Occupy Movement Not Ready for General Strike, Says Duke Labor Historian

[struggle4progress]

October 27, 2011

Durham, NC - With people in the Occupy Oakland group calling for a general strike next week, Duke labor historian Robert Korstad said his study of social movements leads him to believe a strike would not succeed now.

"It's a tremendous way of showing solidarity among groups of people, or across different groups of people," Korstad said during a live "Office Hours" webcast interview Thursday, October 27. However, "historically, general strikes take quite a bit of organizing if they are going to be successful."

"It seems to me to be, at least from a historical perspective, to be pretty premature at this point," said Korstad, who has been a support of student involved in the Occupy Duke effort on campus. "I think it would be hard to image that being successful." ...

http://today.duke.edu/2011/10/strike

[Demeter]

1. I agree

The people aren't ready for it. Not yet. And it's the election cycle already. Right after the election would be good timing, politically.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. The GA is relearning all this crap

The may one has a better chance, but this I see as learning and dry run.

[xchrom]

3. interesting. nt

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. Perhaps.. but look at how fast it's grown, compared to previous movements

The Hooverville camps, for example, sprouted up over a few years. It only took a few months for the Occupy camps to spread globally.

Things move MUCH faster nowadays. I usually lament that fact, but I'm good with it in this case :)

[yurbud]

5. kick for even mentioning general strike

[formercia]

6. "historically, general strikes take quite a bit of organizing if they are going to be successful."

The authorities will jump on that with Conspiracy charges. Another stupid idea or provocation.

Just like OWS, it has to be spontaneous.

[struggle4progress]

7. I disagree with your advice: (1) "conspiracy" is always "conspiracy to commit such-and-such,"

and there is no general offense "conspiracy"; (2) spontaneous action is usually ineffective unless the population has undergone a long period of learning; there was some effective spontaneous mass action towards the end of the apartheid era in S Africa, but years of careful organizing and education preceded it; the usual outcome of spontaneous action usually more resembles a failure like that of Tiananmen Square; (3) the large strikes associated with the 8-hour work day movement here in the US required enormous organizing effort

[formercia]

8. OWS has done pretty well so far

and people are being educated here as well as many other places. When a group appoints a representative to coordinate an action with another group or groups that violate a statute, then the authorities may take action. The whole point is to destabilize a movement by placing financial and legal burdens on members of an organization to drain their resources and divert their energies away from their initial goals.
If you read the book 'Agents of Repression', it explains in great detail how these techniques were used against the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement by the FBI. It's not about getting a conviction, since there are usually illegal methods used to obtain evidence, or outright fabrication of evidence to obtain a Warrant. The Authorities know full well that the case will be thrown out of court eventually,but the harassment value wears down the Movement and usually makes it go away.

Where is AIM and the Black Panthers now?