Re: [Marxism] Fwd: thecurrentmoment | On the politics and economics of the present

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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The Gourevich piece was reposted at Jacobin:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/general-strike-donald-trump-womens-march-immigration-ban-ludlow-strike/
... and when that was shared on Facebook, Charlie Post shared the link
below, which is Kim Moody's take on the question. Gourevich is OK as far as
he goes, although the balance is off: he devotes 2/3 of his article to
explaining why we should fear repression, whereas Moody's article is much
more well-rounded -- and practical in its organizing suggestions.

https://www.solidarity-us.org/node/3679
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[Marxism] Fwd: thecurrentmoment | On the politics and economics of the present

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Following the massive Women’s March and the surprising partial success 
of protests against Trump’s immigration ban, many feel that the logical 
step is to escalate. Seize the momentum, put more pressure on the 
administration, disrupt and paralyze as much as possible. I feel it 
myself. There are ways in which there is more possibility in the air 
than there has been in a long time, and Trump has wasted little time 
going about his authoritarian business.


That, no doubt, is the reason why the idea of calling for a general 
strike – a general national strike – has caught the imagination over the 
past few days. After Francine Prose put the idea out in the Guardian, it 
spread rapidly throughout social media, and split into multiple 
proposals and counter-proposals.


Some, including Prose herself, see themselves carrying on in a venerable 
tradition of mass social disruption. But, as much as these proposals 
look like a natural response to the moment, they are severely 
disconnected from reality. Calling for a general strike now bears no 
relation to what mass strikes have meant in the past. The flight from 
reality shows up in activists’ blasé attitude to history and their very 
distant relationship to the working class.


The United States has the most violent labor history of any major 
industrial country. General and other large-scale strikes in the US have 
nearly always been met with major repression, from police, National 
Guard, even federal troops. For instance, the general strike in San 
Francisco of 1934, which developed out of a longshoremen’s strike, led 
to running battles with the police and a number of deaths.




full: https://thecurrentmoment.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/whose-strike/
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