cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
One day “general strike”, or as we in Germany call it: “Regular Sunday”
Should also add to not use any social media platforms at all too.
I’ll check here to see if everyone is off…
Would like updates on a platform like Lemmy tho! A pic of folks in the streets can go a long way
How does this affect anything?
Missing a day of work on a Friday is part of people’e schedule now whether they have a 4 day work week just take a day off. Same with school. This is minimally disruptive. The shopping one is the most useless imo. You could just do all your shopping Thursday and skip Friday.
Brilliant 👍 I hope everyone turns up. Ppl better have paper work in check!
someone said: You can’t just pick a random day in the week to start a nationwide strike on.
libs are starting to learn the basics
It’s great!
Get a clue and look at the 60s to learn lessons. Libs know the basics always have and never wanted to resort to this. Meanwhile everything from The weather underground to moms and teachers protests happened back when. Takes a while to wake the dragon but Libs have been consistently doing more than you, likely before you were born.
finally americans doing something that works
keep striking
I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday. But I can avoid going out for dinner or groceries.
On the eve of government shutdown
Yeah, not going to be effective. Make it a week, and you might turn some heads a tad.
Consider it practice.
Just saw a thing yesterday about what china calls the “kill line” it’s basically how most people are paycheck to paycheck and one expense can topple people into poverty and homeless. I’m thinking the tariffs goal was to move that line so less people can take action.
To be effective a general strike needs to be open ended, indefinite, until demands are met. We are not there yet, organizing some smaller ones is a good practice run perhaps, but just preparing for the real one.
In 500 bc, then 350 bc or so, the plebians of Rome had general strikes, decamping to a hill and refusing work until demands were met. One was a written set of laws as the rich were just making shit up as they went. Another was getting tribunes, every tribe got one and they could veto the senate, offer sanctuary, were sacrosanct, elected to one year terms. The second general strike expanded the tribunate.
The Peoples’ tribunes are the only reason their republic lasted for 500 years. Until the imperial boomerang came back on them as well, the tactics they used warring with other peoples were brought home by their own politicians.
Some people are going to stock up the day before, completely defeating the purpose
I roll my eyes that these all are on Fridays 🙄
I mean, it’s fine. Go ahead, it will help, but it’s not really a general strike. It’s a day of protest. Come on America, you don’t really get how this works. You can’t use your PTO to challenge authority. It’s the same as protesting a company by buying their product to destroy like MAGA does.
Then make it a week. It starts with someone. It could start with you.
Don’t ask for a Superman. They don’t exist.
We do things as a community and a collective, its the only way it works.Don’t get me wrong, it’s a Pretti Good idea/start. But, there needs to be more, like a definded list of demands. Otherwise, it’s just an ignorable protest.
It can start with any one of us. I’ve started, but seems easy for me, if everyone puts in a little effort, and some of us put in a lot, we can make an impact.
It’s this, or bloodshed.
Either way, our comforts are lost. I’d rather suffer on my terms, than theirs.
The winter storm that pushed people inside for 2 days has more impact than a single day purchase blackout.
If a country can shrug of massive storms and fires… I just don’t know what message this is actually supposed to send.
We seem to want instant gratification to work in the real world, we want a lack of suffering and to make it as quick and easy as possible.If you have an addiction you don’t lose it in a day. In Shawshank redemption, Andy Dufresne doesnt get to leave out the front door, he has to crawl through a river of shit to come out clean the other side.
We have a river of shit to wade through, I think we need to come to terms with that.While I am pessimistic about this Friday, I also try to translate it into meaningful action.
I’ve definitely severely dropped how much “consumerist” spending I go with across the year. This includes lots of different kinds of common luxuries, and instead making use of farmer’s markets and libraries for food and entertainment. From what I have heard on a few anecdotes, the drop in spending around Christmas was significant to retailers, and should hopefully contribute to pessimism towards fascist ideology.
People are still ordering things online. Inside works (i.e. Warehouses, factories, offices) still go on.
Yes, and the people that think its a good idea to order something with same day delivery from amazon in a snow storm are probably the same ones that will ignore the call for a strike.
We have to ignore the outliers we can’t get, but we nees to understand that The System at large will ignore our outliers as well. A one day strike that has less impact than a storm physically blocking streets will be seen as an outlier.
Not a dig, but just a fact.
Yea I’m the same. I don’t understand how people think this is effective over other methods. There are just so many more options and awareness for spreading a message now. Protesting this way was born out of a time when we didn’t even have telephones. Information was entirely different. Plus with authoritarians controlling narratives, they can really control a lot of public opinion so methods need to be implemented to counter that. Just an example, I see people projecting images within cities. That’s amazing, why not organize that. Every city, projections of police executing Alex and abusing their authority. They’ll take one down but have 20 more at the ready to project it again. If we’re getting hundreds of millions in the streets, there’s got to be something else we can do than just stand around for a few hours.
Ysk, this isn’t a general strike. It’s a protest, at best.
Obviously its both
A general strike is much longer.
Do you have a copy of the rule book by chance?
“The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country—and the first general wildcat strike in history—was May 1968 in France.[105] The prolonged strike involved eleven million workers for two weeks in a row,[105] and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government.”
This entire wiki article is a list of HUGE events in history that were affected by general strikes and what was involved in organizing and challenging them.
A one-day protest is fine, but it’s not a “general strike.”
With the amount of indoctrination that has happened in the US, it makes sense that most don’t know how to adequately protest or strike.
At this point in time, it finally appears people are slowly understanding protests as a means to signify discontent. However, the line remains blury as to what is a protest and what is a strike.
A general strike should leave a long lasting mark resulting from halting of the economy - but a single day will only reinforce the fact that strikes which are effectively just protests aren’t going to work.
I started watching network nightly news again after throwing it away for years and years, because I want to see what the average American who isn’t stuck online sees every night while cooking dinner for 3 screaming kids and having to juggle two jobs. NBC, ABC, even CBS.
It’s so bad. It’s dishearteningly bleak when you realize how much of the population catches blurbs and snippets of actual issues sandwiched between stories about weather and a local boy-scout who grew the biggest pumpkin, and of course the required nightly “true crime” story about a spouse who murdered their partner and had an affair.
I have nobody to scream at, nobody to shake. They didn’t even MENTION the strikes (protests) so far on any network, they have not shown the scale of the marches and the chaos on the streets of American cities. To say nothing of the neutral, blameless tone they use.
They only just barely started taking the people’s protests against ICE like an actual news story after Alex Pretti was murdered, because at a certain point, even the hand of the state can no longer dismiss or avoid actual reality.
This is because there are three forces of political capital in the country broadly. The strongest is the liberal masses, the majority. Farmed cattle used for the labor and attention spans and purchasing power. Middle-class America holds ALL the power because they have the most money and keep the system moving… as a result, they are manipulated and sedated the hardest.
The second force is nationalism. About 20% - 30% or so of the population are illiterate, rural or wannabe-rural grown toddlers screaming and waving guns and hating everything that moves, while worshipping the flag and kissing the king’s ass. Armed groups of nationalists have been the driving force of political capital for thousands of years, it’s no different now.
The last group is progressivism. Arguably the weakest, almost not worth mentioning it has so little power now, but is still technically on the list because we’re still here, still trying.
But it’s all shifting, as leftists start taking up arms and marching in larger and larger numbers, the networks and marketing companies have no choice but to notice it. This is because the liberal middle class is now noticing it, and when THEY shift, everything shifts.
To this end, I support continued protests and marches, even if they’re utterly pathetic by historical standards for moving systems.
General strikes aren’t things you can use your PTO for to get a three-day weekend. That’s like protesting a brand by buying their product and then destroying it.
Srry guys, not sure if I can simply miss class
I own my own very very very small business (its me, my wife, my sister-in-law and a friend in another state) - what’s the consensus on what we should be doing for things like this? Do I strike myself?
ignore webadict. since the strike is for 🇺🇲gov, do not do business with them, or contractors working with the government. You can continue your business with comrades involved in the strike.
if when you can donate, do so.
The government does not operate in a vacuum. Corporations and their owners support these policies and actions, which is why economic boycotts are part of the strike.
Corporations and their owners
Comrades are not the rulers🤦♀️. Are you the ruling class?
You close down for the day and don’t buy anything. It’s quite clearly spelled out: No work. No school. No shopping.
Any other questions?
Simple yes would have sufficed.
Your business does not create money from nowhere. You buy things, and you sell things. You are part of a bigger economy, and you are striking that.
That’s fair just seems like your anger is misdirected at people who want to help. Most info is framed for W9s. I felt I was asking a legitimate question.
I suppose the any other questions bit was unnecessary, but I was trying to point out that it was listed in the post in a rather humorous way. I apologize because it does sound a bit snarkier than intended. Sorry.
In your defense, it’s kind of a dumb question. Whether you own your business or not, if you’re trying to participate, you don’t work. It’s that simple… (Sorry if you see this, OP)
No worries I do appreciate the response
deleted by creator
Just gonna repeat what the OP said: this is an unverified archive link that he found on reddit. Idk what that means, but it looks legit to me?!
E: the website works now: https://wiki.icelist.is/index.php/Main_Page
Much appreciated!
