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Hey so dumb question from a dumb person here. If they’re attacking a foreign vessel in international waters to steal their cargo… how is this not piracy? Genocidal pirates. They’re like a bad sci fi villain.
So good on the Italian unions for fighting back against the bad sci fi villains.
Piracy is like terrorism in that people don’t call it that when a state does it
going back to the age of sail where crowns would authorize privateers to attack rival powers
Go back further and the same crowns are just pirates who decided it’s time to settle down.
When the state does it that means it is not illegal
I wanna do a general strikeMe too, soooo damn much
Let’s do it, then.
Every time the concept of general strike comes up here,
fedspeople decry it as being pointless and aimless (as if just making porky squirm on its own isn’t a good enough reason).But this one already has both a date and a purpose. Make this shit global.
A general strike requires a high degree of organization that exists in some countries but does not exist in others. Saying “we should have a general strike next month” in the US is like saying “we should overthrow the government next month”. It’d be nice if it happened, but the infrastructure isn’t there. It’s also like the most stereotypical call-to-action of a baby leftist or ultra that we should have a general strike despite this lack of infrastructure making it impossible, like some lib calling for a “boycott” by posting on Reddit, but even more ridiculous.
No one, absolutely no one, is saying that a general strike is categorically a bad thing to do.
yeah there it is
Do you have a real response or just smarmy shit talking? In all sincerity, you’re better than this.
Do you think that you can just shout “general strike!” and make one happen? Do you think it doesn’t require actual infrastructure? Do you think Union in Italy are just some random people and not part of an organized network of unions that have been preparing for this and have a concrete plan on how to affect it? This isn’t like a protest where you can just yell out the date and whoever comes, comes.* It’s closer to a rocket launch, something requiring coordination over a vast network to make something happen at a specific time. It’s literally one of the most advanced forms of action an organized workforce can take short of violent insurrection, and that’s why you even know the term for it despite whatever is lacking in your understanding that leads you to brush off the gravity of organizing, which you absolutely are doing if you think that it makes sense to concretely attempt the execution of a general strike in the US right now.
Developing labor organization in the US to such a point that it could pull this off is a great thing and calls for that should be welcomed, but that’s very different from saying “Alright guys, we’re doing a general strike this December. Save the date.”
*I know that’s reductionist, even protests often require a lot of work, albeit not 1% as much as a general strike because the scale and the necessary resources even per-capita are just not comparable.
do you not understand why they said what they said?
You’re advocating for magical thinking
In america? Be realistic.
What organisations are you suggesting do this? Who are the organisational leaders that you’re asking to go to jail? A general strike is illegal and the leaders attempting one will be imprisoned immediately. There’s a reason the ongoing organising effort to achieve one for 2028 the equivalent of one is using roundabout methods. Unions have been aligning their contracts to expire at the same time so that they’re not doing a “general strike” but simply all striking for the negotiation of their new contracts, simultaneously.
You say “let’s do it” but must consider the mechanical implementation of what “let’s do it” actually means. The steps to achieve it are non-trivial.
What did they say wrong exactly?
I do think most of the US needs to be better organized before we can actually do a general strike but this stuff is what made me decide to start organizing my job again because that’s the only real weapon we have short of actual weapons. I think it’s imperative that anyone that cares about any of this start organizing their worksite/industry/union yesterday so that as soon as possible we can shut things down.
fwiw I decry it when it’s non-unionized Americans who want to do it, because union organization is the absolutely critical element for a general strike to work.
Okay, what are you gonna do to organize us closer to a general strike?
If you’re in a public sector union you could campaign for resolutions to create a strike fund
If you’re non union you could organize a union
If you’re unemployed you could salt
If you’re in a private sector union you could work to democratize it
yeah, as cool as a general strike would be, labor in the US (speaking just for my country) is not remotely organized enough to pull it off. Getting dues-paying members of my union to even attend a twice-monthly zoom meeting is incredibly difficult. A strike? We just plainly don’t have the organizational capacity for something like that, let alone the will.
You call us feds, but I just don’t think you’ve really truly thought about what an action like that would require.
Apparently the protests are kicking off fast already
I take back some of the things I’ve said about Italians.
It was their fascist and weak-kneed government that betrayed the italian workers (as well as the spanish and greek governments) not the italians themselves.
