I’d say less than a week. Capitalism is something that we have to wake up and make happen every single day. How many days worth of food does the average person have? Definitely not 45 days. People would have to start self-organizing within 2-3 days, and in doing so, they would actively make something that isn’t capitalism, which directly challenges those in power.
This is why every time there are emergencies or protests, the media is obsessed with “looting.” If there’s no food because of a hurricane or whatever, it is every single person’s duty to redistribute what there is equitably. The news and capitalists (but I repeat myself) call that “looting,” even when it’s a well-organized group of neighbors going into a closed store to distribute spoiling food to hungry people.
Rebecca Solnit writes about this in detail in A Paradise Built in Hell. It’s really good. She’s an awesome writer.
I love her. You know all of those outlets that try to respond how all the news is bad by doing good news, but it’s always just the orphan crushing machine all over again?
Solnit is like an actually rigorous and deeply insightful version of what that thinks it is doing. I think she herself would push back on anyone who says she tries to figure out “human nature,” but insomuch as that’s a meaningful thing to do, that’s what she does. The book’s central aim is to investigate what human beings are actually like when existing social expectations and power structures are removed, and it’s both well-researched and surprisingly optimistic.
There are already mutual aid networks out there, food banks, community gardens, and neighborhood associations. The seeds are planted and the soil is fecund and ready. You cannot crush what is already dirt.
The publicity offers a motive for entry into local organization by many not yet joined.
Current conditions, as of today, would leave much of the population vulnerable, in case of loss of the established order, and much of the rest inclined to the brutality that produces such vulnerability.
Sooner or later, someone in the military would have to decixe between following an order, and not shooting a friend/relative. And as you say… revolution.
it seems reasonable to anticipate visitation by ACAB.
I don’t know, the optics of police literally going into people’s homes and pulling them out and forcing them to work doesn’t seem like something the government would want, no matter what.
Not just the optics, but the very real danger to the police themselves. This is the US. People get shot for arguing. When you know that sometime this month the police will show up at your door, you might take precautions.
it seems reasonable to anticipate visitation by ACAB.
I don’t know, the optics of police literally going into people’s homes and pulling them out and forcing them to work doesn’t seem like something the government would want, no matter what.
Optics? Seriously? Do we live on opposite sides of the television screen?
You really think it would be a positive optic to see on the Evening News policeman going in the house and dragging people out and forcefully driving them to work and making them work at gunpoint?
A general strike would result in the fall of the federal government. Secondary action is illegal because it's so powerful. This is an interesting way to get around that, with every contract just happening to align with the other.
Unfortunately the Taft-Hartley act made political and solidarity strikes unlawful. Solidarity strike ≈ General strike. There are some very minor differences, but I don’t see that mattering.
The NLRB decides whether or not it violates labor law. I can tell you with absolute certainty that this strategy has worked on a smaller scale for decades.
Don’t get me wrong, I want a general strike. I want a full economy general strike. I am so tired of abusive employers being able to get away with the BS they do. I have some faith in the NRLB, and I hope they don’t pull any BS of their own when the time comes.
No worries! I didn’t assume you were against widespread action or anything like that. I’m an organizer, so what I’ve learned is that most people are completely (intentionally) uninformed about our rights as workers. I didn’t think you had all the info, so I went to educate
Fair enough. I am a massive proponent of educating people on what they are missing as well. I’m trying to make sure my stepdaughter knows all about them before stepping into employment, but it is kinda hard to teach a teen. I have read pretty sizable portions of the FLSA, FERPA, and FMLA and their various modifications.
My biggest worry with a “coincidental” ending of many union contacts simultaneously is that we will have an even more conservative Congress in 4 years and they end up pulling shit that just completely guts the whole labor rights concept. Hell, they are successfully bringing back child labor instead of forcing companies to compensate adults properly.
A political, solidarity, secondary strike etc. is where a union or group under an in-force bargaining agreement are not allowed to strike just because their friends/fellow workers are striking. While not under a collective agreement then they can strike. If everyone’s agreement expires simultaneously, then it is possible for any or every group to strike.
If I had to guess, I’d say the actual answer isn’t jail but “start shooting” while also pumping propoganda about those lazy union guys who just don’t want to work.
Five years certainly seems distant. I think if no civil war starts in the next five years, then the Earth will just drop out of orbit and fall into the Sun.
This is a really smart thing, though. Any unions that align contract dates with UAW and others who also do so, gains a huge lever to use both now and later.
He’s speaking as a union rep, I get what you’re saying but he just can’t call a general strike. It would take years alone to get different trade union contracts to align to expire on the same year to get what he wants to do across. For example I’m in a steelworker union and my contract expires in 2027. If we sign a new contract in 2027 and participate in a general strike it wouldn’t be backed by our union and could be punishable. However if they vote to extend the current contract 1 year near the end of the contract (very likely) we would actually have steelworkers and auto workers contracts expiring on the same year which could be interesting if these assholes actually communicated with each other union to union.
Sorry if you knew all this but I took your comment as in a “why not sooner?” or “what are they waiting for?” context so I felt compelled to answer.
Your a fucking asshole. Did you watch the video? They had to have bachelor’s degree and 3 years of experience to even work there. On top of that living in Austin Texas. A fucking expensive city. Fuck Google and fuck you for not standing up for your fellow workers.
Guess your some rich prick that doesn’t know what work is.
The American South is a diverse and beautiful coalition of Black, Latino, and working-class white people being held hostage by right-wing extremists and their propaganda.
Fair, but I think it’d be way more fun if we drove away the right-wing nutjobs instead of letting them win. They don’t deserve the natural beauty of the South.
Texas is getting more and more purple every year, and by God if they aren’t doing everything possible to piss off anyone to the left of Mussollini. It would be maximum lols if they accidentally caused Texas to go blue for the first time in God knows how long.
As someone else mentioned about VPNs, by the time all this nonsense is over with, California is going to look like they have 200 million people there, if you look at web traffic.
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