- cross-posted to:
- Epsteinfiles@lemmy.world
- Epsteinfiles@lemmy.world
- boycottus@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- Epsteinfiles@lemmy.world
- Epsteinfiles@lemmy.world
- boycottus@lemmy.ca
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
You must log in or # to comment.
Ysk, this isn’t a general strike. It’s a protest, at best.
It’s not a general strike if it doesn’t come from the Generél region of France. Otherwise it’s just sparkling absenteeism.
Obviously its both
General strikes aren’t things you can use your PTO for to get a three-day weekend. That’s like protesting a brand by buying their product and then destroying it.
A general strike is much longer.
Do you have a copy of the rule book by chance?
“The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country—and the first general wildcat strike in history—was May 1968 in France.[105] The prolonged strike involved eleven million workers for two weeks in a row,[105] and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government.”
This entire wiki article is a list of HUGE events in history that were affected by general strikes and what was involved in organizing and challenging them.
A one-day protest is fine, but it’s not a “general strike.”
With the amount of indoctrination that has happened in the US, it makes sense that most don’t know how to adequately protest or strike.
At this point in time, it finally appears people are slowly understanding protests as a means to signify discontent. However, the line remains blury as to what is a protest and what is a strike.
A general strike should leave a long lasting mark resulting from halting of the economy - but a single day will only reinforce the fact that strikes which are effectively just protests aren’t going to work.
I started watching network nightly news again after throwing it away for years and years, because I want to see what the average American who isn’t stuck online sees every night while cooking dinner for 3 screaming kids and having to juggle two jobs. NBC, ABC, even CBS.
It’s so bad. It’s dishearteningly bleak when you realize how much of the population catches blurbs and snippets of actual issues sandwiched between stories about weather and a local boy-scout who grew the biggest pumpkin, and of course the required nightly “true crime” story about a spouse who murdered their partner and had an affair.
I have nobody to scream at, nobody to shake. They didn’t even MENTION the strikes (protests) so far on any network, they have not shown the scale of the marches and the chaos on the streets of American cities. To say nothing of the neutral, blameless tone they use.
They only just barely started taking the people’s protests against ICE like an actual news story after Alex Pretti was murdered, because at a certain point, even the hand of the state can no longer dismiss or avoid actual reality.
This is because there are three forces of political capital in the country broadly. The strongest is the liberal masses, the majority. Farmed cattle used for the labor and attention spans and purchasing power. Middle-class America holds ALL the power because they have the most money and keep the system moving… as a result, they are manipulated and sedated the hardest.
The second force is nationalism. About 20% - 30% or so of the population are illiterate, rural or wannabe-rural grown toddlers screaming and waving guns and hating everything that moves, while worshipping the flag and kissing the king’s ass. Armed groups of nationalists have been the driving force of political capital for thousands of years, it’s no different now.
The last group is progressivism. Arguably the weakest, almost not worth mentioning it has so little power now, but is still technically on the list because we’re still here, still trying.
But it’s all shifting, as leftists start taking up arms and marching in larger and larger numbers, the networks and marketing companies have no choice but to notice it. This is because the liberal middle class is now noticing it, and when THEY shift, everything shifts.
To this end, I support continued protests and marches, even if they’re utterly pathetic by historical standards for moving systems.
someone said: You can’t just pick a random day in the week to start a nationwide strike on.
Why not? And since when is friday the middle of the week?
Because you need coordination and organization. If you don’t reach a critical mass of participation then the handful of people involved will just be handled as if they were skipping work for any other reason. And if it only lasts a day it can simply be waited out.
Strikes require funds, funds require dues, dues require unions. You have to ensure that striking workers will have some form of security in order to reach a critical mass. People have families to feed. Striking without funds or organization could only work if everyone was really dedicated to the cause, and if that was the case, then what’s stopping them from forming a union and collecting dues in order to do it right?
You can’t lay down the sort of moral “line in the sand” that you need if participating means, “I didn’t show up to work, all of my coworkers did, and now I’m unemployed and will be on the streets if I can’t find a way to make rent soon.” These “General Strike Now!” calls happen basically every other week, with no coordination or thought of strategy.
Strikes involve inherent individual risk for a collective benefit. It’s a collective action problem, which can only be overcome by an organized structure mitigating the risks and inspiring confidence in the outcome. A “wildcat general strike” isn’t really a thing.
This won’t actually do anything.
In order for a strike to be a strike, it need to be organized and it needs to achieve a specific goal. If there’s no demands then it’s not a strike, it’s a boycott or a walkout.
Currently there is no movement, just a national level reaction. A movement requires leadership, a significant level of coordination and mobilization, very specific set of demands and goals, and an underlying message/philosophy that is backed by the general public. We currently have non of this.
In order to get to the point of a national level general strike, there needs to be a series of much smaller strikes that do all of the above, and have those localized strikes merge with each other to eventually have the size to pull of a national strike.
You’re right. We should do nothing until a self-organizing, grassroots, independently funded organization gets enough signatures to get enough permits and consent to formally complain.
You didn’t have to write anything. Instead, you argued semantics. Then you argued that progress needs to be made on your terms. (Also what is the difference between a national reaction and movement if not just time and effort? Most movements are reactions). This is exactly how you counter-message and push people away from the concept of activism.
I do agree that effective long-term change likely comes through critical and organized methods. But that is not to dissuade anyone from participating in resistance or activism. Change is rarely graceful, and does not need to conform to anyone’s prescription.
You can’t go from 0 to a 100 and expect results. The national strike that the post is talking about is going to result in absolutely nothing. Barely anybody is going to participate if at all.
Why? Because most people aren’t even aware this is a thing, and to the small minority that is, they still won’t participate because they’re going to be the only people doing it. If one or two people from your workplace participate, they’re going to be penalized for not showing up. Same goes with boycotting or whatever else is planned.
My point is that there is currently no foundation to support such a strike. You can’t scale up if the people aren’t mobilized and onboard. How about instead of calling for a national strike, you work to convince your local unions to buy in? Two people participating at a workplace will do nothing, but if 70% of workers don’t show up at then that means something. It will send a message to the local community and might even make it to the local news. Then from there you coordinate the unions and other orgs (churches, schools, universities, nonprofits, etc) to organize a city wide strike, then a statewide strike, and then a regional strike, and if that succeeds then you can think about doing something on a national scale. However, trying to skip all the steps usually doesn’t result in real change, which is what’s going to happen here.
Yeah, this is armchair, if not just rationalization. Stay proud that it’d all have just worked had they just followed the steps like you told them.
I’m not giving steps, I’m merely stating a very basic fact. Movements need substance, that’s just reality. They need foundations to stand on to do anything meaningful. That’s the most basic of observations.
Like do you seriously think that the civil rights movement happened overnight because MLK decided one day to do a big march and everybody decided to randomly join? No the civil rights movement and all the other movements in history took decades of independent grassroots movements organizing, mobilizing, and coordinating with each other. That’s how they eventually consolidated to form unstoppable national political force.
You can be butthurt at what I said or deny it all you want, but reality isn’t going to change because what I said is a simple truth. If I was wrong then something would’ve happened today, but nothing did. January 30th is already over, and there was absolutely no impact or buzz surrounding this “strike”, not even on social media.
Nobody’s butthurt here. I’m saying your rhetoric carries water for fascists. And every time you say “it’s just facts”, you reinforce that in everyone’s mind. It’s not about winning an argument about how progress gets made, its pointing out how the way speak identifies our politics. Its ok, lots of people agree with you. And more people will be shot in the streets while you’ll be correct about how progress works.
Me: “These hollow performative stunts have no impact and resulted in zero results. We need to work establishing a real opposition with true roots to get actual results in the most effective way possible!”
You: “iS tHiS fAsCiSm?”
Like come on, you gotta be a troll. There’s no way anybody is dim enough to think a small collection of individuals posting random “national strike” pics on Reddit and Lemmy is going to actually produce anything substantial nationwide. It’s Jan 31st, we literally saw this fail because it wasn’t a real attempt to begin with. Nobody knew about it, nobody is backing it, nobody is leading it, there’s no goals, there’s organization, there’s no coordination, there’s literally nothing… and what do you know? Nobody fucking participated. How much further into tyranny do we have to slip before you mouthbreathers understand that you can’t virtue signal your way out of authoritarianism.
Let’s set aside the ridiculous bad faith restatement aside as just an emotional reaction.
Here are things that are occurring: https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/ice-out-of-everywhere
This is 10 seconds of typing into a browser to attach to a single organization effort. Yet “nobody knew about it, nobody is backing it, nobody is leading it, etc.”. You’re objectively wrong. You’re willfully ignorant. You would know this if you even attempted to look. It’s the coldest its been and people are in the streets across the country. Get up, go outside, and find out. And repeating this the futility of it all is exactly how you support the current tyranny facing us.
You seem so frustrated that people are patting themselves on the back for sharing jpegs, yet you sit here doing significantly less than the bare minimum. You are working against it.
Agreed.
Currently there is no movement, just a national level reaction. A movement requires leadership, a significant level of coordination and mobilization, very specific set of demands and goals, and an underlying message/philosophy that is backed by the general public. We currently have non of this.
Which is why I’m so pissed at the democrats and not just the liberal right wing corpo ones but in particular AOC, Bernie and the other members of the progressive arm. They should be leading a general fucking strike.
And not just them but those adjacent to the party ie Jon Stewart, Colbert and Steph (and all the rest of the YouTube / social media sphere talking heads). Not only have they made incredibly lucrative careers attacking Trump, speaking truth to the insanity of the last ten years (because even under Biden it was always still about Trump), making it clear trunp is a clear and present danger to all.
I’m sick of their never ending jokes and serious moments.
A call to fucking action is required. The world is watching whilst you say your pretty, empty, words.
The time is now.
I realized years ago that the progressives in this country a complete joke. They constantly put their own careers ahead of the greater good, they talk big but their actions never match, when push comes to shove they cower, and the most infuriating thing is that they always choose to uphold the status quo.
If they were the real deal then they would’ve worked day and night to build a coalition to stop Trump in 2016, but they didn’t. They would’ve build a strong opposition during his first term and stopped him from passing anything, but they didn’t. They would’ve use their opportunity under Biden to prosecute Trump and his gang of criminals after Jan 6th, but they didn’t. They would’ve at least fielded real candidates to stop Trump from returning, but they didn’t. Now that Trump has been in office again and literally dismantling the country, they’re still not doing shit. I lost all faith in them. If change were to happen it has to come from the people.
It’s planned for one day which sounds less than useless. Only sustained strikes and protests are effective.
A one day general strike across the US would be an amazing achievement. If we can pull that off it’s a great place to start. Would a more sustained effort have to be planned? Probably, but being able to achieve this shows that the people are serious about this and the threat of a more sustained strike can be taken seriously.
Exactly. We need to build these muscles and demonstrate to other would-be protesters that acting en masse is possible. Otherwise, everyone new to this just feels like they’re sticking their neck out.
This. Don’t forget how uncultured civil action is in the US. They literally replaced it by 2A. Buy a gun and ammo, and you never have to protest. A one day general strike would bring awareness to the OPTION of civil action to way more than we care to admit.
If it has a set end date then it’s a party not a protest.
No
The winter storm that pushed people inside for 2 days has more impact than a single day purchase blackout.
If a country can shrug of massive storms and fires… I just don’t know what message this is actually supposed to send.
We seem to want instant gratification to work in the real world, we want a lack of suffering and to make it as quick and easy as possible.If you have an addiction you don’t lose it in a day. In Shawshank redemption, Andy Dufresne doesnt get to leave out the front door, he has to crawl through a river of shit to come out clean the other side.
We have a river of shit to wade through, I think we need to come to terms with that.While I am pessimistic about this Friday, I also try to translate it into meaningful action.
I’ve definitely severely dropped how much “consumerist” spending I go with across the year. This includes lots of different kinds of common luxuries, and instead making use of farmer’s markets and libraries for food and entertainment. From what I have heard on a few anecdotes, the drop in spending around Christmas was significant to retailers, and should hopefully contribute to pessimism towards fascist ideology.
People are still ordering things online. Inside works (i.e. Warehouses, factories, offices) still go on.
Yes, and the people that think its a good idea to order something with same day delivery from amazon in a snow storm are probably the same ones that will ignore the call for a strike.
We have to ignore the outliers we can’t get, but we nees to understand that The System at large will ignore our outliers as well. A one day strike that has less impact than a storm physically blocking streets will be seen as an outlier.
Not a dig, but just a fact.
Yea I’m the same. I don’t understand how people think this is effective over other methods. There are just so many more options and awareness for spreading a message now. Protesting this way was born out of a time when we didn’t even have telephones. Information was entirely different. Plus with authoritarians controlling narratives, they can really control a lot of public opinion so methods need to be implemented to counter that. Just an example, I see people projecting images within cities. That’s amazing, why not organize that. Every city, projections of police executing Alex and abusing their authority. They’ll take one down but have 20 more at the ready to project it again. If we’re getting hundreds of millions in the streets, there’s got to be something else we can do than just stand around for a few hours.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to put any of your information in a “protest” form…
Thank you for this. Sucks the local chapters are primarily organized on discord. Seems pretty risky that they could all be shut down in one fell swoop.
My Chinese noses would fire my ass so quick. I’d have to take the day off. But I can’t even do that because of how much business I’m on.
… /s?
I hope people knew I meant boses. Not noses. But ya. New job is for a Chinese firm. Haven’t built up my PTO to take off yet. Plus Fridays are so busy for me. I can’t miss.
deleted by creator
Just gonna repeat what the OP said: this is an unverified archive link that he found on reddit. Idk what that means, but it looks legit to me?!
E: the website works now: https://wiki.icelist.is/index.php/Main_Page
Much appreciated!
That is a very short amount of time to organize a nation.
Read up. Last Friday was no purchases, this friday is no work and no purchases. This is not a short term thing (unless we decide to have a general strike with clear demands soon.
Oops, I didn’t realize last Friday was a no purchase day. I only spent $5 at a secondhand store, so the spirit was still there.
I bet the second hand store owner used that $5 to go and buy a baseball bat to beat up puppies and seals. You’re a monster, I hope you know that.
I am happy to hear it’s supposed to be a regular thing. This can lead to great momentum. Reminds me of fridays for future which became a huge worldwide movement (sadly disrupted and essentially killed by Covid).
It’s also ineffective in the short term as a strike, because the rich will just wait it out. One day of slightly lower productivity isn’t going to grind things to a halt. What makes a strike powerful is that it continues until grievances are remedied. A true strike takes months or even years to organize, and it takes a lot of unionized money to keep people from going broke during an extended strike. After all, the strikers need to be able to wait out the rich and powerful. Those union dues are largely to allow the union to pay striking workers.
However, with all of this being said, this kind of thing is good for normalizing strikes. America largely doesn’t strike. But if you can establish a new normal for protests, it makes the larger things much much easier to organize in the long term.
Yeah, I guess they have to start somehow.
If people keep striking every Friday it will be noticed. Sure, it won’t be as impactful as striking every day, but it starts a good foundation to build on while having some immediate impact.
This sounds like a wildcat strike to me. Not perhaps the most effective means to an end, but important when there’s no other outlet. A good outcome may be establishing better unions. The mere threat of a strike should have capital shaking in their boots.
I wouldn’t expect many people in an actual union to take part in this because that _would _ be a wildcat strike.
In my experience with CWA it was like the ending of Animal Farm - could not see much difference between them and management. There are so many things that must happen before you would even hear the whispered hint of a strike.
I hear a lot about IWW. All hype?
This is what I commented elsewhere. We dont even need organized strikes. We need organized tech classes to get the general public out of the hands of the technofacist oligarchy. The reason they have power is 98% of the population is addicted to x, fb, insta, and being spied on their google phones 24/7 for ad revenue and surveillance, and people are fucking stupid about technology. They have no idea the billionaire corporations glean off them from their ignorant use of their phones.
It doesn’t make sense to me, I honestly doubt retailers will even notice.
Everyone who does actually participate will just buy their stuff the day before or the day after.
An ongoing boycott of a specific vendor makes much more sense to me. Easier for everyone to do, and more impactful.
Brilliant 👍 I hope everyone turns up. Ppl better have paper work in check!
Srry guys, not sure if I can simply miss class
Don’t you have a student’s union or representative? Get informed locally on your rights and possibilities.
I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday. But I can avoid going out for dinner or groceries.
So… you think there will be people working at your doctor’s office on a day of a General Strike? This is very entitled attitude. I mean, I get it, I am a nurse and I anticipate the general public will rely on our ethical code to ensure emergency rooms are staffed as well as the other inpatient floors so people in need for acute health care will have beds and care. However, what if we just don’t show up? There is a nurses’ strike in NYC, staff from major hospital systems are not showing up for work. There is a plethora of temporary healthcare employee agencies recruiting strike crossers – some for almost $200/hr. Why can’t those hospitals just pay their nurses? They are certainly able to pay these scabs.
I wonder if you expect the police, teachers, garbage collectors and firemen to also show up for their jobs to continue to make your life smooth and safe? That is an antithesis of a general strike’s impact. Some of you realize your jobs are really unimportant, the rest of us have to carry society and humanity.
So… you think there will be people working at your doctor’s office on a day of a General Strike? This is very entitled attitude.
They texted me today reminding me of the session, and also reminding me that I still have to pay if I don’t show up to my appointment at this point. Also my health issue seriously needs to be addressed.
3 days notice is not a lot of time. And the doctor is holding me accountable to my side of the agreement that I made prior to this strike being announced, my only option is to pay for the treatment, whether I receive it or not. What’s with the personal attack? I said I would refrain from work, and shopping of any form. I feel like I’m doing what I can under the limited notice. I have a long workday tomorrow, but am still preparing to buy groceries after work to avoid spending anything on Friday.
Why can’t those hospitals just pay their nurses? They are certainly able to pay these scabs.
what does this have to do with 3 days notice of a one day strike? What does this have to do with your hostility directed at me?
Some of you realize your jobs are really unimportant, the rest of us have to carry society and humanity.
I am not in a great headspace mentally, and you attacking me, acting like I’m one of those people that is ignoring everything that’s going on, it’s hurtful and counter productive. I’m doing the best that I can.
Take care of yourself and do what you think is right. Judging the other posts of the person your replied to they’re just there to spread division. Don’t feed the trolls, they’re probably getting fed enough on the Russian troll farm already.
Some of you realize your jobs are really unimportant
Don’t “police, teachers, garbage collectors and fireman” kinda rely on other professions to do their jobs? Why do you need to put other workers down? Pretty sure as a teacher I relied on a school bus driver to get the students to me, an HVAC guy to make sure that the building was comfortable, architects and construction workers to create the building, electricians……….
The comments you are leaving seem to me like compassion fatigue and burnout.
One day “general strike”, or as we in Germany call it: “Regular Sunday”
If the strike aint demolishing deathcamps, it’s a festivity.
✌️
Then organize something
I did. Pugjesus &
.worldremoved the Allamance deathcamp demolishing op.I tried it again. You can tell how it’s going.
Something tells me 🇺🇲 really really likes genocide.
I do see where organizing that would be tricky. Might have to just go sock hats, sunglasses, and voice changer to organize something like that.
Demolishing deathcamps require much less than that.
But the political will is simply not there.
Heck, if.worldreally cared about saving lives, they would have posted how the US demolished Al-Qaeda.
And demolishing tools are plenty! Medical supplies even more!It’s the political will of 🇺🇲 that’s simply gone.
People like you are entirely unhelpful to your own cause.
A lot of people don’t really want to get involved because they think that involves essentially signing up to be a soldier in some hypothetical civil war. And comments like that just reinforce that belief.
A general strike is the way you get progress in a non-violent method, (well actually the administration will probably make it violent but that will be on them) just ask the French.
Feeding people, sheltering the homeless, networking, and solidifying is
unhelpful to your own cause.
? ? ?
signing up to be a soldier
Giving people the power to defend themselves isn’t enlisting to die for an authoritarian. Are you confused at who you’re talking to?
A general strike is the way you get progress in a non-violent method
If it’s done everyday, until fascists can’t function. Not a weekend festivity.
just ask the French.
Can’t tell if your banter is dated, or ignorant
Absolutely none of what you’re talking about here has anything to do with your own prior comment. I mean you are complaining that action is being taken against people that you think are authorian but apparently it’s not the kind of action you’d like so you basically dismiss it.
Please explain how your negative attitude is helping anyone.
For a singular day? What kind of strike meets demands in a singular day‽
Explain how your “positive attitude” worked for the Minnesota.
Feeding people, sheltering the homeless, networking, and solidifying
Seems to me that not one of those is “demolishing deathcamps”, so by your argument those are all “just festivities”, no?
The thing you’re arguing here is entirely different to your original comment that the above commenter was arguing against.
Are you unaware what a political cause is?
Echo Dot & I differ on what causes create change, and which do not. Unlike EchoDot, I am aware how historically strikes have been able to meet their demands, and it definitively didn’t last 3 days.
Weird that others🧵 said the same thing I said, and they get upvoted.
They didn’t say what you said. They said that they think a general strike in a few days is unlikely to succeed.
Meanwhile you were complaining that not enough murder in is going to be a happening
I said that a strike without impacts to fascist resources is ineffective.
Murder is what the fascists are doing.
Moving goalposts over and over, huh?
Me? Impossible.
🇺🇲ans, looks like.
