What would collective acts of grief look like? Entire processions marching in black? Vigils for those that died of covid? Twitter bots listing their bios and faces for each victim.
We can write entire books on the victims of 9/11 but we have the equivalent of 1 9/11 in victims every month or so and we shrug our shoulders.
I haven't ever really agreed that mass-striking is out of the question in the US. It's not exactly challenging to convince people to just not go to work. Sure, many won't participate because they can't, or because they don't agree with it, but a whole fuckload of people - especially those who are glued to social media sites where the idea of a mass-strike could be propagated - would be all too glad to just collectively peace out of their job at the local Gamestop or whatever, for a few days or so.
That is, unless our immediate response to the idea continues to be "it'll never happen."
Fair enough. Part of my reasoning why we wouldn't see this kind of movement, though, is how easily americans accepted mass death from COVID. This is anecdotal, obviously, but my entire workplace and most of my social circle have believed that the pandemic is over since about June.
imo the best possible response to anyone mentioning a general strike should be "Hell yeah, let's do it." Even if we're not literally going to lay out the date and time in a Hexbear comment section, we should absolutely be encouraging the notion at every possible opportunity. The more we do, the more people will be willing to participate, until it actually starts to manifest.