Shut down

[Occupy Dallas]

I thought it was agreed upon to not pursue a shutdown of the port in
Houston as that action would be nearly impossible to achieve due to
the fact that Houston has the 2nd largest port in the US. It would
literally take a hundred thousand people to achieve this goal.
WestCoastPortShutDown.org is announcing that we are going to shutdown
the port of Houston.

Occupy Dallas took great haste to get consensus for this event, but
many members of our GA tonight expressed concern that we had little
details regarding the actual action itself. We need information from
Houston and no one from Houston was on the conference call this
evening.

Has any GA in Texas approved the idea of actually attempting to shut
down the port and if they have, has a plan been approved on how to
actually accomplish that goal. I will be there on ustream with another
member of our communications team who will be documenting the event in
HD. Need info.

Also, members are demanding we produce more information regarding the
actual march and goal of the march at our GA Saturday.

Can someone in Houston please contact me in the morning. 469-487-6550.
Txt if I don't answer.

Thanks.

Cordell
Occupy Dallas

[Occupy Dallas]

I'd also like to add this: 18 U.S.C. § 1951 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1951.shtml

If we are accused of using any violence to stop interstate commerce,
we could easily be arrested for felonies carrying with it a 20 year
sentence. We need to be watchful for individuals that may be agitators
attempting to use or threaten violence.

[Benjamin Craft-Rendon]

As part of OccupyHouston, I echo this concerns. I have been ill, so
could have missed an update, but the *only* measure that passed GA was
a March on/to the Port, not an attempt to shut it down. I would have
blocked such an action, especially when it came forward that the local
PoC/Organisers had not bothered to contact the unions who work at the
Port.

Not only would a lack of any worker support make a shutdown
impossible, but if it were possible, we would be invading to liberate
them. The history of that phrase should speak volumes to us all.

Benjamin Franklin
OccupyHouston

[Elizabeth Brossa]

We need to proceed carefully here, and any language relating to a Houston Port 'shutdown' needs to be removed from the West Coast Shutdown website. They were advertising the Houston action as a shutdown before a proposal went to any of the Texas GAs, which is inaccurate and irresponsible. I have said this before but it bears repeating: large-scale actions that involve civil disobedience and disruption require careful planning and the participation of individuals trained in civil disobediece. I am concerned that the Houston Port Authority most likely has already been alerted to this action and may be anticipating an attempted shutdown, which could be very problematical for people marching in this action. If anyone knows when the next planning call for this action will be, please let me know.

Elizabeth