It’s also not helpful that this happens to coincide with an extreme cold snap that has shut down schools and businesses anyway. No way to tell the actual effect from the incidental effect due to the weather.
It’s -20F outside here. Pretty easy to take part in the strike today.
Sort of nullifies the effectiveness of a general strike if you agree ahead of time that its only for one day, a friday even. I’ll take whatever we can get at this point but calling this an actual “General strike” is a bit exaggerated.
Strikes don’t end until demands are met.
A scheduled, one-day strike is not “general” strike unless it’s combined with a lot of very serious actions. Seriously, the way people treat the terms “general strike” and “civil war” and “literally” and “gaslight” you would think language has lost all meaning.
There is no chance of Americans broadly coordinating an actual General Strike, it entails the shut-down of all services, logistics and GDP in an entire country for as long as it takes for the ruling government to collapse.
I can find maybe five or six examples of this actually happening in the last century in places under totalitarian/authoritarian rule, like Cuba, Philippines, Chile and Zaire, and in most of those cases it was combined with actual insurrection/rebellion that included fighting in the streets and rebel groups actually working out deals with the country’s military leadership. We are so very far from this kind of action it might as well be fan-fiction.
In most of the places where this has been employed, the country was already basically at a stand-still, and if anyone out there thinks we’re close to that, you really, really need to turn off your feed and stop scrolling.
I mean, it’s fine as a demonstration or protest, it DOES send a signal, but the term loses weight when it’s used to describe non-disruptive actions.
There is a bigger coordination for a mass general strike on May 1st 2028 headed by the UAW. Being 2 years out sucks, and it was planned before trump won the election, but it’s a concrete date that all unions can plan for.
I find it telling and sadly predictable that despite being well-informed and in-touch with labor and politics, that this is the first I’ve seen of this.
Curious how we don’t realize how filtered our information feed is until we actually talk to each other.
Anyway, we should be pushing and sharing this a lot more, having union involvement is the only way we punch capital in the snotlocker and make them listen even for a moment.
Strikes don’t end until demands are met.
They usually end when Democrats fold, like the rail strike of 2022 or the more recent government shutdown. The demands don’t get met.
Strikes don’t end until demands are met.
Yes.
just like protests, it was mostly ineffective and just made ICE more bold, because they know there wont be rioting or retaliation coming their way.
Fair question, but you have to start somewhere. Most early strikes and protests aren’t about succeeding on the first attempt with anything, but more conditioning people to see this as a new norm, and get used to the idea of a strike.
It’s also a great way (protesting specifically), to meet others of a like mind and exchange contact details and get organized.
What needs to happen next is another folowup general strike if nothing changes that lasts for 3 days.
Then one that lasts for a week.
Then 2 weeks.
Then a month.
Then in perpetuity until demands are met.
Countries and people who are not used to striking or protesting need baby steps to get there. The US is not used to this sort of civil disobedience and need time to ramp up to this being the new norm for everyone until the fascist in chief is chased out of the office.
The voice of reason. We aren’t supposed to be finding the ONE, SINGLE mechanism that will suddenly flip the political switch from Insanity to Utopia. We need to send a continuous, growing message to those in power that we are are watching them, we know what they are doing, and we are going to change it. Big strikes and demonstrations demonstrate the growing numbers, and that terrifies them.
There has been a lot of talk of reaching a “Tipping Point,” where an idea or movement suddenly takes on a life of its own, and becomes a societal trend. It takes about 3.5% of the population to reach a Tipping Point, and that’s about 12.5 million people on America. The last couple of No Kings protests attracted over 7 million, and were significantly increasing in size. In addition, there are millions of supporters at home, who may not be able to join a protest for many reasons, but believe in the cause, perhaps debate online, but certainly VOTE.
MAGA recognizes and understands the growing existential danger those growing ranks of PEACEFUL protesters represent, and are likely to respond harshly and violently. That will betray their fear, and it only means we have to apply even more pressure.
Baby steps.
This mutually demonstrates to each other that we are all fed up and ready to take action.
ICE aren’t taking baby steps.
Which only justifies our response. They’ll pay for it.
Exactly right. If it has some success it could light a match
I think it’s a good test to help determine how much support it has from the public and how many people will actually go for it.
I hope you are right, however this was said about the length of time between the protests about the obese imbecile. “It takes time” “baby steps” “we need to gain momentum”, etc etc, and look how that turned(fizzled) out.
Again, I hope so. Please, guys, do something.
To make national news all it needs to do is shut down the airport. Prolonged shutdown of airports does far more damage to the politicians and wealthy than it does to average people which is why republicans are so afraid of it.
The perfect demonstration was the last government shutdown. The Dems were willing to let their constituents literally starve, but once the shutdown started affecting the airports, and their wealthy campaign donors couldn’t move their operatives around the country, the Dems folded in 48 hours, and got NOTHING.
It was the final last straw for me. It perfectly illustrated who the Dem leadership works for. Time for The Hook for the MAGA comedy act of Schmuck & Hakeem.
Well the current budget expires at the end of the month. Lets see if Tim Kaine’s retiring ass will defect again to provide more funding to ICE.
I suspect this government would use a strike at airports as an excuse to take it over with military, going by the air traffic controller strike way back when
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_strikeThe military can’t replace commercial flight crews. They can maybe fill in for air traffic controllers but if flight attends, pilots or TSA strike there’s no flights
A full day off is an effective show of force and basis for future organization. You can use it to gauge how many people are willing to actually put their money where their mouth is. If it stops here, it’s bad. But it’s a good start
A general strike should be national, not just state wide. Especially when it’s the federal government causing the problems and not the state government.
For real, if you are actually on the ground in MN, you need to be doing every single thing you can to switch the verbage to “we’re doing this until demands are met” none of this “we promise we’ll stop in a bit, please don’t go have drinks with your buddies all weekend and forget this was even planned”
Also, not you, collective you
A Friday 2 days from now.
I’m all for a general strike, but I do need to do little things like make sure there’s food in the pantry first.
I get there’s urgency, but a half-hearted shrug of a strike that we can’t maintain for more than a day is just gonna embolden them.
2 days is short notice, but we’re just asking you to run a couple extra errands after work on Thursday and call out sick on Friday. You don’t have to be perfect — if you have an appointment you can’t move or something that’s totally okay — but it’s important to do something visible so the people around you know they’re not alone.
One of the things I keep seeing in relation to strikes-- the idea that calling out sick is good enough— is somewhat problematic, honestly. A strike is a clear picket, And holds little value if it’s not clear that you’re doing it for the cause
There are strikers who are on the frontlines, like you describe, and people who strike by staying home.
Both are valid forms of civic disobedience. One is not inherently better than the other. Both are required to necessitate change.
For those of you who are from outside the US, this is a Fox affiliate, which is a pretty conservative news source, but less conservative than Fox News proper, since it’s for the MSP area specifically. Still an indicator that we’re likely to see very good participation.
KMSP is owned by Fox Television Stations, LLC.
So it is operated by Fox directly, as opposed to explicitly hard conservative groups like Sinclair or Nexstar.
Thanks!
this is a Fox affiliate, which is a pretty conservative news source, but less conservative than Fox News proper,
That’s not really how it works…
If it was an affiliate someone like Sinclair owns it and operates under Fox, like a franchise.
Fox still owns this one, so the Murdocha control it directly. But the level of influence exerted varies.
Feel free to elaborate further here; I was just going for a quick one-line summary. The finer points of American media ownership are truly Lovecraftian.
It’s one company masquerading as several. It’s an as close to an absolute monopoly as you could get. It might even beat out Nestle or Pepsi co
Feel free to elaborate further here
There’s not really anything else, or I’d probably have said it already…
Just weird to have someone ask me if they have any more questions. Like, if you want to learn about stuff, asking questions is a pretty important part of the proces
Just weird to have someone ask me if they have any more questions.
Oh noes! People trying to engage on a social network explicitly created to foster discussion!
What?
They didn’t ask any questions, they asked if there was anything else I should explain to them…
(And to explain why that doesn’t make sense, is I have zero clue what else they don’t know)
So I suggested they ask a question if they had any …
And I legitimately don’t understand why you’d respond to that with:
Oh noes! People trying to engage on a social network explicitly created to foster discussion!
I just don’t understand what you are doing
I have already asked you all the questions I have regarding the contours of the American media landscape. Thank you for offering your time and expertise.
Alright man, you’re welcome I guess
This needs to be a national strike not just Minnesota.
You are welcome to join us from anywhere. Workers of the world unite.
Are you a Marxist-Leninist or a libertarian socialist?
I will doing my part too from my small northern Nevada town. We are all in this together. We have to be the ones who will save us.
The rest of the country should join
I am. In solidarity with my home state of MN. Feels small, but it’s what I’ve got to give.
I’m in from MT
Thank you buddy.
There are multiple solidarity marches near me, one in SF and 1 in Oakland.
I’m on a 9/80 schedule now and Friday is my off day. I’m already not working that day.
Same here but in solidarity with MN we’ve just decided to refuse to spend any money anywhere, whether locally or online. It’s what we can do, and we’re doing it.
If everyone in the US (or elsewhere and doing business with US companies, if you feel so inclined) who is pissed about this simply does what they can, Friday will be a great start.
Good for the lawmakers here.
Thank you for the archive link, OP, I hate visiting fox links.
The one nice thing about reading fox is they take articles that are roughly center-left eu politics and write articles about them as if they are communist propaganda. The more centrist papers just… don’t mention them at all. If you can withstand the awful editorial voice, it’s actually a pretty reasonable source for news.
Might be too cold for the march but cold enough for any excuse to not go outside for work or school
It’s the least they can do.
Is that the one for 2PM only for the 1 day on a Friday?
These one day strikes and protests do Jack shit. The whole point of a strike or protest is to stop economic progress until demands are met and that takes way longer than a day. Has the current administration ever bothered to listen to these weekend protesters even once? Step your game up.
Right, we should never even start anything until any suggested plan meets with your full approval first, and only then if it is 100% guaranteed to hit the goal in one shot.
Fuck that, shitting on a small start is just another way of saying you hate that anyone is trying to do anything. Like how the very same people who bothered to go to peaceful protests over the summer – “that’s not good enough! that’ll never do anything!” – are the ones now organizing direct action in their communities: I bet you think that’s coincidence.
Yeah, no. But thanks for letting us know what side you’re on.
Me, I stand with MN. If this is where they wanna start, I’ll start there too. There will always be plenty like you to judge helplessly from the sidelines.
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I am 100% with you that something is better than nothing but you’ve had year of small starts. I’m also not saying to attempt to overthrow the government with guns. Those fuckers only understand one language, money, and they won’t give a shit until you strike for long enough to hurt their profits. One day or weekend ain’t gonna cut it.
