General Strike

[8bitagent]

I work at a university, the PC culture, even at a progressive and science-focused place, doesn't exist. It's just a phantom made up by reactionaries and it feels good to talk about and find examples of - the types of examples that have always existed.

Wellllll....one of my closest best friends is a firebrand progressive like me, works teaching communication at a college in Southern California and we joke about how pedantic goofy *some* of the modern
campus culture can be. He told me the day after the election staff and students were notified that emotional support animals, grief counselors and literal 'safe spaces' would be provided on November 9th.
Yeah, I know Rush and Fox News salivates over this notion of "SJW campus crybabies" but least here in California some of that stuff is cartoonishly true. I've long felt college kids should get out of their damn 'safe spaces',
get off the iphones and instagram and get back to grassroots 1960's activism which looks like is finally happening. I'm just not into the more riot causing beat down insanity as we saw at the University of Berkeley tonight

Maybe it's an east coast / west coast thing. The last "safe space" I experienced last week was in order to make sure black voices critical of the pigs were heard (directly to the chief of police's face with a megaphone, as he stood there shaking his head and eventually turned tail) so that the talks wouldn't be disrupted by capitulating, deradicalizing, or deferential voices. Not really soft at all…I mean I don't have the balls to scream at a police chief, quoting him about how he doesn't believe in white supremacy and that I have the receipts to prove it.

I'm starting to understand that the whole notion was invented to stymie deradicalization from the people who would have us not punch nazis.

I had some friends at the Berkeley protest who sent messages overnight that it was the "solidest thing ever." Maybe more Germans should have been rioting in 1933.

Rioting over a gay Jewish man with a black boyfriend(Milo Yianopolous), who would be victim #1 in Nazi Germany.

Sorry, I just cant be ok with people being beat bloody and unconscious with planks of woods and clubs simply for waiting in line to see a politically incorrect speaker. Especially one(Milo) constantly being
issued death threats by (actual) neo Nazi alt right sites and groups(for being gay, Jewish and having a black boyfriend)

Sadly, much of the angry campus stuff wreaks of affluent white hipster privilege

[8bitagent]

I hate to be that guy, but wasn't the current Muslim refugee crisis caused by say, ALL THE PEOPLE BUSH AND OBAMA bombed and the countries they went in and destabilized?
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, et al.

I always support peaceful protests, and have been wanting the left to grow a pair post Bush era, but I just can't help but wonder...where were these protests when Obama deported two million Latinos
and continued the neocon Bush era policy of endless bombing of Muslims, and destabilizing regions by propping up Saudi funded jihadist rebels?

As long as there is a "D" after someone's name, he or she can commit all kinds of war crimes - and Democrats and people who consider themselves liberal will not make a peep. They ranted and raved during the two Bush terms, then went quiet for eight years (as things actually got much worse), and have now begun to start complaining again.

I find it maddening and hypocritical - blind loyalty to a party is never a good thing - and it is one big reason why I don't go onto FB much anymore, and am thinking of stopping altogether. Pretty much all of my extended family think of themselves as progressive, but they also happily and proudly voted for Clinton (after many were in the Sanders camp and truly thought he had a chance). Their complaints about Trump are valid, but after not saying boo about Obama's long list of crimes - indeed, posting memes about how cool and classy he is and wishing he could have a third term - I find it disgusting.

Couldn't agree with you more. I asked on Facebook where all the liberal protests were when Obama was massacring Muslims left and right, and deporting over two million Latinos.

JUST like I point out that its bullshit how anti war Libertarian/Alex Jones/Paleocons will now sit by and excuse mass war now that their goofy reality show celeb is in power

I hate to be that guy, but wasn't the current Muslim refugee crisis caused by say, ALL THE PEOPLE BUSH AND OBAMA bombed and the countries they went in and destabilized?
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, et al.

I always support peaceful protests, and have been wanting the left to grow a pair post Bush era, but I just can't help but wonder...where were these protests when Obama deported two million Latinos
and continued the neocon Bush era policy of endless bombing of Muslims, and destabilizing regions by propping up Saudi funded jihadist rebels?

As long as there is a "D" after someone's name, he or she can commit all kinds of war crimes - and Democrats and people who consider themselves liberal will not make a peep. They ranted and raved during the two Bush terms, then went quiet for eight years (as things actually got much worse), and have now begun to start complaining again.

I find it maddening and hypocritical - blind loyalty to a party is never a good thing - and it is one big reason why I don't go onto FB much anymore, and am thinking of stopping altogether. Pretty much all of my extended family think of themselves as progressive, but they also happily and proudly voted for Clinton (after many were in the Sanders camp and truly thought he had a chance). Their complaints about Trump are valid, but after not saying boo about Obama's long list of crimes - indeed, posting memes about how cool and classy he is and wishing he could have a third term - I find it disgusting.

Mostly agree except on one point: that there was much mobilization on the left at all during the Bush years. I remember seething punk and learning about anarchism during the anti-globalization days of the Clinton years, which was school for me. This culminated in the RNC 2000 protests and police riots, a radicalizing moment to be sure. Then 9/11 happened and dissent was silenced, and aside from a few anti-war protests I don't think I went to one demonstration for about six years.

During the Obama presidency, leftist dissent exploded, from Occupy to Black Lives Matter to anti-fracking marches to Idle No More to No DAPL.

Occupy was an utter direction-less mess destined to fail. I loved the anti DAPL effort, tho it came at the literal 24th hour of Obama's reign. I just wonder, why was Jeremy Scahill and Amy Goodman the only ones on the left
vocal against war crimes during the Obama era?

[American Dream]

Military rebellions are a great part of a general strike:

Gangsters for Capitalism: Why the US Working Class Enlists



Through its reliance on the relationship between labour and capital, fortified by state-enforced protections for private property to facilitate this relationship, capitalism creates a natural dependency on wages for the vast majority. With the removal of 'the commons' during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the peasantry was transformed into a working-class majority that now must serve as both commodities and tools for those who own the means of production.

While those of us born into the working-class majority have little or no choice but to submit to our ritualistic commodification, we are sometimes presented with degrees of options regarding how far we allow capitalists, landlords, corporations, and their politicians to dehumanize us as their tools.

While we are forced into the labour market, for example, we can sometimes choose public jobs over private, therefore limiting the degree of exploitation. While we are forced to find housing, we may sometimes choose to live in communal situations with family or friends.

One of the areas where total choice is allowed is in the business of Empire, particularly in the maintenance and proliferation of the modern US Empire. Although governments worldwide are using technological advances in robotics to replace human bodies in their military ranks, and thus lessen their dependence on the working class, there is still a heavy reliance on people to act as tools of war. In 'all-volunteer' militaries like that of the United States', 'willingness' is still a crucial component to the mission.

As global capitalism's forerunner and guardian, the US military has nearly 3 million employees worldwide, including active duty and reserve personnel and 'civilian full-time equivalents'. The US Department of Defense's official proposed budget for FY 2017 is $582.7 billion , which, combined with corollary systems of 'security', swells to over $1 trillion.

According to public Pentagon reports , the US Empire officially comprises of 662 overseas military bases across 38 countries. Since the birth of the United States in 1776, the country has been involved in a war or military conflict in 219 of these 240 years.

Throughout this history, the US government, which has directly represented and acted upon the interests of capital and economic elites, has required the participation of many millions of its working-class citizens to join its military ranks in order to carry out its missions by force.

For many generations, the US working class has answered this call to serve as what US Marine General Smedley Butler once deemed, 'gangsters for capitalism'. Millions upon millions have lost life and limb to clear the path for new global markets, steal and extract valuable natural resources from other lands, and ensure the procurement of trillions of dollars of corporate profit for a privileged few.

Why? Why does the working class willingly, even enthusiastically, join to serve in a military that bolsters the very system which undermines and alienates them in their everyday lives?

http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/gangs ... alism.html

[MacCruiskeen]

During the Obama presidency, leftist dissent exploded, from Occupy to Black Lives Matter to anti-fracking marches to Idle No More to No DAPL.

Note that none of those were anti-war or anti-imperialist.

[barracuda]

The empire begins at home.

[MacCruiskeen]

It certainly doesn't end there, though. Nor is home where most of any of the bombing happens.

[MacCruiskeen]

In no particular order:

1) End War. 2) Redistribute Wealth.

Any "left" that fails to make these demands primary and central is self-marginalising and hopelessly ineffective. QED. And it is not as if the world has all the time in the world.

[Luther Blissett]

During the Obama presidency, leftist dissent exploded, from Occupy to Black Lives Matter to anti-fracking marches to Idle No More to No DAPL.

Note that none of those were anti-war or anti-imperialist.

Occupy was both, and Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, and NoDAPL are all anti-imperialist.

[MacCruiskeen]

We're talking about a General Strike here, and strikes are pointless if they make no demands.

Occupy famously/notoriously demanded nothing (and achieved nothing, for all its months of effort). To call BLM and the others anti-imperialist is really stretching the definition beyond usefulness. They are all admirable causes, and the defence of minorities should go without saying, but again: a "left" that doesn't make wealth-distribution and opposition to imperialism absolutely central is a "left" that dooms itself to marginal significance *at best*. All it can do is wag the finger on the sidelines while hi-tech stormtroopers call the shots.

Be realistic: demand the necessary. But that would mean saying goodbye (and a happy "fuck you") to liberals, including and especially the execrable Democratic Party, which will only ever offer fascism-with-a-better-haircut.

"Not a liberal complaint, but a radical analysis" (M. Parenti)

[coffin_dodger]

Mac:

In no particular order:

1) End War. 2) Redistribute Wealth.

Any "left" that fails to make these demands primary and central is self-marginalising and hopelessly ineffective. QED. And it is not as if the world has all the time in the world.

We are about to enter an increasingly super-abundant world. Machines are poised to displace hundreds of millions of jobs worldwide and these ex-workers can either become part of the problem - or part of the solution. The possibilities for advancement in, as just one example - energy generation - are endless, if just a few of those millions of minds being freed up from the chains of forced-to-survived labour were to tinker with new concepts that would have remained stifled if stuck in an office or on a factory floor. How many Da Vincis never realise their potential because they are locked into a job that demands so much of their time they have no energy left?
Whatever the solution is, it doesn't involve wealth.
Not sure if it's been posted here before (probably has) - but here's a great little story about a couple of choices for the future.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

[MacCruiskeen]

Whatever the solution is, it doesn't involve wealth.

Try telling that to those who have none of it! Why do you think they are selling their labour in the first place (or begging to be allowed to)?

[Elvis]

1) End War. 2) Redistribute Wealth.

For 2), may I suggest something more along the lines of: "Recover Stolen Wealth"

I cringe when I hear the phrase "redistribution of income"; it sounds like arbitrary confiscation, as it only tells half the story.

[Luther Blissett]

Well, I do agree with many points in the last four posts. This is part of the reason why I harp on "lessons learned from Occupy" as often as possible - which I have observed to actually be happening on the ground. And more and more people are willing to abandon liberalism.

[barracuda]

In no particular order:

1) End War. 2) Redistribute Wealth.

Any "left" that fails to make these demands primary and central is self-marginalising and hopelessly ineffective. QED. And it is not as if the world has all the time in the world.

Granted, that is the right strategy. But the use of a general strike as a tactic is designed to force Capital into acknowledgment that the aims of the existing government in a general sense are at extreme odds with those of the people. And the tactic itself only has impact if it marshals a wide enough economic participation group. So by it's very nature, such a strike must offer a multi-purposed rationale, be largely decentralized, and have at its focus a very general discontent in which there exists room for any number of grievances.

A general strike is one battle, not the war.

[MacCruiskeen]

It certainly doesn't end there, though. Nor is home where most of any of the bombing happens.

I have to revise that:


The Enabling Act

That's when "the left" said goodbye to its natural constituency: when it refused to even consider the possibility that its ruling class would treat the domestic population of the USA as brutally as it treats the rest of the planet. That's when the War on Terror started, and that was also the beginning of the current era of post-reality.

It is impossible to underestimate the damage done by the triumph of the sneering, smirking, weaponised CIA term "conspiracy theory". Fuck every one of the pseudo-leftists who still trot it out routinely in the hope of ingratiating themselves with their masters (and demonstrating their alleged superiority to the proles). They bear a heavy co-responsibilty for the state of the many ruined nations from which millions of refugees are now streaming, and for the state of their own nation.