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Indybay Feature

Redefining The National Strike

by Steve Pleich (spleich [at] gmail.com)
Opening Up A Community Dialogue
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Our entire country approaches the coming Inauguration Day with much uncertainty, concern and not insubstantial trepidation. A multitude of events and actions have spun up around this day, the most notable of which is the call for General Strike of Sick Out on January 20 to signal a national renunciation of the polices our next President has promised to pursue. Here in Santa Cruz, the organized Resistance (and I do not use this term lightly) is already taking shape led by a coalition of university students, disaffected Berniecrats, civil libertarians and social, racial and economic activists. However, widespread and successful mobilization of our community faces some hurdles.

For many in our community, the term "general strike" or "sick out" often has a negative connotation. Some recall the strikes associated with the Occupy Movement that erupted in violence and did little to further the agenda of social change. But strikes are not always about simply shutting things down to signal an unwillingness to consent. A strike can also be creating an opportunity to open up a dialogue which, in these perilous times for the republic, needs to take place on a national scale. And the talking points for this national discussion have been clearly defined by the progenitor of this current climate of disaffection and dissent.

In his Contract with the American Voter released in October, Donald Trump effectively promised that by the end of April he would (1) cancel many of President Obama’s executive orders that protect workers, immigrants and the environment and begin barring millions of Muslims from entry to the U.S.; (2) imprison or deport millions of undocumented workers; (3) cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities and climate change programs; (4) lift restrictions on shale, oil, gas and coal extraction and fast-track pipeline projects and (5) kick millions of people off their health insurance. Of equal or greater concern is the fact that many of these promises are executive actions that Trump will be able to enact without the cooperation of Congress.

Donald Trump was victorious at the polls despite the undemocratic nature of the electoral college and he is entitled to assume the presidency. About that, as a practical matter, we can do little. However, individually and collectively we can have a profound and, perhaps, lasting impact of the future of our community and country. As individuals, we have three primary sources of power: as voters, as workers and as consumers. The exercise of these powers can do and say much about how we are governed as a people. Collectively, critical mass actions such as a general strike or sick out can, in a very real sense, influence the way America does business, an issue at the very heart of the Trump faux philosophy.

Can we stop him from initiating racist, xenophobic or misogynistic policies through using our power as workers and consumers? I believe we can but we must first put aside the stereotype of a strike that shuts everything down and embrace a strike action that opens up the national and community dialogue we so urgently need. At this crossroads in our country, we need our community voice and our community conscience and must be as compelled to raise the former as we are committed to listen to the later.

Join us on Anti-Inauguration Day January 20. Show up, stand up and speak up for social, racial and economic justice. Let your voice be heard!
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by Razer Ray
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You're confusing a national general strike with a national teach-in.

Sometimes they go together. But that's NOT what's happening on #J20 dude, and your corrupt Democrats lost almost all their credibility so they and their cronies CERTAINLY wouldn't be the ones to teach Americans any fucking thing.

Here's a partial crony list
John Kerry, Genocide is his middle name... Anti-war VVAW ('because leftie hippie chick put out!')

Burn-e... He spent most of the civil rights years on a 'model kibbutz' designed to sell "Israel" to 'Mericans, where you never saw the dead bodies of the Arabs they slaughtered

In-the-News MLK tag-along John Lewis... Because Trump/Russia, NOT Trump/Civil Rights.

Here's a rundown on Lewis and his Oreo friends. From Selma to the CIA
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/16/pers-j16.html

Also see Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report
"John Lewis says Trump illegitimate because of Russia. Not white supremacists or anything else progressives claim to care about. McCarthyism"

and:
"John Lewis is a part of the black misleadership class. He is also a part of what Franz Fanon called the buffer class between the elites and the masses of disatisfied sufferers. He has spent decades in Congress and although he has made some symbolic gestures against certain measures he has not resisted capitalism, imperialism and war mongering. He has benefitted from the suffering of black people and poor people not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. And these are the people we are compelled to defend and stand with?"

https://www.facebook.com/navid.nasr1/posts/10212003029657172

Further, I hope your stupid and venal "Democrats" don't make the same idiot mistake they did with GW Bush and focus on the putz in office when it's his appointees and THEIR longstanding agendas that need to be watched like a hawk.

Donald Trump has essentially tossed the card table over appointing, seemingly intentionally, the people most likely to piss of Women, Jews, POC, etc. Then he's going to sit back, watch the chaos, and as everyone scrambles, figure out how to 'get his' while everyone is distracted. He's a scam artist, and that's the scam. Everyone acts like he actually meant a word he said. He doesn't mean a word of it. He just used the inflammatory speech to get the media to do his PR for him, and they LUVED it! He's the best moneymaker the press has had in years, and as one publisher pointed out in a talk last year, this is the first election that them media sees as 'only in it for the money, and Trump sells copy... Therefore he sells ad space. That's why the media exists.

Ps. Exactly what IS wrong with his business dealings with Russian companies. Armand Hammer did it for decades through the height of the cold war. And what exactly is the problem with a potential end of the "Russian Front" in an almost century old cold war? IMAGINE all the money that wold be saved by normalizing relations... IF the funds weren't looted in some other way they could easily pay for health care for every citizen and free education. OFC I don't think Trump would enact those policies but it WOULD free up the funds.

PPs. Too bad the DNC used their connections to the Ukraine Neonazi government (Andrea Chalupa, DNC activist and OUNb member, also connected to Crowdstrike, run by an expat Russian with an axe to grind who sells faulty intel to the Ukraine government too) to attempt a smear on Trump. Consorting with Nazis IS NOT an "American Family Value". Ukraine's Fascist coup government was VERY upset Hillary Clinton lost. That's why they ran the Trump Smear campaign for the DNC. One of Joe Biden's last Vice-Presidential acts was to visit, and (snigger) apologize to the Ukraine Nazis. Nice.
by Razer Ray
I saw this article when it ran... The narrative is bullshit. So someone who owns a FB page claiming to represent the march has something to say about it. If anyone cared enough what one person had to say that would dissuade them from attending they really weren't really interested in the first place...
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