Forum Post: Occupations should call for a general strike
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 7 p.m. EST by cadriscoll
(8)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Street actions are a powerful method for educating people and recruiting to the movement. The Occupy Movement is accomplishing that. But street actions are only a beginning and they don't really have the power to achieve the social, economic and political changes we all know we need in the U.S. imperial plutocracy. General strikes with political demands have that power. Call for a general strike to end corporate domination of the country and imperial wars. Join the FB group, "Call for a General Strike: http://www.facebook.com/groups/callforgeneralstrike/
It seems way to early but I agree it is the next big step. I think if we can continue to wake more people up and mobilize them next summer would be the time for a general strike.
If you cant strike, pull your money out of every big bank, buy only essential food from small shops. Figure out a way to cut your fuel expense (motorbike, bike, walking), change insurance to an independent broker, change your pension fund or withdraw it (if you can) stop buying anything unessential. Cancel your subscriptions to everything except your cell phone. Buy an oz or two of silver (a good chunk of the banking system's leverage depends on it)
Get others to do the same.
Their business models ALL require a constant flow of income. It will take under a month to send most of these companies into insolvency.
Sure, people will lose their jobs. It will suck. But the government will pay attention. They will have no choice but to let them fail. The businesses that YOU chose to survive, will.
This is likely to accomplish far more than anything else. Especially if more than half the country agrees with you.
Hell, create a website with a list of ethical businesses. The more money that flows to the ethical businesses, the larger they will become. The smaller the unethical and fraudulent will become.
You can easily use the system against itself. You just have to get enough people to agree to do so.
You want millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet...to go on strike and risk getting fired?
what's the goal again? To destroy our economy and people's livelihoods?
Where are you? The economy is destroyed.We the Peole got just about nothing left,but a strike. A 3 day strike will wake those politicals up on the hill.
STRIKE!
the economy isn't destroyed. millions of Americans are still going about their daily lives, though many are struggling to make ends meet.
Yeah,my husband,me and the kids. But what about the ones who have been robbed by the banks,corporations,wallstreet. Don't be so selfish. Think of your fellow man.We Have all been affected by wallstreet and the people's government they HIJACKED for themselves. I will march with these people. I support the movement.
cad is right. this has to be part of it on some level.
uhhh johnny...there are 46 million people already starving today!!!
so...put more people out of work by them going on strike and getting fired?
brilliant!
oh booo whoo...we only have our CHAINS to lose. I'm already free : ) this system is going DOWN...you 1 percent'er!
Good post ;~D
damn straight i want to destroy the corporate capitalist system!!!
I know you do.
No worries though...Anarchists and Communists are just a tiny small minority in America and their beliefs will never take hold here.
but have fun trying and wasting your life!
ha haa haaaaa yeah...us pinko's and reds are out to get ya' mama!! where is J. Edgar Hoover when you need him??? I am having soooo much fun occupying my city right now and I am doing the most impt. work of my life!! a waste would be sitting home and trying to save this Titanic we are on. SEE YA BROTHA!
AGREED!
ok, have fun sitting in a park wasting your life away.
Me...I'll be voting in 2012 while you await the never-coming Communist takeover.
Lol, Johnny, Ur blind to the signs of the times. Hope Ur kids don't curse U when Babylon falls.
lol...OWS is blind.
OWS does not represent all Americans...not 99%...not even 50%
Unless OWS has 150+ million Americans supporting it, it won't accomplish anything.
Whatever: prepare for Babylon's fall.
will that happen before or after the 2012 Armageddon??
no worries, I have a bunker filled w/ canned beans and spam
;)
I guess Johnny Suburban has pretty well exposed himself, so there not much need in responding to him. He says we are the minority. How many Americans are right-wing survivalists who oppose unions, workers and the unemployed struggling for justice?
Not 2012 that I'm worried about, it's major ecological/economic catastrophe caused by man.
Be sure to stock a bunch of vitamin C pills and salt too. :)
Yeah, have a general strike. There ya go. So your plan is to piss off everybody? BTW, general strikes do NOT work - go read your history books. Oh wait - you rewrote them.
How about go out and VOTE? If you can get this many people mobilized and you think you're the 99%, you'll have no trouble getting your "guy" elected (as long as he's 35 and born in this country).
I have said this for years.It would get results quick. The problem is one of solidarity over fear. Too many will not participate because of either fear or selfishness. Corporate America counts on that fear as the dividing and deciding and conquering factor.
And that's exactly the potential for the occupy movement: to build solidarity and support networks that will allow sufficient numbers of people to overcome their fear and participate in a general strike.
A general strike does not have to be huge or disruptive to be effective. How about one day of not using mass transit, bridges, tunnels, etc. The object is to cost revenue, not to disrupt anything. If you have a job, go to work, just walk, bicycle, etc instead of using the subways or buses. This was effective in the Montgomery bus boycott. Sure, it's hard on the feet, but not impossible.
General strike is absolutely necessary.
"100,000 Englishmen cannot make 350,000,000 Indians co-operate." (rough translation)
General strike, shutting all transit etc., down is the most effective tool in nonviolent resistance movements, showing who has the power.
The results may not be immediate, but the muscle will be mightily flexed.
Transit, teachers, bank workers, all the bottom needs to "occupy and shut it down."
Strikes only hurt yourselves with scabs hired to replace you on the other side of the world, so what we need a comprehensive strategy that implements all our demands at the same time, and although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 10% Management Group of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategic Legal Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do this at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategic_legal_policy_organizational_operational_structures_tactical_investment_procedures
Join
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
if you want to be 1 of 100,000 people needed to support a Presidential Candidate – myself – at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
I don't want to support you or any other presidential candidate. Nor do I want to be a banker. I want to fight against bankers and presidents. Go troll somewhere else. We don't need more opportunists.
You need to have a job to call for a strike.
StinkandFilth, no, you don't. Some of the most important support for major strikes in American history came from the unemployed.
I am not in Mt Vernon, Ohio......
Everyone could not buy anything....
General strike is not supported by a Union.....Oct 15th, the whole planet participates.....what will the US do?
I say bomb the crap out of Mt Vernon, Ohio, where you apparently do not live. Oh well. You do what you want for revolution, I'll do what I want.
Unfortunately, much of the union leadership is in the pockets of the Democratic Party -- witness how they co-opted the movement in Wisconsin so they could help channel it into a useless recall strategy. But the rank-and-file is another story.
I agree.....I am not a Dem (I am not GOP either)
The goal should be to make it impossible for the U.S. government and its corporate masters to carry on with business as usual. We working people, as the producers, have the power to do that if we withdraw our consent and our labor in a coordinated fashion. OWS is the opportunity of a lifetime to organize a general strike.
Im with you that. Read my post on this website....National Strike!
MiMi1026, please join us in the FB "Call for a general strike" group at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/callforgeneralstrike/
I did. I will be in DC tomorrow.
Not the worst idea by any means and at some point is called for. The words of JohnnySuburban might be the factor needed to reconsider. Save it, later it is DEFINITLY part of what can be done. Lets wait 'till they are laid off and the livilihood of the "currently comfortable" is impinged. That is justified by understanding what Article V of the constitution means in the meantime. Here is a page that has some quality references as well as a video about a man that sued all members of congress and what he learned.
http://algoxy.com/poly/article_v_convention.html
YES.....WE NEED A GENERAL STRIKE. Even if we had just say the union member striking...that would be 12 million on strike. Those who are unemployed...for that one day would sit home (or in our camps at Occupy) and not BUY ANYTHING. I can at the very LEAST do that!
unionist tactics; no thanks. i'm fighting against this movement being taken over by marxists, socialists, republicans, conservatives, ron paulers, obama-ite,s democrats.. and unionists. why can't you people just settle in?
sheesh.
http://www.oligarchyusa.com/
http://www.istockanalyst.com/finance/story/5390832/some-fascinating-stats-about-our-corporate-oligarchy
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/category/21st-century-challenges/ethicsandeconomics/
According to a 2008 article by David Rothkopf, the world’s 1,100 richest people have almost twice the assets of the poorest 2.5 billion (Rothkopf, 2008). Aside from the obvious problem – that this global elite has their hands in everything from politics to financial institutions – …
http://theprogressiveplaybook.com/2011/09/occupywallstreet-an-american-tahrir/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ght22PnCXy0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/wisconsin-is-ground-zero_b_825321.html
http://last-lost-empire.com/blog/?tag=global-corporate-oligarchy
To the extent that we, the people, are removed from control over our lands, marketplaces, central banks, and media we are no longer empowered. In practice, those few who do control the land, central bank, media and "free market" are the real rulers of our corrupt and declining "democracy."
Due to propaganda from a corporate-owned and edited media we are kept from knowing, much less debating, the nature of our system. Due to a central bank owned by bankers, media owned by a few global concerns, and trade regime controlled by global corporations (i.e., one designed to remove the people from control over their markets and environments) the vast majority have become little more than latter-day serfs and neo-slaves upon a corporate latifundia.
To restore a semblance of effective democracy and true freedom Americans, and people around the world, need to re-educate themselves as to the true nature of their political and economic systems. Toward this end, OligarchyUSA.com is dedicated to providing old and new information, books, links, reform ideas and debates not easily found or accessed today in establishment media.
OligarchyUSA.com is but one more site and sign of the times as ground-up counter-revolutions arise around the world... all in response to a forced and freedomless globalization of a ruling global elite perfecting their top-down plutocracy and revolutions of the rich against the poor. In short, democracy is no longer effective today. For this reason, it is toward a restoration of truly effective and representative democracies, and natural freedom, that this site is dedicated.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/organizational-map-2/
http://www.oligarchyusa.com/ says we should nationalize ALL the banks and abolish interest on loans? If not, how would local banks stay in business?
Why not abolish money?
it systemically impossible to abolish money. grow up. we can evolve out of money, but abolishing money would just end civilization.
it's going to end anyway with geometric world population growth, global warming, peak oil and the funny-money system we have.
U never answered my first question: Should we nationalize all banks or are U only (misguidedly) after the Fed?
again, until you run a real problem solving process instead of a bong hit brainstorm, neither you nor i have any business speaking to answer that question because its just knee jerk noise and nonsense. Off the top of my head, according to the constitution the banks should be run and controlled by congress. But this is not adult problem solving, its BSing. we need to do real work and all of the homework, or we are just firing off shots in the dark.
of course money is going to end. however that will happen as it happens. pushing it to happen will cause many more problems than it can solve.
non answers. frigging go look at and answer my threads. its stupid for us to even pretend we know what we are talking about until we bother to check in to the sciences.
(actually, i have checked into the sciences, but i'm trying to be nice about this.)
U'd rather have Congress in charge of the mint than economists so that after they fuck it up, U can vote in some new ones?
Hope U have a huge stockpile of food, etc.
right. so we would need to have everything changed. again. these are complicated issues. just brainstorming like this is pointless until you get to the textbooks. chit chatting like this is pointless- your not looking at or responding to the important core threads.
we are wasting time with infantilism and noise and shots in the dark.
U don't need textbooks, it's simple: abolish money.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150399526600833
Giving your NEGATIVE Energy to something only GIVES your (-) time and Energy to it. (duh)
So I'm curious John. What solutions are you presenting?" The list is nearly endless. Geothermal power, localization of economics, permaculture, self sufficient community.. I have real solutions. Most relevant to THIS discussion lets talk about PHRASING things in an ADULT and LUCID manner instead of just becoming anti capitalism trolls. " Any movements you're a part of that you agree with in ideology, or are you just here to criticize actual movements?" I agree with the general direction of tzm. I'm just sick and tired of all the stupid and evil and stupid and evil which tzm keeps heaping on to make my job of saving the humans far more difficult.
"Instead, I have you talking smack about the killmoney perspective," perspective? now your trolling lingo is a whole perspective? " calling it violent and saying other absurd things." there is nothing absurd about pointing out that kill money is a violent and anti science and anti intellectual meme. " John, you should know me by now, I don't believe in violence, " then preach solutions, not violence. "I just believe in the death of an age old notion, that actually proves to be most violent idea outside of WMD's." great, and i agree with that in principle which is exactly why i'd like to not have all my allies making us all look like frigging 13 year olds who can't tell the difference between violence and real world problem solving process. " So stop the sillyness john, " you stop the sillyness. please. "there are better ways you can go about any differences you have with my ppoints of view" i have run this lame meme over and over and over and ever again with tzmers. i have been nice, i have been kind, i have been diplomatic. You all don't listen, and you keep in essence taking us down the road towards doom. I'd like to have REAL allies, not stupid anticapitalists making us all look bad with punk azz moron propaganda which any ADULT wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
Oh, dear, I looked at Ur FB page and realized ur one of those who think the Fed is an evil beast (the US treasury is more of a beast) . . . the problem isn't the Fed or "sound money" but money itself: abolish money!
oh dear. abolishing money is an anarachist panacea without substance or merit and without depth. its not a problem solving process, its garbage.
ending the fed & "sound money" are stupid, unfounded conspiracy theories
ending the fed is not stupid, it is an absolute lucid and sane idea. "sound money" is just assorted scams to get people to invest in other things as the economy tanks- and rob grandma of her savings by generating a gold bubble.
A General Strike seems to be the next logical step. I'll meet you on the barricades.
A General Strike seems to be the next logical step. I'll meet you on the barricades.
General strikes work when there is complete conviction that the course is the right one, that the backs of those in power can be broken, and that the strike is one of many tools of the resistance.
The general strike in India leading eventually to liberation worked because Gandhi (and Lech Walesa, etc.) had complete support.
In a movement without a charismatic leader, there must be complete community agreement and commitment to a clearly defined set of objectives (requires negotiation) and then an uncompromising adherence to the strike, no matter the threats, etc.
There also has to be a social-support network to help distribute the pain -- something we're sorely lacking now. Part of our work to organize a general strike should be to anticipate the reprisals and to come together in support networks that give strikers some backup.