Isn't that the entire point? lol
Imagine this conversation in 18th century France.
Peasant: Should we do a revolt?
Other peasant: Are you kidding? I'm down to my last loaf of bread over here, no way!
Isn't that the entire point? lol
Imagine this conversation in 18th century France.
Peasant: Should we do a revolt?
Other peasant: Are you kidding? I'm down to my last loaf of bread over here, no way!
Americans love making excuses because working class solidarity is pretty much impossible for them to even imagine. It's a settler colonial state to it's very roots.
It's the same reason you won't see socialist leanings in Israel. At best it'll be fascism pretending to be socialism. Remember ACP?

This right here. The problems of an inherently individualist society. Or another way of putting it...
Fuck you, you got yours lol
This is why my advice to everyone who is like "But what should I actually DO!' is "get to know your neighbors." Community together strong
I know my neighbors.
nearly a century of coordinated, targeted anti-union operations by corporations and the federal government will do that.
More than a century honestly, that shit goes as far back as the 1800s
It's really cool learning about stuff like the Mohawk Valley Formula and how it's been known about as an overtly articulated strategy for like a hundred years now and they still do the exact same shit to discredit and disperse movements against their interests
and even knowing their fucking playbook doesn't help us simply because a solid majority of the population is conditioned to have their eyes glaze over, seeing nothing, when told about the tactics that are literally at that moment being used on them
Lack of worker solidarity. We're too atomized and stressed to support each other through a GS. Hopefully that is beginning to change. I just hope its not too late.
Lack of worker solidarity
In theory, the problem of "two paychecks" is solved (at least in part) by working people seizing certain critical means of production for the purposes of mutual aid. So, grocers strike not by closing the front doors but by shutting down the cash registers and handing out food for free. Landlord admins strike by refusing to collect rents. Teachers strike not by refusing to teach but by refusing to grade. Etc.
And if everyone knows this arrangement will be in effect, they can act together as a bargaining unit to threaten the control of the landlord class.
But if they aren't in close communication, because the public forms of media are censored and strictly controlled, then individuals can't express solidarity prior to the strike. And if they aren't in alignment, then you end up with the same "haves" and "have-nots" reproduced across the striking cohort, creating contradictions that landlords can exploit. And if they can't repeat this experiment of communication, trust building, strike, reap concessions, then they can't build momentum of numbers or expand the demands.
Hopefully that is beginning to change
I haven't seen much to suggest it has. Perhaps the soul is willing, but the body public remains weak and emaciated. We still don't have avenues of communication independent of the capitalist class. We haven't built trust between industrial sectors. There's little we can point to that's been successful, much less reproducible.
I just hope its not too late.
It's never "too late". All that changes is the players and the stakes at play.
But whatever comes next, you'd be foolish to believe you'll see both the beginning of it and the end. You'll be lucky to know what you're in the middle of.
Two paychecks seems optimistic.
Agreed. 2-3 paychecks for the union workers and skilled trades. 0-1 for most others.
Only 10% of the US is in a union. Who's going to lead it?
The biggest of those unions I'd guess would be AFL-CIO, which I suppose did a okay job leading the Minnesota strike
Roughly one in four Minnesota voters either participated in the January 23 day of shutdown and protest against ICE, or have a loved one who did...Of those participants, 38% percent stayed off the job, either because they did not go to work, or because their employer closed for the day of action... 45% of voters “generally support the call for no work, no school, no shopping as a form of protest.” https://inthesetimes.com/article/labor-general-strike-minnesotans-ice-protest-trump-cbp
Keep in mind those numbers are voters in minnesota, not super great for a bunch of "progressive" people.
Even the national strike on the 30th wasn't terrible, but neither had any economic effect. There just isn't enough organization, especially in key industries. People aren't educated on unions, even in communist circles a ton of us are running around without a clue what good union organizing looks like.
Lack of class consciousness and education in general
Keep the serfs destutute so they can't organize against the rich, disgustingly lavish aristocracy is a tale as old as time. We're literally seeing ruling philosophies Medieval kings used and people say this is the best system.
Destitution didn't stop the French, it emboldened them.
Also, the average American barely knowing what a union is, much less being a member of one.
And too many of the ones who do and are have accepted the paradigm of unions as a consumer service, rather than a place for rank-and-file organization. Union dues for collaborator leadership makes a union into a sort of absurdly cheap, shitty lawyer with whom you get what you're paying for, when it's not actively betraying you.
Americans have had every participatory inclination beaten out of them (metaphorically speaking). Their political parties have no participation beyond asking for money and their unions are the same. They've been fed a steady drip of 24/7 news designed to keep them afraid of everyone they don't already know, and that's by design. Things are going to have to get a lot worse for the average American before they'll be willing to organize in any meaningful way. I hope this changes, don't get me wrong, but I expect that it'll have to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Don't forget that unions and strikes are unamerikkkan commie inventions that takes away our freedom.
The american people are cowards.
The American system rewards cowardice
It also makes bravery expensive (not that cowardice isn't expensive in the long run)
Fear and propaganda.
Generalstrikeus.com
Join your local chapter. Volunteer for mutual aid groups. Help establish a strike fund for your local chapter. Get. Involved.
General Strikes tend to be difficult to bring about in the United States because our only productive, profitable, material industry is in the reactionary sectors: oil and polymers, automobiles, weapons, and the production of raw materials for these industries (steel, etc.). These industries are either comparatively well-paid or staffed by immigrants who are in a precarious position.
Most of the wealth of today's billionaires is in intellectual property, speculative assets, and foreign production. These things aren't going to be affected as much by a strike in the U.S. as, say, a factory that makes boots.
Enough unions to organize it.
Haha. Joke's on you!
It's the start of the month, so I have three paychecks to live. I'm going to celebrate with drive-thru coffee and avocado bread.
2? More like half a paycheck. Most people can't even afford to call in sick to work.
Not hungry enough
No universal healthcare for when they shoot you in the face with pepper balls or whomp you to a pulp with nightsticks...