On strike today. See you all on Saturday!
Demonstrators block an escalator at the international terminal as protests against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries continue at San Francisco International Airport, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Olga Rodriguez).
In a column for the Guardian on Monday, American writer Francine Prose called for a “nonviolent national general strike” to demonstrate “how many of us there are, how strong and committed we are, how much we can accomplish.”
She wrote: “Let’s designate a day on which no one (that is, anyone who can do so without being fired) goes to work, a day when no one shops or spends money, a day on which we truly make our economic and political power felt.”
Calls to do just that have been circulating online recently, with activists setting Feb. 17 — the Friday before President’s Day — as the day for a #nationalstrike against the presidency of Donald Trump.
No one working, no one buying anything, for one day. I realize not everyone will be able to blithely ignore their job for one day, but if you can get away with it, please, please, do. Affinity will be closed for the strike on Friday, February 17th, and I will post a reminder prior to the day. Pretty sure most people can manage to forgo shopping for one day. Be ungovernable.
The full, in-depth story is at News.Mic.
I’m in a rather privileged position of being a partner in a small business. I won’t be doing much of anything that day.
We only have one contractor working for us, and I wouldn’t force him to take a day off, but he is more than welcome to take the day in support of this movement.
Apparently, yesterday (Thursday 16-Feb) was Day Without Immigrants protest / strike (‘Day without immigrants’ protests close restaurants across the US). In the article, it mentions an effort to organise a much larger Day Without Immigrants general strike on 1-May. The article also goes into some of the difficulties with a national general strike, especially in places like the States, and points out another (not mutually-exclusive) tactic: The rolling strike.
Holy crap I didn’t even know it was going to be the 17th until just now, and I’m a political news junkie who is married to another political news junkie.
If we are any litmus test of how much the word got out, I’m guessing this won’t be much of a strike.
In any case I wish them the best of luck.
BTW are most people aware that Congressional Republicans are right now sabotaging the ACA so that when it fails and people start dying, they won’t get blamed?
I wish our more public Dems would loudly call this out before the disaster begins. If they wait till after, the Big Lie will have more legs.