Fucking FINALLY. How this took an entire year is beyond me. People getting snatched off the street, beaten, and even killed. A general strike is what is needed and what has been needed. I’m happy the time has finally arrived.
Anyone going to make comment how this isn’t actually a general strike?
Happy to. It’s a protest, not a general strike. General strikes can’t happen without massive community organizing, union support, mutual aid, etc. which are all things that are basically 100% absent in the United States
Bets on which ends first the strike or Trump’s presidency?
add memphis to the list.
Keep in mind a general strike is successful if 3.5 % join in.
The 3.5% is a concept and not a truth. I don’t remember where it started to spread, probably reddit, even if the idea has been around for a while. It’s stuck in the online psyche now. I’m all for protests, but thinking 3.5% is some magic button isn’t right.
Edit: I went digging to find a source of some of the idea. Here it is. A paper that discusses tbe original concept. There are some key points that people are missing when online throws the “rule” out there, and one of them is this:
The movements on which it was based were maximalist ones, i.e. overthrowing a government or achieving territorial independence. They were not reformist in nature,…
So any protest would probably need to accept violence as a possibility, I don’t think Trump and his goons are going to leave peacefully.
Also, the linked paper suggests that the majority of peaceful protests that succeeded had to surpass 3.5%.
Few governments leave peacefully. Ask Iranians. Still, something needs to be done, and I think a general strike is the best tool at the moment. Witty signs and walking through the streets will not get it done with this White House, unfortunately.
I’d hope that at least 10% of your population must be furious enough at that shitty regime to inconvenience themselves, though at this point I’d even take 3.5%.
US twentieth century history teaches us that in whatever the US does, its citizens will suffer much less for it than the citizens of the victim nations, so as annoying as it may be, the shoe is finally on the other foot. Ask Latinos or Arabs how it felt to wear that shoe for generations.
Let’s see if an actual general strike can come to fruition. If so, I’ll be hoping for its success from afar.
I got off in a tangent there, apologies, since I’m not at all intending to argue against anything you said in your comment….
As in all of these cities have work places on strike or said they will?
Each one of these cities it going to have a protest for a day and only eat a drink what they bought the day before to have something for Friday.
In what way is that a general strike? For a second there was hope, sigh, because a general strike is exactly what they need.
It’s not. A general strike would mean potentially losing some of our comforts and we just aren’t ready to do that yet I guess. :/
wot
American protests for you. They go on a shopping spree a day before the boycott protest so they don’t miss a beat.
