Could “Fighting Fridays” be a Step Toward a General Strike?
How many times have you seen calls on social media or even you yourself posted “We need a general strike!”” How many pages, groups, memes, rants consistently tell us that is what is needed and would be more powerful than other protest forms of activity and expressions.
Let me get this out of the way. I too would like there to be a “genera; strike”. I would like there to be clear demands and ideally a pledge to stay out until the demands are met. But even a one-day general strike or even localized general strike – geo-general? – should have clearly delineated demands.
I believe among the current lead demands should be “NO STATE TERROR” (including war, NSPM7, the ICE raids, genocide, other repression). What the demands are is a separate conversation though – for now lets stay on the topic of a general strike and how to get there.
The problem of general strike is you can not just wish it. Many who demand it in social media hope for a magic call that people magically mobilize around. It is not an entirely false hope either – often popular uprisings develop some sort of peoples magic and people all of a sudden respond differently to similar circumstances. Sometimes there are explanations for the magic – like a development that changed everything and other times the source of the change in peoples wind is not always clear. But for the most part – waiting for popular movement magic will not be our best strategy – but lets always wish and try to encourage it into existence.
A general strike would need to be called by an authoritative representative popular body (or bodies) of struggle – unions – some popular peoples movement , a sector of the population or work force, some other sector with power and legitimate demands. Labor of course is everybody’s hoped for favorite. The organizers need to have the resources to substantiate the call. The conditions have to be perfectly ripe for it and the organizers perfectly positioned and with a perfectly unifying message that instills hope and anger and the willingness to risk all for everybody. That too is all something we should wish for and strive for.
I also want to suggest that the call for a general strike itself is grandiose. It is achievable but maybe not as a giant leap from our current position. So please stay with me on this idea at least for now. If there is some discussion of it now or in the future and the idea is helpful – I am glad that I have the wheretwithal to think it, write it and publish at FightBackBetter.
If if it determined to be not too good an idea or ignored like many of my ideas (tear drop) I can just add this idea to my pile of my unrealized visions. There have been many.
The idea is that we envision stepping stones to the concept of a unified general strike – to start to build convergence and to build momentum that could possibly catch and lead to something bigger.
For now lets call the idea “Fighting Fridays” (or some such). If we were to establish geographically the best city locations for a during the day protest – maybe starting 11 am or 1pm each Friday. For example, in NJ perhaps Newark can be the location. The exact location can vary but there can be an information station that is usually in the same location – sort of a dispatch center. We try to generate a culture where our protest movement gravitates toward there – taking time from work or arranging their schedules to be able to get out there.
Organizations and struggles with particular challenges in the city would be encouraged to coordinate the with the Fighting Fridays effort and their efforts can be dispatch points for the day’s strife. Folks can be also dispatched to other areas around and outside the city where there are emergencies. But just start the idea that everybody needs to gravitate toward certain centers of actions – probably in the cities every Friday (for example – it does not have to be Friday). Of course there would be frequent late afternoon and evening marches that converge and take the power of the people on the road to bring justice around area demands.
I believe that if momentum is established around this – it can teach us the convergence needed to start realizing the potential of more massive action starting to approach anything we can call a general strike.
I do not know if it is an idea that anyone will take seriously. If anyone wants to offer feedback – including trying to shop the idea around as a proposal – use the form below.
I do believe and want to say though for anyone listening, if we really want a “general strike” we can not just announce it on social media – angrily demanding everyone to listen to the perfectly logical solution.
Let’s figure out a first step toward it and I believe the “Fighting Fridays” concept or somesuch could be that.
