What is a general strike? It's a mass coordinated work stoppage. ALL possible economic activity comes to a halt. Schools, shops, theaters, museums, manufacturing, etc. are shut down. Labor is withheld.
What should stay open/remain operational during a national shutdown? Critical, life-sustaining services like hospitals, emergency medical services, basic water and electricity maintenance.
The purpose of the shutdown is to exert max pressure on Prez Pedo to cut the shit with his and VP Stephen Miller’s out of control, rabid, private army. You know, the ones tasked with the ethnic and political cleansing of America. The strike is also a call to Congress to wake the fuck up and cut the funding that supports ICE.
Will a one day general strike/national shutdown make everything all better here in the U.S.? No but I bet it’ll achieve at least SOME of the goals. Which are:
- Immediate Withdrawal of ICE/CBP from Minnesota
- Accountability for Murders and Deaths (both outside and in the concentration camps)
- National Action – Defunding of ICE/CBP
- Economic Disruption (demonstrating the collective power of workers and consumers to force changes in the political and economic order)
I want Jonathan Ross charged with the murder of Renee Good. I want his fellow ICEholes who stood there letting this happen and keeping a medic from attending to her, on trial as accomplices to first degree murder. I want their names.
I want the names of the maniacal fucks who fired into Alex Pretti’s body as he lay subdued on the ground. I want the names of the ICEholes who did nothing to stop the murder. They should all be suffering in the most disgusting prison for the rest of their lives.
I want ICE completely abolished.
Social strikes have been used effectively in other, smaller countries like the Philippines, Chile, South Korea, Serbia, Madagascar, Nepal, Poland, Haiti, South Africa. One key factor is that the strikes made it impossible for the regimes to function.
While strikes for specifically political purposes like deposing political leaders or affecting legislation are common in other countries — as illustrated by many of the non-U.S. examples mentioned above — they are a rarity in the U.S. An exception was the 23-day strike by 42,000 West Virginia coal miners in 1969 that forced the state legislature to pass a law providing compensation for victims of black lung disease. (source)The only national general strike in our country’s history was organized by the labor movement to support a decades-long campaign for the eight-hour workday. This was May 1, 1886. A third of a million workers walked off their jobs – considering the U.S. population at the time was around 55 million, that’s a LOT. The biggest demonstrations were in Chicago – they went on for days.
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| The family resemblance is striking, no? |
But a rally protesting police murders of strikers was interrupted by a bomb, followed by brutal repression. Assaults by the authorities on civil liberties, especially harsh for immigrant workers, included death by hanging of several labor leaders in a transparent miscarriage of justice, an episode now known as the Haymarket affair. This “red scare” set back the eight-hour movement for decades, but also resulted in May 1 being declared International Workers’ Day by the Socialist International to honor the eight-hour martyrs. (source)Is the U.S. just too big, too ideologically diverse, pigheaded, and economically fucked up for a sustained (multi day/month) general strike to work? I think the fact that many of us are living paycheck to paycheck and healthcare being so obscenely expensive (to the point of often making it unaffordable to remain alive in America) makes extended strikes impossible for many.
What to do? Boycott, vote, stay informed on local, state, and national issues, be a nagging pain in the ass to your elected officials, if you still have MAGAt friends and family – confront them with reality, the truth. Don't be a bystander. Don’t give up.
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