May Day 2012: The Call for a General Strike

[marmar]

from truthdig:



May Day 2012: The Call for a General Strike

Posted on Mar 15, 2012
By Scott Tucker


In the winter of 2011, discussion about calling a general strike had already begun within Occupy Los Angeles. At the end of January 2012, in the wake of police raids against Occupy encampments (and with many friends and comrades then still in jail), Occupy Los Angeles issued a call for a May Day general strike, which was quickly endorsed by Occupy Oakland.

Even those who are already active and well informed may find some of the links and articles at the end of this piece useful. I do not pretend to give a full historical overview of mass strikes and general strikes, nor even to cover all the ongoing debates inside and outside the Occupy movement on what a general strike might mean. Where I have quoted from my previous articles in Truthdig, I have quoted only those passages that may illuminate the history and possibilities of general strikes. And in quoting from some socialists of the past, I have left intact a few references to ideas I do not share, in particular “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

If we argue that a class-conscious movement will become fully civil libertarian only when workers find a way to leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom, in what way would such “dialectical” reasoning prevent us from establishing an outright dictatorship? When civil liberties are sacrificed “temporarily,” these temporary measures have often led to the actual sacrifice of human lives in prison camps and mass graves.

All the links and articles appended below are in chronological order of publication, with the exception of the article by Natasha Lennard published in Salon on Feb. 29, which is listed first. I admire Lennard’s article, though I wish she had not ended by invoking Georges Sorel’s theory that a general strike “could only function as a myth and that the myth was all important.” Of course, Lennard was not giving any simple and direct endorsement of Sorel, but neither did she call his work into serious question. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/may_day_2012_the_call_for_a_general_strike_20120315/

[socialist_n_TN]

1. Well one thing's for sure...........

as the article stated, it won't happen if there's no call for it and no organization around the idea.

Even if it's only partially successful, just calling for it is progress.