We’ve all seen it before. There is no reason to ever let this shiz happen again. Some say it’s the POTUS who tells us when we have to go back to work. Some say it is the governors. Both are wrong, of course. We working folks, and only us working folk, decide on when, or if, we are going back. This is the perfect time to make a practical demonstration of this fact.
Friday, May 1, General Strike: no Work, no Shopping, no School
This year will be one of the biggest general strikes in years. It’s really easy to participate. For a lot of us, it’ll be as easy as just saying “General Strike!”. Let’s do a poll !!!1!
General Strike! ~ I do this every Mayday
General Strike! ~ I’m not working that day anyways, can shop on other days, and school is closed
General Stike! ~ I can take sick leave/vacation/etc, can shop on other days, and school is closed
General Strike! ~ Nobody is going to get fired during a pandemic y/o take this job and shove it, I can shop other days, and school is closed
General Strike! ~ I’m a ICU nurse or something like that. It’s a calling, and my patients depend on me, perhaps even to live. I’m fully in support of the general strike, but I am still going to work. I can shop other days, and school is closed
I should have put in a poll option for those who are in support of the general strike, but because they are in a particularly precarious situation, are effectively “forced” to seek wages that day. Use ‘bastard’ I guess. My bad.
ETA: I proly should have made this poll secret too. I’ll try to do better next pandemic. Again, my bad.
Things might very well be different in Germany. But multi-billion dollar corporations in America spend their profits terribly because they know if they tank the government will bail them out.
Do you live in Stockholm… or do you just enjoy having the syndrome? This is all gibberish. FYI: Wobbly propaganda uses “boss” to mean ownership.
But actions speak louder than words. You are participating in the general strike. That’s what really matters! Solidarity. Supporting our fellow workers. Good job! You have a lot to be proud of!
I know you know it’s not about individual heroes. This is a team sport.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
Solidarity Forever ~ Ralph Chaplin (also the creator of Sabo-tabby).
I also know you know that we don’t have to do damn thing… as long as we don’t do a damn thing together. All we need to do is stand up and cross our arms… like the follow below. Not a wheel can turn without us. All it takes is the conscious withdrawal of cooperation. Follow the cat !!!1!
All bosses (meaning the employing class) are stealing. It’s a fact, not a feeling. Running away never solves any problems. Wherever you run to you will have the same problems. Running away, and leaving your fellow workers behind, isn’t solidarity. United we win, divided we beg.
“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common…” is the opening line in our union’s preamble, which is truly an iconic document in the history of the labor movement. For over 100 years, working folk have dedicated their lives to the principles so sublimely expressed here.
And, for over 100 years, the bosses (meaning the employing class) have been killing us over these principles. Or herding us into cattle cars, and dumping us out into the desert without food & water. You know, stuff like that…
Now, sure, you live in Stockholm, at least in your mind. But consider… why does the employing class spend so much time and effort killing us over something “that is soooooo stupid”? I’d suggest this: if people are being killed over something, maybe there’s something going on that you don’t understand. I’ll state that you disrespect those victims when you dismiss them as “soooooo stupid” people.
Other than that, I’m glad you are participating in the general strike… and I don’t see any reason to respond to any more of your gibberish.
I haven’t heard any chatter about this angle… but I’m feeling a sense of failure right now too. Not me personally, and not just the IWW, but the whole of the DA communities. Not a moral failure, but a practical failure. A catastrophic real world failure.
Unlike those who believe in some magical and predestined “pathway” to paradise, horizontals realize that shiz just happen, and it happens at unpredictable times. Us horizontals realize that there is always a double purpose. We organize “not only for everyday struggle with capitalists”, but to also be organized so we are ready whenever shiz just happens to happen.
In 1936, when the Spanish fascists staged their coup, the CNT/FAI were organized enough to fight back. That’s the historical gold standard.
Today, with this pandemic, the rent system has collapsed like the house of cards that all forms of capitalism are. The wage system itself is partially destabilized. How many decades, and lives lost, would it have taken to achieve that otherwise? This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Permanently banning evictions would be an achievement up there with the work of the Haymarket Martyrs.
We, and I mean the whole of the DA communities, simply were’t well enough prepared. In our lives, we’ll never have this chance again, and… we we’re fully ready for it.
They weren’t working class. They didn’t listen to the working class. They sent the working class to labor camps. If you say they were the working class you’re just buying THEIR propaganda.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov[a] (22 April 1870[b] – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin ,[c] was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-partycommunist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism known as Leninism.
Born to a moderately prosperous middle-class family
Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on 7 November 1879, the fifth child of a Ukrainian-Jewishfamily of wealthy farmers
Seriously people ITT are explaining Russian history to lapka. Jesus fucking Christ. Does anyone want to explain trucking to me? How does it make you guys feel when some donk explains to you that AK is actually a terrible hand?
This whole thread is idiotic. I’m pretty far left myself, but I’m well aware that a lot of stuff has already been tried and didn’t work. There are a lot of smart people on this board, and as a result we should be trying to come up with new shit not just advocating for old shit that was already tried and didn’t work.
A more interesting subject to explore than a general strike (which won’t work without things being significantly worse than they are now because you won’t be able to get buyin from everyone) is figuring out how to bend/twist capitalism into something that isn’t so harmful.
You want to criticize capitalism I’ll cheer you on. You’ll probably be right. You want to advocate for 19th century solutions to 21st century problems… well you’re actually undermining everything you believe in and wasting everyone’s time. Fucking stop it already.
The Bolsheveks were not working class and they betrayed the working class almost immediately. The working class never had power - yet you blame the working class.
