While I hope maybe this time something happens, I am once again saying No More Fake Strikes . Getting a real general strike going will involve a lot of groundwork for several years and actually talking to people in real life. It will not just be announced on a subreddit.
I def agree with your thoughts and I'm taking the whole strike idea with a grain of salt. Some thoughts:
A big problem w a general strike is the symbolic agreement / digestible marketability of a start date. One of the most recent that resulted in virtually nothing was October 15th. The problem? The date is arbitrary and doesn't mean anything to anyone.
Or even if you pick a date and attach some actual history, like May 1st, the attempts to try to reverse engineer symbolism are difficult. It's too much work to pass that on to the general population. Its obtuse. Its vague. It doesn't apply to everyone. Black Friday is pretty clear cut.
Even if only a small portion of the workforce end up opting out, it can make a big difference. If only 10% of a big box store leave, it'll have a compound effect on the entire operation.
Sure, there's not much of a coordinated bargaining plan to any of this-- but many of the working class are at least cognizant to the illusion of the economy-- so I think every time that hits the collective mainstream its something to get excited about.
I think "Black Friday" has enough negative connotations attached to it - angry mobs, bullshit sales, crazy hours, overworked staff - that it should be comparatively easy to polarize retail workers around it. People have grown to actively loathe the day, as it just feels like scams all the way down. Being press-ganged into facilitating that shit only furthers the resentment.
OWS was also a "fake strike" but one that galvanized protests and riots that shaped the discourse enough to allow for Bernie's run. This has the same potential. It's already been called, now the point isn't to ask them to stop, the point is to get in there and organize them towards action. That's 31,000 people who would consider showing up to a demonstration which anyone with a loudspeaker could turn into a blockade, an occupation (of a square or a factory or a university or... or... or...), a dance party, a mutual aid network meet and greet, anything you've wanted to make happen but didn't have the people.
My point (and the point of the article I linked, though it's been a little while since I read it) wasn't telling them to stop this action, but rather that we need to focus our energy on real organizing, and that real organizing takes a lot more work than posting on :reddit-logo:.
I would love to be wrong :sicko-wistful:
If this turns out to be real, I will be out there joining them and spreading class consciousness right after I edit my post here about how I'm wrong.
You can call for gatherings and direct them into action. This is potential energy you can harness to socialist ends. Whether or not you're wrong is, in part, up to you.
This is a context that can be organized in, and we need to seize the moment.
I haven't seen the op of the :reddit-logo: post once uttering the phrase general strike though, But yeah, apart from that it seems like reddit activism.
Reddit rabble rousing is ephemeral and capricious. But driving this sentiment is good. If you're at a company where people are taking this seriously, this'll put you in the right state of mind to join a walk-out or a slow-down or a sick-in or whatever. Sometimes people just need to know they aren't out on a limb all alone. This sentiment is good for galvenizing action, even if its bullshit at actually organizing it.
While I hope maybe this time something happens, I am once again saying No More Fake Strikes . Getting a real general strike going will involve a lot of groundwork for several years and actually talking to people in real life. It will not just be announced on a subreddit.
However, I would love to be wrong :sicko-wistful:
I def agree with your thoughts and I'm taking the whole strike idea with a grain of salt. Some thoughts:
Or even if you pick a date and attach some actual history, like May 1st, the attempts to try to reverse engineer symbolism are difficult. It's too much work to pass that on to the general population. Its obtuse. Its vague. It doesn't apply to everyone. Black Friday is pretty clear cut.
Even if only a small portion of the workforce end up opting out, it can make a big difference. If only 10% of a big box store leave, it'll have a compound effect on the entire operation.
Sure, there's not much of a coordinated bargaining plan to any of this-- but many of the working class are at least cognizant to the illusion of the economy-- so I think every time that hits the collective mainstream its something to get excited about.
I think "Black Friday" has enough negative connotations attached to it - angry mobs, bullshit sales, crazy hours, overworked staff - that it should be comparatively easy to polarize retail workers around it. People have grown to actively loathe the day, as it just feels like scams all the way down. Being press-ganged into facilitating that shit only furthers the resentment.
OWS was also a "fake strike" but one that galvanized protests and riots that shaped the discourse enough to allow for Bernie's run. This has the same potential. It's already been called, now the point isn't to ask them to stop, the point is to get in there and organize them towards action. That's 31,000 people who would consider showing up to a demonstration which anyone with a loudspeaker could turn into a blockade, an occupation (of a square or a factory or a university or... or... or...), a dance party, a mutual aid network meet and greet, anything you've wanted to make happen but didn't have the people.
My point (and the point of the article I linked, though it's been a little while since I read it) wasn't telling them to stop this action, but rather that we need to focus our energy on real organizing, and that real organizing takes a lot more work than posting on :reddit-logo:.
I would love to be wrong :sicko-wistful:
If this turns out to be real, I will be out there joining them and spreading class consciousness right after I edit my post here about how I'm wrong.
You can call for gatherings and direct them into action. This is potential energy you can harness to socialist ends. Whether or not you're wrong is, in part, up to you.
This is a context that can be organized in, and we need to seize the moment.
I haven't seen the op of the :reddit-logo: post once uttering the phrase general strike though, But yeah, apart from that it seems like reddit activism.
Reddit rabble rousing is ephemeral and capricious. But driving this sentiment is good. If you're at a company where people are taking this seriously, this'll put you in the right state of mind to join a walk-out or a slow-down or a sick-in or whatever. Sometimes people just need to know they aren't out on a limb all alone. This sentiment is good for galvenizing action, even if its bullshit at actually organizing it.