I think the time has come for a National Strike

[Horse with no Name]

I don't think Americans are up to it...but I do believe the time has come. What say you?

[TomInTib]

1. Not in Chickenshit Nation.

Americans simply don't have what it takes to hit the streets.

Or to even stay home from work, for that matter.

[H8fascistcons]

6. Sadly.......

I would have to agree, maybe when we crown the new American idol and when Gilligan gets off the island, then we can strike. Personally, I say "shut it down" until the Fascists are removed from office and that includes the Fascist enabler Nancy Pelosi...

[roguevalley]

45. I'm there. I even have a pitchfork.

[taterguy]

2. Suppose you think your employer is generally helping society?

[Occulus]

42. Threads like these are why postal workers cannot strike.

Were we allowed to strike, we could bring this entire nation to a complete economic standstill.

Which is, of course, precisely the reason why we are forbidden from doing so.

Oh, and for any kind of national strike to work you need a year and a good deal of publicity on major outlets- i.e., places which would stand to be seriously affected by the strike.

In other words- we'd all love to see it, but it just isn't going to happen. Or, coordinate 380+ million people without a coast-to-coast mode of distribution of the message.

I love this idea. I love it. But it cannot possibly work.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. America might strike ...... Dumbfuckistan will never do it.

Dmbfuckistan ...... it isn't a place, its a state of mind.

[dawgman]

4. I agree

but "we" need to research what it was like to be involved in the general strikes in Seattle 1919 and SF and Minneapolis in 1934 and double the strife and back lash. It wouldn't be pleasant. It would probably involve more of a Coors-ian (people should read this...http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2064) or worse ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting ).

The best thing for the unions as a whole isn't a massive strike in the US but to work diligently towards union-izing the third world. If it is not cheaper to move manufacturing to Indonesia world then it won't happen.

My two cents.

[L. Coyote]

5. Completely ridiculous idea. This is a good way to lose an election.

Most people would have to ask, "What is a national strike?"

How about a voter registration drive instead? It will actually accomplish something, if that's not a problem??

[H8fascistcons]

9. HHHMMMMM.....

Seriously thought about that and I hope it works but when they lie about the polls in November, calling it to close to call on election night and then they "flip" the voting machines at 3:00AM do we wait another four years and "pretend vote" all over again? Just Asking what's plan "B"?....

Regards.........

[dawgman]

10. That's right....

The current corporatocracy that is the status quo is sooooo important to maintain....

[Horse with no Name]

15. I guess you are of the belief that this election will change anything

It doesn't matter WHO is elected...the things that matter to MOST Americans will not CHANGE.

[L. Coyote]

25. It won't improve our grammer or command of English, or will it?

I sick and tired of listening to those who see the future so clearly,
with such certainty about what is unequivocally unknowable.
It is the refuge of intellectual scoundrels and the lazy.

Oh, and having President that can speak English might change things!
It might even improve discourse here, and our children's learning.

[Echo In Light]

29. Yes. It doesn't make sense to suppose relying on the thinking that led to the problem will change it

It'll only perpetuate the same problems.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Unions Honoring Other Unions Pickets Would Be A Nice Start...

We live in a self-absorbed, NIMBY society...one that demands a lot and gives little...and then bitches about it. Sadly, people aren't hungry or angry enough to take to the streets. People suffer silently as our media always shows affluence and if you're not impulse buying or making the big coin, then it's obviously your inadequacy. When it comes to trying to organize, everyone looks at their self-interests first...many times cheering an idea or giving a lot of "moral" support but when it comes to their own action there are other factors that prevent them from following through on their own right.

We can barely get protests together and we have a corporate media that will stiffle any messages that don't serve their interests. They've scared many into thinking that civil disobedience is "Un-American". The hurt isn't deep enough, the outrage still isn't loud enough. I'll be content on directing the silent rage to the ballot box in November.

[Greyhound]

19. What he said.

:kick:

[Speck Tater]

8. Strike for WHAT?

Nothing is going to change. We already consume way more than our share of the world's resources.

[dawgman]

12. A strike to wake up this country

to the fact that the middle class is disappearing...that the worlds climate is changing for the worse...that our rate of consumption is unsustainable...that easily extracted resources are running out...that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting more numerous....

you name it there is a reason.

[Speck Tater]

28. Don't need a strike for all of that.

Whatever cannot go on forever, will eventually stop.
Unsustainable consumption will not be sustained. When we can no longer consume that way, then everyone will know.
Resources are running out. When they're gone, then everyone will know.
The rich are getting richer, and when the rest of us having nothing, then everyone will know.

It might do some good if there were any way to fix this mess, but the fact is, human population is in overshoot. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, and what happens next is inevitable. All we can do is sit back and watch the show.

Striking will accomplish absolutely nothing.

[dawgman]

33. however is it not better to slow down gradually

or as gradually as possible rather than to come to a screeching halt?

[Subdivisions]

35. That's called "powering down". And, yes...

it would be better to do so gradually and while implementing a structured plan. But we can't even get people to admit the shit is about to hit the fan. Not our government, not J6P.

[Subdivisions]

34. I totally agree with everything you said except

the part where you say "striking will accomplish absolutely nothing."

It would accomplish something were it able to form in any organized way and if people were willing, like our forefathers were, to die or suffer hardship to stand on principals and defend their freedoms.

But that is impossible without a national unbiased media and, even if there were such an animal, there would still be the matter of getting everyone to cooperate. Which they won't.

We are indeed in overshoot. And, since J6P can't get his shit together and stand up for himself, we're totally fucking doomed and the fascists will do what they damn well want - with us as well as with the planet.

[Nitrogenica]

11. A gas boycott might have some legs this time.

[taterguy]

14. You can't last very long in this society without buying gas

[Nitrogenica]

16. well yah, but I was referring to the one day gas boycotts of the last few years

I would ride my bike to work instead of drive that day. (about 35 miles one way)

[dawgman]

17. The only way that the

one day gas strikes would work is if the day that was struck was never replaced. the fact is the only way something like that would work is if every one stopped DRIVING on that day. other wise one simply moves the expenditures from one day to another either before or after.

[taterguy]

18. How can you get to work without gasoline?

It's just not possible.

[dawgman]

20. lol if you live in the ex-urbs

you may be right.

[dawgman]

22. I live a few miles from where I currently work and

could walk or ride a bike if I were to invest a few more minutes into the commute (which I do in the summer).

[taterguy]

23. It's not possible for the overwhelming majority of people

Based on the bitching and moaning that ensues whenever anyone on this site is dumb enough to suggest that people should consume less gas.

[dawgman]

26. lol

of course it is not possible to give up the far too large house and vehicle and to live closer to work and to reduce one's need to consume fossil fuels.

[earth mom]

13. Millions will be living on the street before that happens. It's gotta get so bad

that people have no other options and nothing to lose.

Right now most people still have a lot to lose.

[Speck Tater]

30. Things will only stabilize when they reach a sustainable level.

Which means that instead of each American devouring 5 times his share of energy and resources, the life style of every American will have to reach global sustainability, which means 1/5 of our current consumption and 1/5 of our current energy use.

So either Americans all voluntarily reduce their income and spending by 80% or they let the laws of thermodynamics take away 80% of their ability to consume over then next couple of decades. Either way, things cannot possibly go on like this. It's physically impossible.

[earth mom]

32. I agree. nt

[Subdivisions]

37. You don't know how good it feels to see others

get it. I've been preachin' this shite 'til I'm blue in the face and nobody seems to care.

I'm am heartened to see that I'm not alone in my knowledge of the situation as it applies to overshoot. I've studied the situation intensely every day for years and yet there have been so few that actually get it. I try to tell people and they look at me like I'm nuts.

Yet, like you said, it's physically impossible to sustain the current rates of consumption. We're running out of nearly everything. People who have no earthly idea what they're talking about blame oil companies for what they are paying at the pump instead coming anywhere near the facts - which are that the days of easy and cheap oil ARE OVER! "Oh, we're not running out of oil, the oil companies are just fucking us in the ass!" WELL IF IT WERE'NT FOR THE GODDAMNED OIL COMPANIES YOUR ASS WOULD ALREADY BE WORKING A HOMESTEAD OR FARM AND GROWING YOU OWN FUCKING FOOD! Or God knows what.

Quit blaming oil companies and start realizing that you consume too much useless shit!

Whoop! Gotta run. Time for dinner. A dinner composed from a "3000-mile long" dinner table. And afterwards, who needs after dinner coffee and conversation when you can still have the coffee while playing X-box on the 66-inch bigscreen TV? Tomorrow? Shopping for more plastic pumpkins from China that I don't even fucking need. (:sarcasm:)

[Nutmegger]

21. R&K for a national strike. [n\t]

[deutsey]

24. That possibility would depend on there existing a cohesive national coalition

of people in this country willing to unite in such an effort.

As you say, Americans currently are not up to that. We're too isolated from each other and imprisoned in our corporatized demographic identities to do that.

[Hidden Stillness]

41. Some Clues Here

I think this comment really gets at the heart of a large part of the problem. It isn't just that "people don't understand the issues," or "don't appreciate how important this is," or are "selfish" or "stupid," but I think, as this reply does, that it was this deeper, long-range corporate-propaganda change that has been made in people and their psyches. Like all the studies over the years, showing increased social isolation as neighborhood structure has changed, going from the City planning that centered on the families-living-in-homes, with schools, parks, and neighborhood stores nearby, that can be walked to, to, now, the corporate mega-mall as the "center" of City planning, with all the neighbors having to adjust themselves to it. We are on THEIR scale, they are not on ours. More and more people now live alone, more and more people never go out, or do not regularly, but do all of their "entertaining" by having the TV, computer, video game, radio, or etc., on. Society, under the control of a cut-throat corporate competition, now presents itself as more and more violent, jeering, and repugnant, all the time, so that now, many people just want to avoid it, and get back safely into their homes. It really is a different world, and certainly different from the more socially/politically engaged '30s.

Another side of the issue is something I was hearing about a while ago on Canadian TV news, on CBC's "The National," about another topic. There was a panel discussing why the long-time left-wing Party the NDP did not do well somewhere during an election, but the much newer Green Party did. One person said that part of the reason was that young people were no longer attracted to it, as they were to the Green Party, and it was because the NDP had a clear association with labor unions and Socialism, considered "old" ideas or ways, and the Greens were associated with the environment and "the latte/Starbucks/internet crowd," etc., and so were considered cool or the modern solution that is needed. I was completely offended by that characterization, but when I thought about it later, I realized there is something to it. I now believe that the majority of people will not respond to a call of any kind unless it is presented as something "new."

Why can't you get millions of people to protest against the war in Iraq or against lack of Government response to the deepening recession, but there are suddenly protests all over the world for Tibet and against the China Olympics? Where did it even come from? It is sometimes like issues come and go like fads, and there is nothing that inspires less interest than an idea whose time has come and gone, however fake the whole impression of that is. An issue that strikes people as "old" will be rejected, where if it was reworded, and pretended to be new, it has a life and force to it that gets responded to again. A march of poor people does not inspire, even when it was needed, but a "March of the Outsourced and Union-Busted," like something that just happened and must be responded to now, a thing that has not yet been told, may--just so it seemed to be new, of this age; even when it wasn't. It has an excitement of interest when it was worded a new way.

I think we need a General Strike to be joined by huge numbers of people, to protest all that has gone wrong with our country, our world, our way of living, our Government lost to corporate corruption.

[L. Coyote]

27. I think the time has come for a National Voter Registration Media Campaign.

Something productive of more changes, like we saw in Nov 2006, seems a good idea.

Let's finish what we started in 2006, and sweep them all out again!!!!

[Karenina]

38. Watch Paraguay.

[L. Coyote]

39. I'll rent a spaceship to do that. LOL

How did you know I wasn't watching Paraguay? I need to know! :rofl:

Seriously, What does "Watch Paraguay" have to do with anything?

[Karenina]

43. Although political action is essential

the hour is very late. The belief that an election will change the trajectory of America gone batshit cannot be substantiated by recent history. The BFEE has a vested interest in Paraguay's election. I'm certain we'll both be keeping an eye on it.

The monied RW has been working their U.S. plan for 40 years. Does anyone think an election will derail them?

As posters above have mentioned, Americans are not yet feeling enough pain to coalesce around ANYTHING. I so admire your own efforts on Wexler's petition and was horrified at the piddly results. If Americans are unwilling to impeach a man who is hell-bent on destroying them what else can be said?

[datasuspect]

31. popular movements have always scared the living shit out of our owners

we came damn close to socialist revolution during the Great Depression.

[Canuckistanian]

36. I say - down tools.

Sit-down strikes. Sick days. Work to rule.

Although - *sigh* - there is NO tradition for this since the 1930's.

And Corporate America has convinced us all that "the little guy" has NO SAY and will simply be fired if he/she shows any resistance to "official policy".

It worked once.

It needs to be brought back, big-time.

[blues90]

40. Nice idea but many people won't even cut back on consumption

let alone gather together for a national strike . It's been talked about many times. Nothing ever happens, it might if most find themselves without a dime left to spend.

[tavalon]

44. It needs to be well organized, but yes, the time has well and good come.