- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
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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.
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
That’s always going to be the case. How many strikes, protests, etc have we had? There’s never going to be a good time, because you can’t hardly get 3 people on the same page about stuff, let alone 3 million. People are going to die no matter the path we choose to walk. Choosing non-violent resistance is the noble path, but it’s got its own risks. At least those risks come with the potential of a better future.
I’m not saying not to do it, I’m saying you can’t just call for something on the internet and expect it to materialize out of nothing.
I’d also maybe suggest we stop using the term “general strike” when we mean “protest”
General strike and protest cover different things, both effective means of displaying our outrage. A general strike is a form of protest.
As far as ‘materializing out of nothing’ I don’t expect that either. This is far from out of nothing, though. These sentiments have been boiling over since 2016, literally a decade. We need more voices saying “let’s do it now” and fewer saying “but I have other responsibilities”. It’s rapidly approaching the point where every possible responsibility one could have runs through this issue.
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.
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.
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…
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
Community gardens are fantastic! I’ve only just started getting into gardening. My parents have done it for a long time and use cold frames so that they can get food 10 months of the year.
Lettuce is super easy - some of its even made its way into my lawn from when I let it go to seed one year, lol.
My favorite trick is using an empty cat litter pail (the big ones with a lid, not the pour able ones), drill some holes in the bottom, put in a layer of rocks for drainage, and the rest with soil. It’s a great pot for growing sale greens, and the handle makes it fantastic for if I need to move it around. We can’t recycle the cat litter packs in my county so this is what I do with them
i love those cat litter pails. i haven’t thought about growing anything in them before. i have a friend who wants some of my lemon balm and i’m going to start a bunch in one of those to give to her. Thanks for the idea!
Gonna be a lot harder to support a family if it continues. So, suffer now a little bit or suffer then a lot. Their choice. 🤷♂️
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.
It had union buy in to organize the union members. A strong core to let people know it was serious and they wouldn’t be alone. But that didn’t manage the other people who joined.
I do agree that this is less organized and without enough prep time. The same thing needs to happen with national unions providing the core to make it real, then the more exposed workers can get the confidence to act. You don’t need unions from top to bottom though.
Sure it’s difficult for someone trying to support their family. It’s also difficult for someone trying to support their family to have the sole breadwinner captured, deported, or killed. Inconvenience doesn’t justify inaction. And, for those who have, in addition to just striking, they need to be helping their neighbors. This whole thing isn’t going anywhere unless we work together and stop thinking of each person as an individual unit.
Jan 30 is too soon for people to work around. People have to get their PTO approved before they can take part in this
I’m yer Huckleberry!!
