- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
You must log in or # to comment.
That website is an op. DO NOT visit and DO NOT give them your name, phone number, email address, or any other identifying information.
You don’t need to give your name to join a general strike.
I’m kind of annoyed that the labor union sponsored strike last Friday which was two weeks in the making got almost no air, but was extremely successful. And now a student strike at the U of M with very little momentum with labor unions is getting national attention.
I know that one is the cause of the other, but it sure makes it feel like this next strike is going to fall flat on its face and rob the whole tactic of its power. I really want to be wrong, and want nothing but for this to work, but you really need buy-in in order to shutdown businesses and get the actual impact you need.
10% of labor striking across all industries will be impactful, but 10% of businesses closing due to a strike is outright devastating. And without labor union buy-in, I don’t think the latter is likely.
The media are largely owned and controlled by the oligarchs. They no longer exist to serve the common person’s best interests. The examples that really cemented this reality in my mind are:
-The way they coordinated against our boy Bernie in 2016. I recall a specific instance on live tv where they listed the leading DNC candidates. It displayed an infographic said something like: #1, Hillary Clinton, #3 someone else, #4 someone else. And the announcer made some brief comment at the end, along the lines of, “oh and also some guy Bernie Sanders, some communist or something is in 2nd place. Anyway, here’s Eric with the weather!”
-The way they coordinated to tell everyone that anybody who bought GameStop stock a few years ago was stupid and should absolutely sell. The wealthy had bought an illegal amount of short sale positions in GameStop and were losing tons of money to common people who had realized this.
You might think that these two situations are unrelated. Maybe the DNC has its own interests and manipulated the media by its own mechanisms. Maybe the hedge funds and their wealthy investors had enough power and leverage to get help from their media friends. I assert that the rich and powerful people pulling the strings in these two scenarios are the same group of people and they have powerful influence over media, using it to shape popular perception to their benefit.
That’s because it was organic and real. The one in the OP is an op. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR INFORMATION
I mean, it’s not an op. It’s led by the student unions out of the U of M. I just don’t think it’s a good follow-up, like I was saying
We need to shut down and STAY shut down. Jan 30 needs to be the first day of an indefinite movement.
You have to build the ground work for that first. How do you feed people indefinitely when stores are closed, trucks aren’t moving, etc? You need a massive mutual aid network and solidarity. We don’t really have anything approaching that in the US
January 30—until ice is abolished, all republicans resign, and Trump leaves office.
That’s the only way. Anything else is a blank picket sign.
Easy for young single people who have limited responsibilities and enough money to cover rent and food for a month or two.
Very difficult for anyone supporting a family and/or living paycheck to paycheck. Impossible for anyone in an economic situation where they need to work two jobs just to keep a roof over their head.
This is a valid concern that folks need to take into consideration. It’s all well and good to say that long term liberty is more important than short term security, and I agree with that sentiment, but it’s better not to force people to choose.
This is why there are strike funds. In this case, I would recommend mutual aid - even a small group of 5-10 people can work together to save money by buying essentials in bulk. Larger groups can help each other cover rent, form daycare coops, and so on.
Best time to start a group was a year ago, next best time is today.
we’ve got this great garden. only thing is, this time of year, only thing edible growing in it is lettuce (no not weed that is not that kind of edible and that’s in one of the neighbor’s greenhouse. i think. i haven’t asked). best lettuce you’ll ever eat (homegrown lettuce will have you spitting out any other lettuce you eat the rest of your life it’s that much better. it’s a texture thing. it’s both soft and crunchy and fuck i’m gonna go make a salad brb. also has flavor) and is incredibly easy to grow. so like, be really sure you want to grow lettuce the rest of your life or give up salads and shit.
sorry, i had a point before i got distracted by lettuce. community garden. we have kind of turned our backyards into a community garden, since we all grow tomatoes and oranges or lemons and zucchini and shit. zone 8 or 9 or something. some of us either have better soil or better talent for some things. we have the best blackberry bush. so a group of us have agreed to grow more of some things so we don’t have to grow others, we can just get it from the neighbors kind of thing. it’s great if you can organize with neighbors you can trust not to take advantage like we have
That is great.
But it’s not a substitute for a grocery store, not for a town of 5,000 people. It won’t be anytime soon.
More and more our responsibilities are shifting from the personal towards a responsibility to the whole. Resistance in any form is going to mean hardship, hardship I’d much rather deal with than the country we’re heading towards. It will NEVER be easy. It will NEVER be a good time.
Yeah, OK. Come on down off your high horse and tell that to a single mother with 3 kids and a rented trailer.
Ah shucks, I guess it’s just too inconvenient… not like you can still clock in and slow roll your work or frankly anything other than complaining how hard it is doing the right thing…
The person I replied to was talking about staying on strike until the situation changes significantly. That is not something a parent can afford to do.
Or were you offering to buy food for their children?
It’s a general strike for a reason. It sucks for everyone for a reason
If 10% of the workers strike, the country will come to a standstill. I don’t know if we’ll get those kinds of numbers but if we do it will put the fear of god into the politicians and oligarchs.
I’m hoping that folks will strike and stay out until Noam and Miller are fired and there are commitments to give the violent CBP and ICE agents real consequences, including investigations and eventually trials for state murder charges. I think that would be enough that many folks would go back to work. I doubt that people are going to hold out until ICE is abolished, since that won’t be in the 1st few attempts at appeasement and no one is prepared to strike for months.
I also doubt that Trump would be removed during a strike since impeachment and removal takes a while. But if the US population really learns to use the general strike because of the shitshow that is the Trump admin, I could see all the money and power people believing that Trump has outlived his usefulness. That could lead to eventual removal.
The issue with calls for general strikes in the US is that they’re not organized at all. We need representatives in every workplace that can make sure people know when to strike, and won’t be retaliated against for striking. These unions can then coordinate the strike with other workplaces so that the strike has the biggest impact.
A general strike happened in Minneapolis without that level of organization.
Incorrect. We had union buy-in from over 100+ unions. We had business owner buy-in as well, bringing the total to 700+ businesses closed during the strike. The organization was grass-roots, fast, and actually gave people the time to get behind it. This one is… not as organized and its got me worried.
