General Strike on Friday February 17

[Fast Walker 52]

Who is down for it?

Link to tweet

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Me. I'm retired but will stay home and not do any business with

anybody that Friday.

[Nevermypresident]

2. Count me in.

What, if any, is the significance of Feb. 17th?

[Fast Walker 52]

5. dunno, one month from today maybe

[JustinL]

6. Friday before Presidents' Day n/t

[malatesta2017]

3. Count me in, but...

I think February 17 is far too soon to organize something appropriately massive and worldwide. It's only two and half weeks away!

MUCH better and more symbolic would be May 1, international Labor Day. It's a Monday this year. We build up momentum over the next three months, work with labor unions in the US and overseas, allow people the time to plan to converge on cities for massive rallies. This could be really enormous and have a huge impact!

[panader0]

4. Good idea and welcome to DU!

[malatesta2017]

8. Thanks!

This is exciting!

[socialist_n_TN]

10. I agree. It's a MUCH more significant day in labor history..........

and longer to prepare. Strike, boycott, occupations, demonstrations, and rallies all over the country. And yes, welcome to DU.

[Skittles]

7. I am already off on Fridays but go for it

yes INDEED

[Freddie]

9. I have to take that day off anyway

To watch my granddaughter as her school will be closed that day (teacher inservice). We will do nothing all day!

[brooklynite]

11. UNREC

We've heard this endless times before. It's easy to create a Facebook page or a Twitter hashtag. It won't happen.

[Fast Walker 52]

16. we'll see-- just keep it in mind. It might take off this time

[Ken Burch]

12. I'm in.

I hope ways can be set up for the unemployed, the retired, and the poor to participate.

[LaydeeBug]

13. Nah...could be interlopers posturing. You want me to support your cause? SHOW YO FACE nt

[Fast Walker 52]

15. just means you take the day off work and protest

[b.cubbins]

17. Trump's actions warrant a series of general national strikes

I like the idea of a Feb 17 general strike, there is no time to waste.

Feb 17, 1500. The Battle of Hemmingstedt: Peasant Militia (outnumbered 30:1) Defeats Danish Army by Opening Dikes and Drowning Them.

Sometime The Peasants Win!!!

[Fast Walker 52]

18. welcome to DU!!!!

great reference, there, thanks

and yeah I agree- a series of strikes is really needed.

[justicejunkie]

19. Slight rebranding and social media efforts

Hi all,

Please excuse the cross-post:

"Here are my thoughts on this: if we do a slight rebranding and coordinated social media strategy (fancy way of saying let's get a handful of people to use the same general batch of hashtags at once to generate some steam) we might be able to make this work--maybe not as the incredible strike event that we'd all like for it to be, sure, but as the beginning of many more to come. A trial-run, essentially.

In terms of rebranding, I've been looking on a lot of socialist/anarchist forums about their thoughts on what's going on, and it seems that because of the extremely narrow definition of "strike" in the modern American context, people are dismissing the idea because there is no labor/union support, which at this point for F17 is true. And it's likely we won't get any unions to endorse us.

However, I think an important point that they've been overlooking is the importance of social media in generating rapid change. Social media was an essential tool for the Arab Spring protests, and think about how quickly the #DeleteUber campaign made Travis Whateverhisnameis step down from Drumpf's economic council (not that this means anything--I'm sure they're still best buds).

But imagine if the #DeleteUber campaign hadn't stopped and was still going on right now? If Uber's profits were still tanking today, Travis WhatsHisFace would be scrambling to win customers back. If that means sabotaging his relationship with Drumpf, he just might do it.

If we focused our efforts from #f17strike to a more general #F17 #DontShop #NoWorkSchoolIfPossible #BoycottTrumpFunders or #BoycottTrump movement. We could tag all the companies that support Drumpf's products, tarnish their reputations to threaten sales, and more people could get behind a boycott than a strike.

If any of you are interested, I'd really love the help spreading the word. I'm kind of a lone wolf on Twitter right now, so having some folks to help disseminate the message would be much appreciated.

Resources:
General info: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/5s6mge/xpost_from_resist_feb_17th_national_strike/

For those who can't strike but can boycott/participate on social media: https://www.reddit.com/r/Strike4Democracy/comments/5rtm8f/social_media_strategy_for_those_who_cant_strike/

Businesses that support Drumpf: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/5s9m5g/xpost_from_impeach_trump_businesses_that_support/

Banks that fund DAPL:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/5s6afy/xpost_from_rstrike4democracy_all_the_banks/ "

[Fast Walker 52]

20. thanks for keeping this alive, we need reminders of this

in truth, I'd forgotten about this, but I will put this on my calendar for a real reminder.

Also, put your tweet here so people can retweet it. I will.

[Fast Walker 52]

21. lots of good tweets to spread on twitter using #GeneralStrike

[justicejunkie]

22. Good news

Great! Thanks!

Getting your help would be especially great now because:
1) Feb17 generalstike hashtags had been floating around in the twittersphere for a few days before the
2) Women's March decided that they would have their own general strike too (I may have had something to do with this) around 5-6 days later. Here's what really worked in our favor: WM announced they were going to strike but the date was TBD. Which means
3) a lot of people on twitter right now have conflated f17 with the women's march and
4) after the shitshow that was last night with the Devos confirmation, the DAPL final easement, and Sen. Warren getting silenced by Congress when reading Coretta Scott King's words about Sessions, all sorts of people woke up feeling pretty damn angry today.

So the time is upon us, it seems!

My suggestions:
Using the base hashtag #F17, #Feb17 or #f17strike:

1. Choose two or more of these core hashtags: #RESIST #nationalstrike #nationalboycott #NoDAPL #NotMyGovt #globalstrike17

2. A combination of these hashtags (or similar ones that you come up with yourself): #BoycottKillerBanks #BoycottTrumpFunders #DefundDonald #DefundDrumpf #BoycottFascism #BoycottBigotBusinesses #BoycottTrump

3. And tag any of the companies listed on either of these two sites
https://www.reddit.com/r/Strike4Democracy/comments/5s66k4/all_the_banks_funding_dapl_that_you_should_strike/

grabyourwallet.org

Start scaring companies into #StarvingTheFourthReich of funds.

If anyone wants to team up on twitter to do this, PM me.

[justicejunkie]

23. Sorry, should have provided examples

A) #f17 #NoDAPL #globalstrike17 #DefundDonald @BoycottKillerBanks @Citi @CreditSuisse @Barclays @CreditAgricole #WellsFargo

B) #nationalstrike #Feb17 #BoycottTrump #BoycottTrumpFunders #BoycottFascism @amazon @zappos @walmart @pepsi @dsw_worldwide @kmart @sears

These are just suggestions obviously! You can be creative too (:

[Fast Walker 52]

24. great-- thanks