WEBVTT - A General Strike Might Be Closer Than You Think Pt. 1 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:08.560 We live in a period of increasing class conflict. During 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.840 the Trump years, strike action reached the seventeen year high. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:19.760 Strikes surged, increasing almost as workers fought back against rising 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.400 inflation and the cost of living. Fights over unionization hit 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.440 sectors previously thought to be un organizable, as workers declared 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.440 victory across fast food chains, Starbucks, and Amazon. And this 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.600 increased strike activity is taking place against the rising course 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.320 of revolt. Tenants are forming unions and launching rent strikes. 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.199 Riots kick off in the face of police murdering on 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.680 average over three people per day, and kids walk out 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.559 of school demanding everything from access to ppe to an 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.479 end to attacks on queer and trans youth. It's not 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.360 just that strikes are increasing, but the logic of the 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.800 strike to strike a blow against one's class enemies, to 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.680 enact a cost and generalize collective refusal, is spreading. As 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.440 comes to a close, the largest strike by education workers 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:12.560 across the University of California system has seen barricades, occupied buildings, 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.000 and strikers even liberating dining halls to feed themselves. Members 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.080 of the United Mine Workers have been on the picket 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.119 lines for almost two years, and this holiday season, over 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.560 one thousand rail workers stunned the brink of crippling the 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.959 US economy and an effort to win sickly as the 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.800 government rushed to enforce a contract and break the strike. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.080 With so many people on the verge of striking, it's 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.480 easy to wonder what would happen if a strike across 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.759 industries could be organized, a general strike. It's this very 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.840 subject that we tackle in today's show. And speaking of strikes, 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.680 the producers of it could happen here have walked off 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:55.400 the job that it's going down. It's taken over, that's right. 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.440 I g D will be occupying the means of this 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.440 production for five shows throughout the month of January as 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.720 we address some of the major issues of today while 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.760 looking back at recent examples in history about how the 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.360 exploiting excluded have attempted to meet the conditions which miserate 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.240 our lives head on. Each episode, of course, is going 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.960 to have special guests and a deep die from us. 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.760 Launching the summer of two thousands fifteen, It's Going Down 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.360 as a media platform, radio show and podcast. It covers 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.120 a ton of a social movements from an anarchist perspective. 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.440 As a group we represent folks from across the US. 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.600 Tom and myself have been involved in covering and participating 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.200 in social struggles for over twenty years. Sophie's a long 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:40.639 time educator and community organizer across multiple continents. Marcella is 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.720 a writer and comedian. This is Mike Andrews. Happy to 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.440 be here. I'm Sophie Marcella and I'm Tom. Yeah, this 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.440 is really cool. Thanks to all that it can happen 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.800 here people. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to be here 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.760 and talk about strikes. It's gonna be a fun time. Yeah, 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.359 I'm excited about today's topic very much. So, just art off. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.480 It's interesting. It seems like every few weeks on social media, 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.079 every couple of months, whenever there's like a big issue 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.200 that comes up or something's going on in the news cycle, 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.320 the idea of a general strike will trend or sort 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.080 of kind of get out in the ether as this 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.920 zeit guys that becomes really popular, and you know, we 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.119 live in this time and increasing protests and strikes and riots. 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.400 But it also seems like the possibility of a general 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.120 strike seems like very far off, or the idea of 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.919 it even being this like trending thing on social media 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.080 is sort of like passe or silly. And also it 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.080 happens so often and we don't see it materialized, it 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.000 can be easy to sort of write it off. Or 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.680 on the other hand, a lot of people will say, well, 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.880 if you want that to happen instead of just like 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.040 wishing it to be on social media, you should just 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.440 join a union and get involved that way. It seems 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:59.080 that this drive to constantly declared general strikes, though ambitious, 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.000 sometimes to the point of, you know, people being able 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.240 to sort of make fun of it, the reality is 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.200 is that the repeated sort of call for that has 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.640 normalized that idea. And what we're seeing a lot in 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.120 specifically in the US, but we're seeing a lot of 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:18.040 people at their workplaces recognized that the business unions have failed, right, 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:19.560 It's how we got here. You know, I live in 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.440 the rest belt. I live in the midst of the 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.640 failure of business unions every single day in my life. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.320 And that they've also come to understand something that the 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.120 autonomous in Italy were talking about the seventies, which is 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.960 that workers already control the means of production. They're already there. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.320 They already run the coffee shop, run the restaurant, run 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.920 the warehouse, run the tech company, whatever, and if they 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.920 just stop, nobody makes any money. And you don't need 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.440 a union in a formal sense to do that. And 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.039 so I think a lot of workers that traditionally fell 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.880 outside of unions are starting to understand their powers workers 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.680 outside of that structure, and that is incredibly important for 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.640 us going forward. Yeah, I mean, I think you're totally right. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.400 I mean, I don't think quiet quitting came out of nowhere. 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:00.279 And I know it's just like an idea. I like 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.719 loud quating more like I prefer that. But I do 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:05.760 think this culture, we're creating a culture where it is 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.520 okay to be anti work. It is okay for you 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.000 to say I hate my job and I actually don't 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:10.880 do anything and I steal for my boss, and we 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.560 should normalize that, right, Like, I don't think striking is 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:15.360 just this whole thing, and I do want to say 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:17.240 this before I move into that. Every single time I 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:22.080 posted TikTok video, somebody's always like general strike July. So 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.960 it's like, yeah, it's definitely on the internet a lot. 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.360 But I do think even people saying that I'm not 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.000 doing it has an impact because it's like, what is 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.239 that Martin Soustri said, you have to fight the culture, 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:34.200 and the culture that we live in now is a 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.880 culture that's like obsessed with work for work sake, and 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.520 so like maybe part of it is like, yeah, workers 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:41.360 already owns the means of production. Yeah, just don't work 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.360 as hard on your job, you know, and if your 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.760 work steal from your boss. It doesn't have to be 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.640 like this organizational thing. Because one thing is that, like 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.920 you have to realize is that sometimes union work unions 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.039 work with management. So it's like even if you're like, yeah, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:55.640 like I want to wait for my union, it's like 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.839 what if your union is like the fertila union that 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.600 will go behind your back and like make this. Um. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.840 I guess all this to say is that I think 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.520 changing the culture is important. Um, And I think that's 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.240 happening now. I think yeah, like you said at the 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.760 end of that, just like how something that I think 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.479 we'll get into a lot more in this episode is 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.120 looking at how this life claims to join the union 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.920 being the practical thing to do towards a general strike 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.120 just isn't accurate at all, and that when you look 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:22.960 back in history at kind of any of the exciting 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.599 moments of UM general strikes are uprising and stuff. It 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.280 doesn't come from those official channels UM, and so I'm 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.480 excited to get into that more. And I think, Yeah, 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.000 I like we're saying like this thing where it's just 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.640 become this thing that people will like say and talk about, 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.479 even if there's not that cultural memory of like exactly 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.880 what a general strike means or what what what's going 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.880 to happen. There's this idea of like refusal and of 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.880 solidarity that is captured just in the world and just 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.160 in saying it. But I think it's really like showing 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.840 that energy up and speaking of cultural memory. Fact, you're 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.719 dynamite in your pitchforks because it's time for a trip 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.480 down memory lane. In the early ninety hundreds of the 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.160 United States, groups like the Industrial Workers of the World 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.320 of the IWW, which advocated for the abolition of the 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.120 wage system and capitalism, rejected racist exclusions of non white 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.040 workers in the labor movement and even engaged in shootouts 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.200 with the k KK, popularized the idea of the general 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.920 strike in the United States on a large scale, with 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.160 the idea itself and its application in US history it's 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.920 much older. Throughout the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, anarchists, socialists, 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.800 and everyday members of the working class all promoted and 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.720 carried out multiple general strikes as a means to win 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.120 political and economic concessions. For some, the general strike was 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.560 also a launchpad for revolution, in which workers could, in theory, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.720 seize the means of existence out of the hands of 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.680 the capitalist class and run society on its own terms. 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.840 And it's this battle that thrust millions of everyday working 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.920 class people directly into conflict with the American state and 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.520 its military. In US history, the first large scale example 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:56.240 of a general strike occurred in the midst of the 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.520 American Civil War and W. E. B. Du Bois famous 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.840 book Black Reconstruction, he explains how it was the general 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.680 strike of the enslaved black proletariat that brought down the 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.800 plantation system, not President Lincoln er union bullets. The boys 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.680 argues that just like the black lead insurrections of today 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.080 and ferguson him Minneapolis, this strike took bourgeois white society 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.280 by total surprise, he writes it. In the South, newspapers 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.280 denied the very idea that slaves could ever free themselves 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.880 and even claim that they quote did not want to 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.640 be free. He writes of white society in the North. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.840 The North shrank at the very thought of encouraging servile 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.959 insurrection against the whites. Above all, it did not propose 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.760 to interfere with property. Black people on the whole were 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.600 considered cowards, inferior beings whose very presence in America was unfortunate. 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.520 Only John Brown knew that revolt would come, and he 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.560 was dead. So the boys really painted this picture of 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.600 this mass care and society in which slavery is seen 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.840 as very sad. More terrifying is the idea of mass 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.600 black insurrection, which of course and mirrors today's situation. I 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:04.679 mean the suburbs are, I mean right like that someburbs are. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.080 It's like for you to like pretend like all the 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:09.520 things that you have are not built on blood. It's 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.920 for you to like segment yourself away from the people 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.360 in society that give you everything you have, yet you 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.800 deny them everything. See you going you a little home 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:19.959 and like drinking a little tea and like watch a 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.040 little movies and just like ignore the fact that you're 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.000 an apphle. You know what I mean? Like just like 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.199 and even not even more more than an apple. I 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:27.880 was going as far as saying, I used to say 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:29.520 that they're not good or bad people, but like you're 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.000 acting like a bad person, like you don't care about 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.400 other people because you've been tricked to think that, like 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.800 you're getting a good deal. And it's an interesting point 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.120 that the Boys makes about just like. It was only 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.880 kind of the radical wing of the abolishness movement that 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.080 was talking about open revolt. There's this early anarchist A 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.599 lot of people don't reference a lot but why is 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.320 under Spooner. He conspired with John Brown various plots, and 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.160 he later became a member of the First International and 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.720 a contributor to early anarchist publications like Liberty. He produced 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.760 this really early text which is just fantastic. It's called 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.880 A Plan for the Abolish of Slavery, published in eighteen 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.120 fifty eight. It's a couple of years before the Civil War. 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.880 He writes, our plan then is to make our war 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.880 openly or secretly. A circumstances may dictate upon the property 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:18.079 of the slaveholders, burn the master's buildings, kill their cattle 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.480 and horses, conceal or destroy farming utensils, abandoned labor and 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.120 seed time and harvest and let the crops perish, make 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.520 slavery unprofitable. I love the line conceal or destroys. Like 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.800 you can destroy them, you can also hide them. This 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:34.520 is like a parallel that we can drawn out to. 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:36.920 Like if you want to like have solidarity with like 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.679 like other wage slaves, is that like do accommodate them 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.760 and help them steal from their I mean from their jobs. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.680 I mean it's like these things happened in the past, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:48.680 but these are tactics that we can still use in 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.960 the present. There's echoes of this quote later with Lucy Parsons, Right, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.200 you see this during the Structure in our work at 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.720 Chicago where she gives a speech where she's talking about 0:10:58.000 --> 0:10:59.920 grabbing knives and going to the doors of the rent 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.760 as a way to make it very very very clear 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:04.600 that they weren't going to be able to live off 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.400 the backs of the working class anymore. Right, Um. And 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.480 it's the sort of idea of direct action, which now, 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.160 I mean, if we think about now, what are politicians doing. 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.120 They're trying to pass laws to make it a felony 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.319 to have home demonstrations, right, to like do exactly these 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.920 kinds of things, but in much more passive ways. So 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.640 if we can really think back, I mean, this is 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:25.760 a tried and true technique that people used in the 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:27.840 United States for a very very long time, and we 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.959 can see still how much that terrifies people with power. 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.040 There's another awesome quote from Spooner I just want to 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:34.880 read as well, and this I find this one really 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.160 interesting because he's speaking actually to white people in the South, 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.000 especially people that work in the slave patrols. He says, 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.440 white rascals of the South, willing tools of the slaveholders. 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.079 You who drive slaves to do their labor, hunt them 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:51.440 with dogs, and flog them for pay without asking any questions. 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.280 You are the main pillars of the slave system. That 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.400 is the most eloquent way to say exactly, yeah, that's 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:02.280 exactly what I was thinking. I think it's interesting to 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.640 point out, as do boys Rights. And as Frederick Douglas 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.440 said of the Civil War, it was started quote in 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.920 the interests of slavery on both sides. The South was 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.640 fighting to take slavery out of the Union and the 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.680 North was fighting to keep it in. And the mass 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.400 black exodus did not kick off at the start of 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.360 the war. He makes the really important point that union 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.480 leaders made it clear that they did not want to 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.600 disrupt the plantation system. At times, generals even offered to 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.640 put down slave rebellions, and he says that they even forbade, 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.680 at least in some instances, union soldiers from singing the 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.240 song John Brown's Body. But as the North pushed into 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.040 the South, the flood of former slaves escaping into Union 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.920 hands grew and grew. By eighteen sixty two, is the 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.280 Boys rights, This was the beginning of the swarming of 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.120 increasing numbers no longer to work on Confederate plantations, a 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.640 movement that became a general strike against the slave system. 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.080 This was not merely the desire to stop work. It 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.959 was a strike on a wide basis against the conditions 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.720 of work. It was a general strike that evolved directly 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.360 in the end, perhaps half a million people. They wanted 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.480 to stop the economy of the plantation system, and to 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.679 do that they left the plantations. It's interesting too, and 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.000 The Boys makes this point the general strike also encouraged 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.679 and took place alongside many poor whites deserting the Confederate army. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.040 One thing that's interesting about the Confederate side of the 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.040 Civil War, you could get out of fighting if you 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.440 own slaves, And a lot of poor whites deserted the 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.680 Confederate army, which further crippled it. As the Boys noted, 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.080 the poor white not only began to desert and run away, 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.480 but thousands followed black people into the northern camps. And 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.400 just some key takeaways to like launching the discussion side 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.520 of this, It's interesting that the wider society, as the 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.720 Boys notes, before the Civil War disparaged the possibility of 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.840 mass collective action. And I think this really mirrors contemporary 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:58.440 conspiracy theories and narratives around black rebellion today that happened 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.920 often either in the midst of the George Floyd Uprising 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.560 or afterwards. And also the mass strike and refusal that 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.960 happened during the Civil War, which disrupted the economy and 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.840 made things like the slave patrols, the policing of the 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:18.160 plantation system impossible. That helped bring down the Confederacy, obviously, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.239 and I think it's important to ask, as our contemporary 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:27.160 society remains structured around racial capitalism, what might be done 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.560 in the current system in terms of mass refusal and 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.360 desertion that would cause a similar effect. The idea of 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.800 the wider society and disparaging mass collective action is because 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.280 that the fear is letting us know that we do 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.120 have mass power, you know what I mean. It's like 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.520 it's not a surprise that people always say that Lincoln 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.440 freed the slaves, and Lincoln literally said, if I had 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:50.720 to end slavery to save the Union, I would have 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:52.440 ended slavery. And if I have to keep slavery to 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.480 save the Union, I would have kept a slavery you 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.480 know what I mean. So just like this whole idea 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.320 of like letting black people know you can't do shi it, 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.120 don't even bother is the they know that we can't 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.960 do ship, and we are doing ship because black people 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.720 are always rebelling. Um, if you come to flop push, 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.120 you see it in full color. They realize the government 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.320 isn't give a funk about them, and they've created their 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.640 own institutions to support themselves. Um. Yeah, So it's like 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:17.680 this whole idea to let us tell us don't even 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.200 bother and and and like criminalizing like the informal sector 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.520 because it's like that's a way for us like gain 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.080 power outside of like the formal sector, you know what 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:28.920 I mean, and things like that. So I just think 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.480 it's like it's like when they tell us, don't bother 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:33.840 trying to fight back, like everybody has to suffer, Like 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.800 that's what they always think. Everybody suffered, and we all 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.560 just suffer and it's like, no, we don't want to suffer, 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.640 and we're actually doing things to ease our suffering. And um, 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.560 I think this is just like all this is to 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.840 say that people who are out there doing stuff keep 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:49.800 doing stuff, and like, if you want to do stuff, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.240 do it. You don't have to be brought of reunion. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:54.440 You don't have to put your job and be an activist. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.840 By the way, paid activists not really activists. You can 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:58.600 do regular ship and you hold that. You can do 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.960 a free stool in the corner on the street so 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.640 people can have clothes. It's like you could striking from 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.080 the economy means like divesting your time and resources, and 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:09.400 you can do it. We can all do it in 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.480 some shape or form well, And I think it becomes 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.920 a lot more possible today to think about that than 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:19.160 it did, say before. Right, So we had this kind 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.320 of collapse of the legitimacy of the American political projects, 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.400 sort of with the Iraq War, right, we all kind 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.960 of saw how badly that can turn out. But what 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.880 was left in America to uphold the entire edifice was 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.920 the idea that even though things politically were kind of 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.680 screwed up, at least there's economic success. And then that 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.720 failed to right. And so this sort of idea that 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.760 built up after World War Two, this kind of concept 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.080 of you know, the labor corpor compromise, the loyal worker 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.080 that's going to get provided for for the rest of 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.080 their life. Not only did our parents generation find out 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:58.080 that that was a lie, but younger generations don't really 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.120 buy it at all. And so what you're really seeing is, 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.840 I think this kind of breakdown socially of the legitimacy 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.840 of the idea of the American dream because of all 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.960 of its problematic elements and it's impossibility and its absurdity, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.440 and kind of this revival of an idea which existed 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.040 prior to World War Two, which was an idea of 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.359 social revolt, right, and it was something we saw manifest 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.680 during the Great Depression, and it's part of the reason 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.240 why the New Deal exists. Was a way to put 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.000 that down was a way to prevent workers from feeling 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.080 like the only thing that they had in front of 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.760 them was to take over their factories and show up 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.320 at the doors of the rich and so on, so 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.840 and so on. Right. But that whole idea of the 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.600 New Deal, that concept that the government was going to 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:45.240 take care of you and the company was going to 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.960 take care of you, collapsed in the nineties seventies, but 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.000 the idea that it existed still holds on in some 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.240 sectors of the of America today. I mean, you see 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.840 this with the magacrat out really heavily, the idea that 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:02.919 like nothing systematically needs change, really we just need better outcomes, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.160 and we just need, you know, in their case, Donald Trump, 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:07.840 to pay attention to us and give us the things 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:12.680 that we want. But really, outside of that almost comical patriotism, um, 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.119 you don't really see a lot of adherence to that 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:18.800 vision any further. And that makes the idea of mass 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.160 refusal not only a lot more possible, but something that's 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.080 actively happening currently. Yeah, And the other parts who I 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:25.840 want to bring in is that when the New Deal 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.199 is caused, it excluded like black people, right, And so 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.879 that's one way It's like it's like this constants, like 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.560 how white people are like tricked into like submitting to 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.600 the system, and it happens so many times, and they 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.240 still keep saying, took us again, took us again. It's like, yeah, 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.840 they're gonna give you ship so you're not upset, and 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:43.600 then they're going to exclude black people because at the 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.560 end of the day, black people do all the work 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.359 that we need to survive as a society. Do we 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.000 not remember who the essential workers were? Like who does 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.800 the jobs that we need to like live, like, you 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.000 know what I mean? So yeah, you could like be 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:56.679 out of work and get your little thing, But as 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.200 long as we keep inslating and treating the people who 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.040 make this aciet any run, it's fine. Um. And now 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.719 that's happening to white people too, and they're like, oh no, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.080 this is not cute, like it's not fun and quiet quitting, 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:09.680 you know what I mean, Because like there we are, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.240 like the way black people have been treated is certing 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:13.879 to happen to white people. And it's just like I 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:15.520 hope this is what I was going to ask you. 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.359 How do we prevent another New Deal situation from happening 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.840 where white workers are tricked again, Like because I feel 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:22.520 it's coming. I feel like they're going to find a 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:24.720 way out of this, and like how do we know 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.159 what if it's like bullshit? And like how do we 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:28.760 call it out? And how do we call it out? 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.520 That's what student unforgiveness was, right. I mean, like, if 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.600 we really think about it, the Democratic parties been built 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.480 recently since the Obama era on this idea of reinstituting 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.000 elements of the New Deal without threatening the existence of capitalism. Um, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:45.480 very intentionally right. We saw that the Affordable Care Act 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.640 as version of that. Right. So, I mean they are 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.399 doing this and I think what's fascinating about this, And 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.639 this is something that radicals in the late sixties pointed 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.199 out often about Lyndon Johnson is they said, you know, 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.959 liberals voted for Lyndon Johnson and they put all their 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.320 hopes in him, so when he failed them, it didn't 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.480 have anything left to do except hit the streets, right, 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:07.960 Like there was no other option. And I think what 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.920 we've really seen since the Obama era is the collapse 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.199 of the idea that the way that the Democrats do 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.760 social assistances in any way going to solve anything. Um, 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.359 that's just going to continue to perpetuate the situation of 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:23.160 which we need social assistance, right, as opposed to fundamentally 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.040 ending that, which is you know, the language that they 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.000 put forward when they talked about things like justice, which 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.880 we all know that they don't really have much adherence to. Right. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.040 But I think until the until the Democratic Party gains 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.080 legitimacy again, if they ever do, which hopefully they don't, 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.000 but if they ever do, yeah, we might be able 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.600 to see this kind of use of reformedism, this counterinsurgency again, right, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.520 which is really what the New Deal was. But really 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.520 until that, I mean we saw in twenty you know, 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.879 when the legitimacy of the group of people who often 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.000 relies on that technique falls apart, you get uprisings in 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.879 the streets, right. And so we're at kind of a 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.679 different point, I think than than maybe just before the 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:01.960 new kind of came into effect. Something I want to 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:03.560 go back to too, that I think it's relevant to 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.399 this is the piece where the quote um is talking 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:12.600 about concealing or like in secret or in public or whatever. 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:14.960 How there's like a lot of power in terms of 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.159 like things like general strikes in that sort of like 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.800 invisibility or whatever in the unpredictability in like not going 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.840 for like building movements based on like visibility or public 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.879 perception or like the media or whatever, but actually building 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.040 them in these ways that can't be seen as much 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:32.920 and might be concealed. Um. And also this thing where 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.280 people are underestimated, Like it makes me think about the 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.560 revolution in Haiti in the late seventeen hundreds, which is 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:41.720 you know, a long time ago but still very relevant, um. 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.359 And just thinking about how the kind of like colonizes 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.200 in Paris, like couldn't believe the reports that were coming 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.440 out of uprising in Haiti at the time because they 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.720 were so racist basically that they didn't believe that black 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.040 people there who were they could rise up and could 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:00.600 have that like no awareness gump or whatever. Um. And 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:02.199 that gave them a lot of room, you know, that 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.320 was like a position of power for them that like, um, 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.440 they were being underestimated like that much. And I think 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.919 that's something we see with like even though like the 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.280 idea that's gone on from that time really of like 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.800 outside agitator and stuff like in any uprising that we 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.359 see um involved. Yeah, that both part people is that 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.080 there's something in that that is also powerful and it 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.280 gives possibility. Well, speaking of outside agitators, we're going to 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.919 take a break and hear from some of our sponsors 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:44.679 right now. In eighteen sixty five, on paper, the Civil 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:49.280 War ended and the Union was saved. A decade later, 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.080 the North began pointing out of the cell, marking me 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.040 into reconstruction efforts in the beginning of both jem Crow 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.239 and a reign of terror and white vigilaneism in the 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:03.000 form of the ku Klux Klan. The eighteen seventies was 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:07.480 also a period of increasing poverty, declaiming wages, rising homelessness, 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.800 economic depression, and exploding class conflict, as the stage was 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.639 said for the Great Upheaval of eighteen seventy seven, a 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:18.480 general strike that rocked multiple states as workers across lines 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.800 of color, gender, profession, and age threatened the very core 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.200 of the capitalist state. As the decades were on, multiple 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:29.119 general strikes followed, as did a heavy handed government response 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:33.040 that evolved to police and repressed the broader population. Wanting 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:35.680 to know more about this history of these general strikes 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:38.040 in their importance, we caught up with labor historian and 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.679 author Robert Ovett's, author of one workers shot back, and 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:45.520 we the elites. Ovetts argues that the often violent general 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.480 strikes of the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.880 showcase the ability of working people. It's not only confront 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:55.440 the state and capitalism, but also organized society on their 0:23:55.480 --> 0:24:00.760 own terms. Well. General strikes have been a rare occurrence, 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:05.720 but a very powerful example of the way that organized 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:12.359 workers and communities can transform society and hopefully transcend capitalism. 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:14.960 I think we have in the examples of general strikes 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:20.000 in US history an example of the potential for getting 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:23.200 beyond capitalism, and so that's what makes them really exciting 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.600 to to study and to write about. At A general 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:29.560 strike doesn't just happen, and we don't actually know exactly 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:32.679 why general strikes happen, but we know that they don't 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:35.879 just happen. They're not spontaneous. There has to be a 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:42.280 groundwork of organizing and engaged activists and organizers who are 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:48.760 working quietly, sometimes for months or years, to to work 0:24:49.040 --> 0:24:53.359 and organizing their fellow workers and to build community connections 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:56.439 to support their strike actions. And there also has to 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:01.200 be a good communication of what what the strike is about, 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:04.080 what their demands are, and the ability to communicate and 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:09.000 spread information about that strike. Probably the two most important 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:14.320 general strikes in US history were the one in eighteen 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:17.720 seventy seven and the one in nine in Seattle. And 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:20.639 the one in eighteen seventy seven was a general strike 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:28.119 throughout the railroad industry, but it also had extraordinary um microcosmic, 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:31.000 if you will, a general strike that was happening in St. 0:25:31.000 --> 0:25:34.480 Louis and East St. Louis. But what was fascinating about 0:25:34.520 --> 0:25:36.919 that was that the groundwork had been laid in eighteen 0:25:36.960 --> 0:25:41.040 seventy seven, not by a union actually, because the workers 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.360 had tried to form a union, but it was sabotaged, 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:47.600 it was infiltrated, and they tried to the the organizers 0:25:47.600 --> 0:25:50.520 tried to call off the set date to start the 0:25:50.560 --> 0:25:53.359 general strike and the railroad industry, but the workers went 0:25:53.480 --> 0:25:57.919 on strike anyways, and they built their own organization across 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:02.840 dozens of different railroad come panies on their own. In St. Louis, however, 0:26:02.880 --> 0:26:05.720 there was a new left wing party called the Working 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:11.760 Men's Party that was formed by various socialists and communists 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:14.399 and anarchists who had taken over the city and for 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:16.520 a few days tried to run it and that was. 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:19.000 That was probably closer to what happened in Seattle in 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:24.719 nineteen nineteen, where over a hundred local unions actually pressured 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:28.600 the Labor Council to call a general strike, and so 0:26:28.680 --> 0:26:32.320 that was kind of built up from below through formal unions. 0:26:32.359 --> 0:26:35.280 But then it went far beyond anything that those AFL 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:39.119 affiliated unions were willing to really do. The St. Louis 0:26:39.400 --> 0:26:42.960 General Strike in eighteen seventy seven that I was just mentioning. Uh, 0:26:43.000 --> 0:26:49.360 there was a multi racial coalition of worker organizers who 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:53.600 literally took charge of the strike. There had been a 0:26:53.640 --> 0:26:56.920 strike committee form and those that strike committee was dominated 0:26:56.960 --> 0:27:00.800 by the Working Men's Party activists, but the workers themselves 0:27:00.800 --> 0:27:05.080 started to organize outside the confines of the strike coordinating committee, 0:27:05.600 --> 0:27:08.880 and it was very multiracial. They started marching on one 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:12.280 workplace and another. Uh. There was some evidence that there 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:14.159 were some women that were involved in it. So there 0:27:14.160 --> 0:27:18.680 were strong ties to the community and various households and neighborhoods. 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.320 But they marched on one workplace to another and spread 0:27:22.320 --> 0:27:24.560 the strike, and within a couple of days much of 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:27.439 the city had been shut down. And the irony of 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:32.320 this was that the strike coordinating council actually freaked out 0:27:32.640 --> 0:27:36.320 about how multi racial of the crowds were that were 0:27:36.359 --> 0:27:40.560 shutting down these workplaces and leaving and leaving work um 0:27:40.760 --> 0:27:46.920 and internally they became very divided based on their their racism, 0:27:46.960 --> 0:27:49.399 and there were some members of the coordinating committee that 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:54.800 were extreme racial supremacists and didn't want the strike to continue, 0:27:54.840 --> 0:27:57.480 and they debated how to stop the strike, how to 0:27:57.520 --> 0:28:00.679 call it off, and but the reality was that they 0:28:00.680 --> 0:28:03.520 had lost control of it to the workers outside of 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:08.000 the committee. And when it became clear that the militias 0:28:08.480 --> 0:28:11.800 were being called into St. Louis to attack the city, 0:28:12.600 --> 0:28:16.480 the workers marched on the Medium Hall where the strike 0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:20.679 coordinating council was and demanded that they appropriate money to 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:24.800 acquire arms to defend the city. But they refused to 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:28.040 do that, and they eventually tried to call off the strike. 0:28:28.760 --> 0:28:30.879 Uh So that lasted a few days, and race was 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:34.680 a huge factor in why the strikes spread and how 0:28:34.680 --> 0:28:36.400 the workers took over the city, But it was also 0:28:36.440 --> 0:28:38.960 a factor and how it was actually killed by those 0:28:39.040 --> 0:28:42.800 who were supposedly quote unquote running the actual general strike. 0:28:43.000 --> 0:28:45.560 In the case of Seattle, we don't know as much 0:28:45.600 --> 0:28:49.240 about the racial composition of the workers. UM. But we 0:28:49.320 --> 0:28:53.160 do know that it was very generalized throughout the entire city. UM. 0:28:53.320 --> 0:28:56.880 And the reason we know this is because the the 0:28:56.960 --> 0:29:00.000 General Strike Committee, which was formed by the Labor count 0:29:00.120 --> 0:29:03.960 soul I, had representatives of every union and they took 0:29:04.000 --> 0:29:07.720 care of many of the reproductive needs of the population. 0:29:07.760 --> 0:29:10.800 For example, they kept the hospital running. UH. They set 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:16.840 up free kitchens where people could eat UM. They as 0:29:16.880 --> 0:29:19.920 well as setting up and publishing a newspaper that came 0:29:19.920 --> 0:29:22.440 out every day during the five days of the strike, 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:26.440 so they took care of also of public safety. UM. 0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:29.600 So what was extraordinary about the Seattle General Strike is 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:32.800 how it incorporated many of these issues that we would 0:29:32.800 --> 0:29:36.760 say is about gender and reproductive needs of the population. 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:39.680 They didn't just shut down the workplace. They actually took 0:29:39.720 --> 0:29:43.320 over the city and reorganized society to meet the needs 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:49.800 of humanity. The seven strike actually resulted in what I 0:29:49.960 --> 0:29:51.880 show in a lot of detail in my first book, 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:57.760 when workers shot back, how the state and capital reorganized 0:29:57.840 --> 0:30:01.600 themselves in order to u be able to respond a 0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:06.320 lot quicker to self organized workers and strikes and especially 0:30:06.320 --> 0:30:10.600 general strikes. For example, the modern police came into being 0:30:11.000 --> 0:30:13.520 in many cities as a result of the eighteen seventy 0:30:13.520 --> 0:30:17.920 seven strike because up until that point, the police were um, 0:30:18.000 --> 0:30:20.760 if you will, they were kind of like gig workers. 0:30:20.800 --> 0:30:24.440 They worked on quote unquote tips or bribes. UH. There 0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:28.000 were very few cities that had any municipal police, and 0:30:28.040 --> 0:30:30.360 if they did, they had very small forces. And so 0:30:30.440 --> 0:30:32.840 that was one reason why the strikes spread so quickly 0:30:32.880 --> 0:30:35.840 around the country over that that ten day or so 0:30:35.960 --> 0:30:40.640 period in July of eighteen seventy seven. UH, So modern 0:30:40.680 --> 0:30:43.440 policing really came into being. Also, as you mentioned, the 0:30:43.480 --> 0:30:48.720 militias were transformed into what became the National Guard. The 0:30:48.760 --> 0:30:52.360 militias also proved to be undependable because they were mostly 0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:56.920 composed of working men, and if they were called out locally, 0:30:57.040 --> 0:30:59.239 they knew the strikers, and in fact, some of them 0:30:59.240 --> 0:31:01.880 were strikers and didn't even show up for their militia duty. 0:31:02.400 --> 0:31:06.160 So militias were essentially de emphasized and they were replaced 0:31:06.200 --> 0:31:10.200 by a state controlled National Guard. UM. As a result 0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:13.840 of the passage of a new federal law. UH, the 0:31:13.880 --> 0:31:18.600 military was also funded on a permanent basis. One reason 0:31:18.640 --> 0:31:21.360 why the military was so slow to be UH to 0:31:21.480 --> 0:31:24.040 be deployed to put down the strike in eighteen seventy 0:31:24.040 --> 0:31:26.640 seven was most of the soldiers were out in the 0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:31.600 West fighting essentially a genocidal war against the Plans native peoples, 0:31:31.680 --> 0:31:35.160 and so there weren't enough military around. And also Congress 0:31:35.200 --> 0:31:37.280 hadn't funded the military that year, believe it or not, 0:31:37.800 --> 0:31:43.240 and so the military was unfunded and undersized. Another consequence 0:31:43.280 --> 0:31:46.680 of this was that many corporations started to work together 0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:50.640 to create their own you could say, mutual aid to 0:31:50.760 --> 0:31:54.560 protect one another. They started forming employer groups in order 0:31:54.600 --> 0:31:56.920 to be able to respond to a more coordinated method. 0:31:57.640 --> 0:32:00.680 Um So you started to see corporations cooperated result of this. 0:32:00.760 --> 0:32:03.320 In fact, many of the technologies that we take for 0:32:03.400 --> 0:32:06.240 granted today were a result of the eighteen seventy seven 0:32:06.600 --> 0:32:10.800 railroad strike. For example, UH, the telegraph was installed in 0:32:10.960 --> 0:32:13.280 many rich people's homes as a way to be able 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:16.400 to contact the police directly. Those lines went directly to 0:32:16.440 --> 0:32:21.040 the police. UH. The so called pattiwagon was also invented 0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:23.280 as a result of the eighteen seventy seven strike as 0:32:23.320 --> 0:32:26.760 a weapon against large crowds. Um So, there were a 0:32:26.840 --> 0:32:31.040 number of m of new technologies that were implemented UH 0:32:31.080 --> 0:32:33.600 and became more widespread as a results of that strike 0:32:34.520 --> 0:32:38.600 in Seattle. Also, the workers were prepared, they had known 0:32:38.680 --> 0:32:43.880 their history, and they formed a self defense group UH 0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:46.560 composed primarily of World War One veterans who had just 0:32:46.600 --> 0:32:50.400 come back from more or one UM and they patrolled 0:32:50.400 --> 0:32:53.720 the city and they did things like shut down bars 0:32:53.840 --> 0:32:56.520 because they didn't want UH people to get drawnk and 0:32:56.560 --> 0:33:00.480 start fighting and that would be a justification for the 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:03.000 the National Guard to be called in. But the police 0:33:03.000 --> 0:33:06.280 started to essentially line up outside the boundaries of the 0:33:06.320 --> 0:33:11.160 city and they waited for reinforcements threatenings essentially to invade 0:33:11.200 --> 0:33:14.680 Seattle before the general strike was called off. But the 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:19.600 workers were prepared. They did carry out and organized self 0:33:19.640 --> 0:33:26.320 defense against that eventuality. The Oakland general strike was part 0:33:26.360 --> 0:33:29.480 of an extraordinary wave of post War two strikes that 0:33:29.520 --> 0:33:32.840 were happening just like after Word one and actually during 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:35.480 Worldar one there was a wave of strikes UH. The 0:33:35.480 --> 0:33:38.160 same thing happened when a lot of soldiers started coming 0:33:38.200 --> 0:33:42.200 back from War two. Unemployment shot up, women were sent 0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:47.080 as sent packing. UH prices exploded, there was a shortage 0:33:47.080 --> 0:33:52.080 of housing UH and workers started to organize and UH. 0:33:52.280 --> 0:33:57.200 During that few year period, UH there was a general 0:33:57.240 --> 0:34:00.600 strike in the steel sector, and Truman threatened to take 0:34:00.680 --> 0:34:03.640 over some of the larger companies, and he was repelled 0:34:04.360 --> 0:34:08.080 by the Supreme Court. But as a consequence of this 0:34:08.480 --> 0:34:14.520 uh this upsurge of class struggle, the Congress paths to 0:34:14.600 --> 0:34:19.160 Taff Hardly Act, which still governs US today. For workers 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:23.600 who try to organize in the private sector where they're 0:34:23.640 --> 0:34:26.319 under the National Labor Relations Act, the Taff Hardley Act 0:34:26.400 --> 0:34:28.919 was an amendment to that law. One of the most 0:34:28.960 --> 0:34:33.839 important things it did was a banned so called secondary strikes, 0:34:33.920 --> 0:34:38.400 which means that if workers go on strike somewhere, workers 0:34:38.440 --> 0:34:43.680 can't strike in solidarity um and particularly if they have 0:34:44.000 --> 0:34:47.680 a union contract with their employer, it would be illegal. Now, 0:34:47.680 --> 0:34:49.719 there are some workers that are exempted from that, for 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:53.399 example transport workers because they're under a different federal law. 0:34:53.440 --> 0:34:56.440 They're under the Railway Labor Act, which is part of 0:34:56.480 --> 0:34:59.280 the reason why we almost just saw rail railroad general 0:34:59.280 --> 0:35:02.040 strike before the Democrats killed it a few weeks ago. 0:35:03.280 --> 0:35:07.520 But the tapped Hartley Act continues to serve as a 0:35:07.560 --> 0:35:10.840 means of suppressing and repressing the ability not only of 0:35:10.920 --> 0:35:14.319 workers but organized unions in their local workplaces, but to 0:35:14.400 --> 0:35:18.839 actually engage in a general strike. So again we've been 0:35:18.840 --> 0:35:21.839 listening to Robert Ovette's author of One Workers Shot Back 0:35:22.040 --> 0:35:25.120 and We the Elites. Just a few key takeaways from 0:35:25.120 --> 0:35:28.320 that discussion. We see various examples in these general strikes 0:35:28.320 --> 0:35:32.439 of tensions developing between more radical elements and reformist ones 0:35:32.480 --> 0:35:37.000 that want to contain revolutionary expressions and also stop workers 0:35:37.080 --> 0:35:41.640 from really taking over society. We also see positive examples 0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:45.040 of these strikes spilling out across lines of race, gender, 0:35:45.080 --> 0:35:47.839 and age and profession. One thing we see, of course, 0:35:47.880 --> 0:35:51.040 again and again is the state responding to these strikes 0:35:51.040 --> 0:35:53.880 with the combination of militia's police and of course the 0:35:53.960 --> 0:35:56.960 National Guard. And finally, many of these strikes lead to 0:35:56.960 --> 0:36:00.160 the passing of legislation, which is interesting because far are 0:36:00.200 --> 0:36:04.200 from this sort of progressive arc towards justice. Instead, we 0:36:04.239 --> 0:36:07.440 see constantly, again and again the state either reforming itself 0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:12.320 to become more oppressive, engage in surveillance, reconstitute the police 0:36:12.360 --> 0:36:16.360 in a certain way, reconstitute the military, or sometimes bring 0:36:16.400 --> 0:36:19.399 the workers into the superstructure of the state and roorge 0:36:19.480 --> 0:36:22.200 to better manage them. Yeah, I totally agree. It's not 0:36:22.239 --> 0:36:24.799 getting better. They're just being smart about it. They're like 0:36:24.800 --> 0:36:27.879 like little like slimy balls. They're just like reshaping as 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:30.680 they need to shape and form to like get workers. 0:36:30.800 --> 0:36:32.800 So like when you were reading that, it felt like 0:36:32.800 --> 0:36:35.080 a writer's were It felt like a movie of like 0:36:35.280 --> 0:36:38.399 how do we control these people? You know what I mean? 0:36:38.520 --> 0:36:40.320 It felt like it was like this like checker but 0:36:40.400 --> 0:36:42.520 they're like, oh, they make their move, we make their move. 0:36:42.560 --> 0:36:44.160 And it's like it's like the state as a tool 0:36:44.239 --> 0:36:45.960 and like you see that because it's like it's a 0:36:45.960 --> 0:36:47.480 tool of the elite, and you see that through the 0:36:47.560 --> 0:36:49.520 laws that are passed, and like when they're passed, like 0:36:49.560 --> 0:36:52.600 because when black and white people form them, this violence 0:36:52.640 --> 0:36:55.080 like a lot of state violence, like extreme state violence, 0:36:55.160 --> 0:36:57.520 because it's like they want to remind us like that's bad, 0:36:57.560 --> 0:36:59.239 you don't do that, and then they'll do stuff to 0:36:59.239 --> 0:37:01.440 play get worker like white workers too, like with a 0:37:01.440 --> 0:37:03.719 Wagoner Act, like with unionization, like a lot of black 0:37:03.719 --> 0:37:06.640 people were excluded from that. Maybe just maybe things aren't 0:37:06.640 --> 0:37:08.880 getting better like they're telling you they are. Things are 0:37:08.920 --> 0:37:11.920 just reshaving. That's something else I'm thinking about as you're talking. 0:37:12.000 --> 0:37:14.239 And just like from from that history that it is 0:37:14.280 --> 0:37:17.360 like we hear that like the creativity of the state 0:37:17.400 --> 0:37:19.840 with their oppression or whatever that's going on, but also 0:37:19.920 --> 0:37:22.600 how people keep coming back with like new and different things, 0:37:22.640 --> 0:37:26.160 you know, like it actually takes a lot of repression 0:37:26.160 --> 0:37:27.680 to stop these things. Like if you look at what 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:30.759 happened Stubben or whatever, it's like they killed quite a 0:37:30.760 --> 0:37:33.120 lot of people to stop that strike wave and stuff, 0:37:33.120 --> 0:37:35.719 you know, like it's really heavy handed. And then but 0:37:35.880 --> 0:37:37.840 still a lot of strikes happen after that, and it 0:37:37.920 --> 0:37:40.920 leads up to Haymarket in age six or whatever. And 0:37:41.400 --> 0:37:44.480 I just think, again, again, we seem like repression, but 0:37:44.520 --> 0:37:47.880 then we see it flowering again. And I think that 0:37:48.000 --> 0:37:50.600 what we're seeing like right now maybe is like a 0:37:50.640 --> 0:37:53.279 sort of creative non union. And when we're talking at 0:37:53.280 --> 0:37:55.840 the beginning about people just saying general strike, general strike, 0:37:56.320 --> 0:37:58.839 it's like whatever happens next will be something different. What 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:01.880 we're seeing is we're seeing over this time the mechanism 0:38:01.960 --> 0:38:04.880 of counterinsurgency get a lot more complex. Right, So in 0:38:04.920 --> 0:38:08.200 the eighteen seventies, it's let's get some guns and force 0:38:08.239 --> 0:38:11.359 everyone to come back to work. But now it's why 0:38:11.400 --> 0:38:14.640 don't we get nonprofits to fund these you know, public programs. 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:18.000 Why don't we have community policing and coffee with cops, 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:20.680 and and so you saw during the George Floyd uprising, 0:38:20.719 --> 0:38:23.320 as he saw a lot of this like, well, I 0:38:23.400 --> 0:38:25.520 know that y'all want to cut funding from police departments, 0:38:25.600 --> 0:38:27.480 but really what you should do is you should come 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:29.120 to our budget meeting and we could put it in 0:38:29.120 --> 0:38:31.120 the city budget and we should talk about it that way. 0:38:31.239 --> 0:38:33.120 And that was the way to force there in the 0:38:33.200 --> 0:38:35.759 streets back into a mechanism that's able to be more 0:38:35.800 --> 0:38:39.279 easily controlled. Um. But we see in like rust belt 0:38:39.320 --> 0:38:42.520 cities Pittsburgh, Cleveland, places like this, the way that the 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:45.160 wealthy at this period of time, the late nineteenth and 0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:48.839 early twentieth century, we're already talking about trying to change 0:38:49.000 --> 0:38:52.600 entire environments, right, So like surveillance, nonprofit activity like that 0:38:52.760 --> 0:38:55.320 changes the whole environments. It's not just about a single 0:38:55.880 --> 0:38:59.440 individual objective, but it shapes an entire reality. In these 0:38:59.520 --> 0:39:01.560 rust belt cities during that period of time, I mean, 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:03.600 you have a lot of like free art museums and 0:39:03.600 --> 0:39:06.520 stuff like this that are world class institutions, but if 0:39:06.560 --> 0:39:09.680 you look at their charters and actually look at them closely, 0:39:10.040 --> 0:39:13.600 the reason those institutions exist was, to quote inculturate the 0:39:13.640 --> 0:39:17.000 working class, and it was all about like Rockefeller very 0:39:17.040 --> 0:39:20.640 specifically Cleveland money to these institutions so the working class 0:39:20.680 --> 0:39:22.759 wouldn't kill them, like wouldn't murder them. And it was 0:39:22.800 --> 0:39:27.160 in the middle of really intense anti capitalist activity in 0:39:27.200 --> 0:39:30.440 those cities, right and so we can watch the development 0:39:30.440 --> 0:39:32.560 of those techniques right now. It takes the form of 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:35.360 defunding the police campaigns and things like that as opposed 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:38.680 to abolitionism. Um It takes the form of trying to 0:39:38.760 --> 0:39:42.440 find softer means of policing, like surveillance as opposed to 0:39:42.840 --> 0:39:45.840 just happen clubs and guns and stuff um. Or, in 0:39:45.920 --> 0:39:47.759 the case of the Democratic Party, of the smart Border, 0:39:48.000 --> 0:39:50.040 when they talk about the smart Border, which is essentially 0:39:50.280 --> 0:39:52.280 putting a bunch of sensors and cameras in the desert 0:39:52.320 --> 0:39:54.720 to try and catch people crossing the border, that somehow 0:39:54.880 --> 0:39:59.480 less repressive by shaping the entire space around surveillance, that 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:04.080 somehow less repressive than just having police. And they use 0:40:04.200 --> 0:40:06.560 that idea that if they're not in a uniform, and 0:40:06.600 --> 0:40:08.239 they don't have a weapon right in front of them, 0:40:08.320 --> 0:40:12.160 or aren't human, that somehow there's some benefit that emerges 0:40:12.200 --> 0:40:14.560 and somehow the state is retreating a little bit when 0:40:14.600 --> 0:40:17.640 in actuality thinks like body cameras, stuff like that just 0:40:17.840 --> 0:40:20.239 increase the ability of the state to have visibility, just 0:40:20.400 --> 0:40:22.960 increases the number of cameras on the street and increases 0:40:23.000 --> 0:40:25.840 the ability of the state to control information and decide 0:40:25.880 --> 0:40:28.520 what information gets out. Um. These are all things which 0:40:28.560 --> 0:40:30.839 have reinforced the power of the state, but they get 0:40:30.920 --> 0:40:34.359 portrayed as you know, forms of as reforms that are 0:40:34.360 --> 0:40:37.040 supposed to solve these huge social problems that people keep 0:40:37.120 --> 0:40:39.719 raising up. Well, speaking of things rich people give us 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:43.399 so we won't kill them, We're going to know here 0:40:43.440 --> 0:40:56.839 for some from some of our sponsors. So far, we've 0:40:56.880 --> 0:40:59.440 talked about general strikes that are largely over a hundred 0:40:59.520 --> 0:41:01.560 years old. But now we're going to turn and look 0:41:01.600 --> 0:41:04.040 at two examples of general strikes that took place within 0:41:04.160 --> 0:41:08.240 the last twenty years. In December of two thousand five, 0:41:08.760 --> 0:41:12.759 Republicans passed in the House of Representatives Hr four four 0:41:12.920 --> 0:41:17.480 three seven, also known as the Border Protection, Anti Terrorism 0:41:17.960 --> 0:41:21.080 and a Legal Immigration Control Act of two thousand five, 0:41:21.640 --> 0:41:25.120 a proposed piece of legislation that's as jaconian as it sounds. 0:41:25.640 --> 0:41:28.320 The bill as the A C. L You wrote, pushed 0:41:28.360 --> 0:41:32.640 to quote militarize the border, give extraordinary powers to low 0:41:32.760 --> 0:41:37.320 level immigration officials, allowing law enforcement to expel without hearing 0:41:37.480 --> 0:41:41.600 anyone believed to be undocumented and detained non citizens and 0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:45.919 definitely without meaningful review. The bill also sought to levy 0:41:45.960 --> 0:41:50.200 criminal penalties against anyone that engage in assisting someone that 0:41:50.320 --> 0:41:54.440 was undocumented, which threatened both employers of undocumented workers, as 0:41:54.480 --> 0:41:58.880 well as union organizers, teachers, clergy, and beyond, foreshadowing the 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:01.880 Trump presidency. It also called for hundreds of miles of 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:05.680 border fence and authorized state and local law enforcement to 0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:09.960 enforce federal immigration law. As George Kemphas wrote in the 0:42:10.120 --> 0:42:14.040 See Say Poity Insurrection, the bill would transform almost every 0:42:14.120 --> 0:42:19.160 person in the United States into either undocumented violators, police enforcers, 0:42:19.480 --> 0:42:23.560 or classify them as criminally complicit. The authoritarian nature of 0:42:23.600 --> 0:42:27.439 the legislation in the existential threat it represented, pushed many 0:42:27.480 --> 0:42:30.000 a document of workers to take action and organize on 0:42:30.040 --> 0:42:33.360 a mass scale. As Kemphis wrote, starting in March of 0:42:33.400 --> 0:42:36.479 two thousand, six marches and more than half a million 0:42:36.600 --> 0:42:41.000 people overwhelmed the centers of major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, 0:42:41.560 --> 0:42:45.280 New York, and Dallas halteen business, while there were literally 0:42:45.440 --> 0:42:49.960 hundreds of smaller gatherings and many other smaller cities. There 0:42:50.000 --> 0:42:53.240 were dozens of student walkouts and high schools around the country, 0:42:53.640 --> 0:42:57.120 as well as a nationwide immigrant general strike called for 0:42:57.280 --> 0:43:00.680 on Maybia that was heated by hundreds of tho perhaps 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:04.160 millions of workers, including truck drivers, who shut down the 0:43:04.239 --> 0:43:07.240 port of Los Angeles. Despite a series of large scale 0:43:07.280 --> 0:43:10.759 immigration raids aimed at derailing the movement, millions took the 0:43:10.840 --> 0:43:13.520 streets and carried out strikes, all outside of the direction 0:43:13.560 --> 0:43:16.719 of union in Democratic Party leadership. The mass protests and 0:43:16.800 --> 0:43:19.520 strikes helped revive May Day as a day of labor 0:43:19.600 --> 0:43:22.880 and worker action in the United States. Installed for over 0:43:23.000 --> 0:43:26.399 a decade. Right wing attacks on immigrants HR four fourth 0:43:26.480 --> 0:43:29.279 three seven failed to pass, in large part due to 0:43:29.360 --> 0:43:32.040 the mass opposition it faced on the streets in the 0:43:32.120 --> 0:43:35.080 spring of two thousand six. Direct action, as they say, 0:43:35.360 --> 0:43:38.240 gets the goods. And what's fascinating about the two thousand 0:43:38.360 --> 0:43:41.880 six strike is that it was organized outside of established 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:45.279 unions and political parties, especially the Democratic Party, had a 0:43:45.400 --> 0:43:49.239 key youth wing to it. We saw lots of student walkouts. 0:43:49.600 --> 0:43:52.960 It was able to seriously push back against this draconian 0:43:53.040 --> 0:43:56.600 wave of anti immigrant legislation, and that worked for around 0:43:56.680 --> 0:43:59.840 ten years. And it seems like we don't reference this 0:44:00.000 --> 0:44:03.279 strike enough and talk about how important it was. I 0:44:03.440 --> 0:44:05.520 was in a junior in high school when kids were 0:44:05.560 --> 0:44:07.719 walking out, but this is how I sleep. I was. 0:44:07.840 --> 0:44:10.560 I didn't walk out, and I just remember thinking, Oh 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:14.640 my god, those kids are so courageous and they're such badasses, 0:44:15.040 --> 0:44:16.680 and it's so cool that they're doing that, and I 0:44:16.760 --> 0:44:19.440 wish that I could well. That law was like Fugitive 0:44:19.560 --> 0:44:22.400 Slave Law Act, Like straight up, they were just trying 0:44:22.480 --> 0:44:25.680 to like re install slavery among people who were not 0:44:25.840 --> 0:44:27.839 here documented like you know what I mean. They were 0:44:27.880 --> 0:44:30.280 trying to create a situation where people were still working despread, 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:31.920 they were going to work for slave wages. And I'll 0:44:31.920 --> 0:44:34.040 say this about New York City, there's a huge like 0:44:34.160 --> 0:44:37.279 immigrant population, a huge undocumented work of population that we 0:44:37.320 --> 0:44:39.319 didn't even I mean, I didn't know about until COVID hit. 0:44:39.719 --> 0:44:41.600 Like there's a lot of people who were keeping the 0:44:41.680 --> 0:44:44.759 economy alive that are not even counted, and they pay 0:44:44.880 --> 0:44:47.399 for our existence. As we're talking about those two things 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:50.080 that always come up for me when talking about these strikes. 0:44:50.440 --> 0:44:54.320 First is, you know, the entire concept of quote immigration 0:44:54.360 --> 0:44:56.640 reform as it was being talked about by Republicans at 0:44:56.680 --> 0:44:59.799 the time and then later accelerated under Trump. This idea 0:44:59.800 --> 0:45:03.360 of order walls started with the American Nazi Party, right, Like, 0:45:03.480 --> 0:45:06.520 this was an American Nazi Party policy proposal in the 0:45:06.640 --> 0:45:10.359 nineteen fifties and sixties that got picked up through white 0:45:10.400 --> 0:45:13.560 supremacist movements, through people like George Wallace and sort of 0:45:13.640 --> 0:45:19.400 imported into the Republican Party. Yeah, because it's Nazis. I 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:22.840 think the other thing that was really inspiring about that movement. 0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:25.239 I was, you know, out of college at that point 0:45:25.719 --> 0:45:27.920 watching this happen. It was one of the first times 0:45:28.040 --> 0:45:33.480 I saw mass decentralized action happened across the entire country 0:45:34.040 --> 0:45:37.040 at that scale that sort of hit and apex like 0:45:37.160 --> 0:45:40.120 during these days, right, the sort of period of time 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:42.040 in which people kind of took it upon themselves to 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:44.000 shut the whole country down. And it just shows what 0:45:44.160 --> 0:45:46.960 can happen when community is organized as communities of people 0:45:47.520 --> 0:45:50.720 and not as spectators in some sort of removed symbolic 0:45:50.760 --> 0:45:54.359 political action, but actually become immediate protagonists and what's going 0:45:54.400 --> 0:45:55.600 on in front of them. And the other thing I 0:45:55.640 --> 0:45:57.920 think is like really interesting about this is that it 0:45:58.040 --> 0:46:01.520 was such a massive response and the of what the 0:46:01.960 --> 0:46:05.480 Act was saying was that you could be like prosecutor 0:46:05.719 --> 0:46:09.080 for assisting someone who's undocumented. That I think it goes 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:10.200 back to what we've been talking about with the other 0:46:10.239 --> 0:46:12.719 strikes stuff, is like the government is very aware that 0:46:12.880 --> 0:46:16.840 like solidarity between people is dangerous basically and tries to 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:18.840 letistate it. And we see, you know, after that strike 0:46:18.920 --> 0:46:21.239 in you know, the Strikebay in event seven, you start 0:46:21.280 --> 0:46:23.680 to get all those anti conspiracy laws and stuff because 0:46:23.760 --> 0:46:26.000 that's a threat. And I love that in this sense. 0:46:26.080 --> 0:46:28.359 It's like they put that out and it gets like, um, 0:46:28.920 --> 0:46:31.520 such a massive response against it that people really like 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:34.480 win basically and that last for like a decade. Yeah. 0:46:34.520 --> 0:46:37.279 I think that goes back to the idea of white 0:46:37.280 --> 0:46:40.960 supremacy historically in the United States, being this system of 0:46:41.280 --> 0:46:44.640 how people described it, of carrots and sticks, of offering 0:46:45.200 --> 0:46:49.759 incentives to be included in this bracket of whiteness. That 0:46:49.920 --> 0:46:52.879 also saying if you help that kid at school, we're 0:46:52.880 --> 0:46:55.600 gonna throw you in jail along with them, which again 0:46:55.760 --> 0:46:59.239 is a good reason to celebrate these strikes because they 0:46:59.280 --> 0:47:02.560 were effective and beating back this legislation, but also pointing 0:47:02.600 --> 0:47:07.680 out that everyone should have been taking part in these actions. Well, hey, 0:47:07.760 --> 0:47:10.680 thanks for tuning in. That's gonna wrap up the first episode. 0:47:11.000 --> 0:47:14.200 We encourage you to follow us going down on masses 0:47:14.280 --> 0:47:18.879 on at I g D Underscore News and we hope 0:47:18.920 --> 0:47:21.480 you enjoyed us taking over It could Happen here. We're 0:47:21.520 --> 0:47:23.960 gonna be back tomorrow. We're going to continue to look 0:47:24.000 --> 0:47:26.439 at general strikes. We're gonna do a deep dive into 0:47:26.760 --> 0:47:30.480 Occupy Oakland that kicked off in two thousand eleven, and 0:47:30.640 --> 0:47:33.759 we're gonna look at how a citywide general strike grew 0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:38.320 out of the Oakland Commune after the police nearly murdered 0:47:38.400 --> 0:47:46.120 in Iraq War veteran and thanks for tuning in. It 0:47:46.200 --> 0:47:48.440 could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 0:47:48.680 --> 0:47:51.320 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 0:47:51.360 --> 0:47:53.480 cool zone media dot com, or check us out on 0:47:53.560 --> 0:47:56.040 the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:47:56.160 --> 0:47:58.879 listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could 0:47:58.920 --> 0:48:01.600 Happen Here. Updated month Lee at cool zone Media dot 0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:03.840 com slash sources. Thanks for listening.