Endless War.
Hundreds of Thousands of Dead in Iraq.
Torture.
Surveillance.
Civil Rights and Habeas Corpus: Gone.
Executive Privilege: No Accountability.
9/11 Questions?
Corporate Media.
Corporate Government.
Tyranny. Fascism. Lies.
The Time Has Come.
To Say NO.
While We Still Have a Chance.
GENERAL STRIKE
Tuesday 9/11/07
A Day of Mourning, Reflection, and Dissent.
No Work. No School. Buy Nothing.
Stay Home.
Hit the Streets.
No Business As Usual.
Just thinking out loud. But wouldn't it be nice if some influential people actually made a call for something like this? Isn't about time?
Webster Tarpley is a big proponent of the general strike as a tactic. I wonder if he would promote it.
I think it's a great idea. I'm not planning to travel from the West Coast and would be happy to promote something that people could do locally as part of a(n) (inter)national effort.
Americans will never support any type of general strike until they are pushing their ATM card into the slot and nothing comes out.
Until then, a small bunch of white leftists will walk around with signs and make speeches and declarations, ignored by 99.999% of the American public.
Real strikes happen when things get really horrific, when average people are being murdered by police or are committing suicide because they can't provide for their families, not when Harry Potter is the main news topic and we all drink lattes, drive cars and use computers everyday in our own homes.
It appears that GeorgeWashington over at 911blogger noticed this post, and reposted it to the news section of the site.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/10207
The response seems to be positive. I'm concerned that we really don't have time to coordinate and promote it well before 9/11/07, but good things often start small. And we can always plan for another strike.
For this to really have any reach it will have to be about all the lies, and not just those related to 9/11. The original post is balanced in this way. Its kind of a Truth Movement action in some ways. Whatever your specific concerns are, you know that you are being lied to, and should respond. People should walk out for the environment, and for election fraud, and for civil rights, and for 9/11 truth,... protesting all of the lies we are told about essential issues, and demonstrating our demand for the truth.
This isn't about speculation or ideology. This is about our common demand that we be adequately informed. If we are going to do this, let's really make it general. Something that affects everyone. And right now, just about anyone paying attention is starting to realize they are being lied to. So 9/11/07 would be an affective date, but if we want to get this right, we will need more time, and should plan on involving many diverse organizations. Another date further in the future might be more practical, and also more generally accepted.
No harm in calling for this on 9/11/07 as a first try. I don't think it will necessarily dilute from doing another General Strike in the near future.
9/11 anniversaries seem like a national holiday anyway---they should be a time of mourning, reflection, and dissent.
One key is to get the word out to unions. If World Can't Wait got on board, that would be very encouraging.
I don't think it's time anymore to wonder and wait if we should do stuff like this in the future. If a few key people and organizations post/announce it on their sites, radio shows, etc. it could catch on.
People are fed up in this country. Why not give them an opportunity to show it, in a coordinated way, soon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968
May 1968 (in this context usually spelled May '68) is the name given to a series of protests and a general strike that caused the eventual collapse of the De Gaulle government in France. The vast majority of the protesters espoused left-wing causes, but the established leftist political institutions and labor unions distanced themselves from the movement. Many saw the events as an opportunity to shake up the "old society" in many social aspects and traditional morality, focusing especially on the education system and employment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region or country. While a general strike can be initiated based on political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants. It is also characterized by participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, and tends to involve entire communities. The general strike has waxed and waned in popularity since the mid-19th century, and has characterized many historically important strikes.
Sounds like this is happening. If so, there are so many things we could do to promote it. Wheat pasting. Flyering to businesses. A page on our site. Contacting other groups. This action will take many forms around the country, but we should try to facilitate focus on the general message, as does your original post. People need to understand that the power of the action is exactly in its demonstration of a unified concern. The Lies Will Not Stand.
Sorry to be AWOL this week.
I'll see what i can do in terms of images this weekend.
How'd the meeting go?
My negativity on this issue comes from my own experiences of strikes, don't-buy days, don't-drive days, etc., and that virtually nothing is any different and often there is zero press. Trying to get Americans not to do their daily activities is extremely difficult.
As a reason for outreach, okay. If decent press efforts are made there could be press. But my personal experience has been that It tends to deflate people for the longer haul when they realize that the vast vast majority ignores their efforts entirely, and things like General Strikes don't usually grab press or result in a lot of positive outreach because we're asking Americans to sacrifice for something they don't have a lot of understanding about. If there is widespread coordination and support amongst groups, then it's a good thing and can be helpful on the level of growth of the community, even if few outside the community shows up. One thing about the 9/11 movement is that it is a community, so to some extent it is insulated from the rest of the world and that way, keeps itself going no matter how small the awareness.
I was also concerned that we didn't have the time specifically to build a strong base of support for the action among other organizations before the 11th. That would seem to be the thing that most determines the impact or benefit of the action.
I agree that there are many benefits to an action like this and many of them are internal. Its important for us to be clear about that. I certainly wouldn't want to take any action that had only internal benefit, unless that was the intent.
I'm not feeling so secure about what we could accomplish in five weeks. While I agree with Truthmod that we have to be ready to take action, doing something incompletely is no way to promote confidence in your ability to do it better the next time. The action of coordinating any kind of local or national strike should take longer than a month. First you have to coordinate the action, and then you have to have a reasonable period of promotion. If we were starting promotion right now, all across the country, I'd feel more enthusiastic.
Anyway, I'm uncertain about rushing into it, but still interested to see if some potential lies there.
I could see it both ways, but I think this could be a positive thing for people to start getting used to the idea of taking risks and actually standing up to the power structure. It doesn't have to be massively coordinated and it doesn't have to be 50% of the population walking out to be successful. I don't think we should sell ourselves short all the time--we need to be calling for stuff like this or for William Pepper's idea of camping out in DC.
Also, I am a believer in spontaneity--a strike or a walk out can take on a life of it's own if the right people get involved and some critical mass is reached. We have a lot of fed up people in this country, we need to start offering them ways of expressing their frustration in a productive, progressive fashion.
9/11 should already be a national holiday of reflection and mourning--probably most of the population agrees--maybe it's just time to take matters into our own hands. Time is short and the stakes couldn't be higher; it's time to show some true resistance in the streets.
How about "Demand Impeachment. Demand the Truth" If we are going to get outside groups involved in any way, the promo material should be as general as possible.
But maybe this first run at having a strike will be a 9/11 truth community action. We should try to be clear about that in some way. Maybe this strike should be related to 9/11, while we plan on coordinating a more broad strike in the future.
This was derived from the above image with additional info provided by YT.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/01/2007-08...
I guess the official ceremonies won't even be at Ground Zero this year. I wonder if they did this because of us. Maybe it's a good thing---there won't be such a confrontation between the mourners and the protesters.
Citing safety concerns because of construction at the site, Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Spitzer decided to move the ceremony to nearby Zuccotti Park.
Loved ones of 9/11 victims were not giving up their fight to keep the ceremony in a place they consider sacred. They will request permission today from the Port Authority to hold the event where their relatives died.
Check out a conversation on the General Strike idea between us and Cosmos on Truth Revolution Radio:
http://mp3.wtprn.com/TRR07.html
We want to remind everyone how powerful it could be if none of us bought anything on 9/11/07. Please, if you can, buy your food and necessities the day before and refrain from contributing to their economy for one day. This would be an amazing show of coordinated power and even if just all truthers did it, it would be huge.
So, don't forget:
NO WORK. NO SCHOOL. BUY NOTHING.
Hey, I'm new... just registered to post this. I'm just thinking that if there is to be a general strike, there should be a central website to post materials, news, information, etc. that way it's URL could be printed on flyers/banners/adverts/whatnot so that people could get more info. Does any such webpage exist? are there any plans to make one? I have some deal of knowledge in the web department and could probably throw something together, but I'm sure truthmod and it's community has some far better designers than me.
The website is on the way. It should be up very soon. http://www.strike911.org
download the png or pdf:
http://www.truthmove.org/tmp/gstrikebig.png
http://www.truthmove.org/tmp/gstrikebig.pdf
This is just a mockup. More graphics on the way. Comments?
The flyers and posters look great,
one suggestion, note that this is a "national call to action", every city, every town, all across the country!
People need to know that every one will be participating.
you guys smashed this one out of the park. HOME RUN BABAY!! can't wait to walk out of work
09/11/07 General Strike Facebook Group
THIS ISN"T MY EMPIRE
We will not accept:
Lies
Torture
Surveillance
& Tyranny
This our country.
And our world.
We just have to stand up.
A National Call to Action:
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
This event needs to be posted on every meetup.com group in the country, when word spreads of this action people will need to know the specific details, Time and Place many groups around the county will adapt this call to fit in there town and if we get them all on the meetup.com groups that have already started, we can promote meetup.com as a way for other to find out how to get involved. The grass roots contacts on 911truth.org will be notified to this call. Thanks for all you hard work.
<div style="text-align: center; width: 214px; font-family: tahoma, verdana, sans serif; font-size: 12px;"><embed src="http://www.meetup.com/swf/membership_badge.swf?chapterid=515983" width="214" height="142" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed>Some people will say that 9/11 is an "inappropriate" day to protest; that it should just be a day of quiet mourning or that we shouldn't "let the terrorists win" by doing anything different. Well the answer to this is: "What's more respectful to those who died: to go about your average daily business, school, work, etc. or to take a day off and reflect on the what happened that day?" And 9/11 was a national tragedy, trying to ignore it by doing your routine---shopping, school, work---is just avoidance and denial. This is a day that should be reserved for quiet thought, discussion, and/or dissent, depending on what feels right to you. But to act like this is a "normal day" seems dishonest and disrespectful.
I know not everyone can get out of work or school, but for those who can, you can make this a special day.
To all those who would feel uncomfortable in the streets on 9/11, please show your respect for the gravity of this day by staying home, mourning and reflecting on what happened six years ago and where our country has gone since then.
Wow. This thing is growing by the minute.
http://digg.com/politics/A_general_strike_has_been...
3483 Diggs 861 Comments
I particularly liked these comments/responses:
http://digg.com/politics/A_general_strike_has_been...
Just for this, I'm going to work overtime, spend lots of time studying, have a nice breakfast lunch and dinner, and buy stuff!
Great! Enjoy it. You live in a free country where you can do that if you want. And your country is free primarily because of two things: a) the sacrifices of those who have given their lives to defend those freedoms; b) the courage of those who do not hesitate to speak the truth to those in power when they misuse that power.
So, have fun doing whatever you want to do on that day, but I hope you don't do it out of spite. You'd really be missing the point.
http://digg.com/politics/A_general_strike_has_been...
For all of you who say this is stupid, it will never work. You are the reason it won't work. The idea is that saying a small number will work is to get more people to do it.
Think of psychology. The reason why Executive power works is because people like you say oh it will never work. Of course it won't if you wont help. You can count me in, I'm actually a person who believes in mankind and tries to help, not one of the billions of mindless zombies who's most common conversation is "Hey hows it going" "Good You?" "pretty good" end conversation.
How do you think large gatherings of people such as wood stock happened? Because people said Ah it will never be huge why bother, or Hey lets go see this concert it might be good.
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