Heh, there is panic in PR right now because the truckers are on strike, demanding higher rates and refusing to deliver things, including gasoline to the gas stations and food to the grocers. There are a bunch of containers sitting on the docks with food that is going bad. But foremost in everybody's mind is the fuel thing. Yesterday as word spread about this strike, everyone rushed to the gas stations to fill up their tanks before the gas ran out, like it was a hurricane or something. Lines grew miles long, with hour-long waits, and within a few hours most gas stations were out of gas and closed. Today in the paper I saw that the governor has cut off negotiations with the truckers' union and has called out the National Guard.

I think the panic is a bit excessive — I don't imagine this will go more than a few days at most. After all, the truckers need gas for their own cars :) I do think it's a bad way to go about this though. You can't deny the public essential needs like food as a negotiation tactic. Yes, it is powerful and effective, but I don't think it's fair. If all that food sitting on the docks goes bad, that puts hundreds of thousands of people at a disadvantage for a problem that is not their fault.

It's unacceptable for the same reason terrorism is unacceptable; you are taking advantage of your ability to negatively affect the public at large, in the hopes that your opponents will capitulate to keep the public from being inconvenienced/hurt (or, if you're more cynical, in the hopes that your opponents will capitulate to keep the public from getting mad at them). I hate how quickly people jump to accusations of terrorism in this day and age, and I'm definitely not calling this terrorism or anything, but I disagree with it for the same reasons I disagree with terrorism.