsm if drugs were legal, dope dealing would b a high paying job that Black folks couldnt have.)

@SoulCollabBeats They wouldn't be risking their jobs, cuz #Occupyoakland wld back them up.

@adamzilla yes. We'd have to hold out long enuf to make corporations re-negotiate w franchise owners.

The point being, w the numbers #OccupyOakland can pull, we can help workers get higher wages in jobs where theyd usually get fired4trying.

We can shut places down if they fire workers4fighting4higher wages. This wuld set a precedent for class struggle throughout the US.

An #OWS organized fast food workers union w an eye on eventually dismantling the system is something that culd b duplicated all over US.

Something like that would multiply #OWS movement numbers several times over and [t]each lessons on class analysis to millions at the same time.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list