General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGlobal General Strike
Sounds outlandish and unachievable, but I truly believe it is what is necessary to get shit done. Protests numbering only in the thousands or sometimes even a couple million don't do anything. Progressive candidates in primaries are not allowed to win.
Here as I see it are the four main obstacles to a global general strike happening:
1. Lack of widespread understanding of the prisoner's dilemna.
2. Middle class workers laboring under the delusion everything will be hunky dory if they just keep their skillz up to date blah blah blah
3. People who can't afford even one fucking day off.
4. Excessively docile, trained to be unthinking populations(e.g. China.)
This NEEDS to happen. It would just take a few hundred million of the 3-4 billion global workforce.
Thinking of ways to maybe make this happen should be a focus of activists for the next few years.
The problems are global. Screw nationality, it is now unambiguously the 99% vs the 1%. They MUST be brought to their knees.
This is the only non-violent way to do it.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,368 posts)You strike to say "we will continue to strike until ..." and then you name your demands. Is this about implementing democracy in China, for instance - and how would you arrange to support and keep safe Chinese strikers?
bighughdiehl
(390 posts)can vary somewhat by region/nation. Wouldn't take too much imagination to come up with some for here in the U.S.
Decent wages, Single-payer health care, universal basic income should automation and outsourcing keep proceeding apace.
Safety could be be accomplished partly just by numbers, even in China. A hundred million workers vs a few hundred thousand police ha ha.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)People in China are not going to support that same strike. Outsourcing is good fot their economy.
People over the globe have different priorities and would not support the same strike.
bighughdiehl
(390 posts)Universal basic income. I didn't say anything about striking against outsourcing.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)What the hell are they thinking?
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)How the hell are they going to pay for 2500 a month for every citizen. You can't just tax the rich to pay for that much extra spending.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,368 posts)You're talking about a 'universal' basic income (but you actually mean 'national', because you'd set it just for the USA - at a level far higher than a worker in China could ever hope for), while in China you're saying "they'll be all right - who's afraid of the People's Liberation Army anyway? It's only about 2 million armed people, after all. Ha ha."
Though if you do mean a universal basic income for the world that takes part in your strike, what level do you think you can set it at? (global income is about $27 trillion; with perhaps 5 billion adults in the world, and even if you used half the world's income to be the tax for the basic income, that's $2,700 per person).
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)Point number 4 tells us everything we need to know about the author. "Excessively docile, trained to be unthinking populations(e.g. China)". Yeah pal, you've personally cornered the world market of intelligence. The Chinese people have not been as spoiled and coddled as the American people have been since WWII. China's middle class is exploding.
If you think the Chinese people or other developing nations are going to join hands to hold a pity party for what they see as spoiled and soft Americans, you are clueless about the world in general. RANK ARROGANCE.
bighughdiehl
(390 posts)Chinese workers are exploited too.
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)other Asian countries. They look upon Americans as spoiled and soft compared to their struggles. I didn't miss your point. Your point was not well thought out at all.
Just reading posts
(688 posts)bighughdiehl
(390 posts)people much more brilliant than me need to start working on it.
Just reading posts
(688 posts)Zorra
(27,670 posts)100% agree. The PTB will continually tell us it can't be done. Then again, the PTB and their MSM tell us many things that are not true. Look how much time and money the PTB and their MSM machine has spent on trying to stop the Bernie Sanders campaign.
"The only solution is world revolution". ~ OWS