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Listen pal, nearly every American is a slave to their day job(s) - especially given the massive uptick in living expenses over the last year/months.
If I "strike" and refuse to show up for my second shift at Winn-Dixie, all that will happen is I lose my sub-30 hour a week job, and someone else gets their prayers answered for more shifts (offsetting their cost of living a sliver) while I get to have Mr Ulcer come back over concerns about how I'll feed my family.
I'm not saying a nation wide stoppage wouldn't have an impact - but this nation is geographically massive compared to your average European country. There is no social safety net outside of if someone is lucky enough to be in a defanged union.
Calling for general strikes in this way feels like an oil exec saying I should use paper straws/recycle to save the environment while they are boiling the ocean.
That is exactly what you're supposed to be fighting, dumbass. You all keep saying this as if we didn't know, but how else is it going to happen? You can't keep waiting for your white knight in shining armor.
People have left their families behind, lived in forests eating scraps for years while being actively hunted, with victory never certain. Just never in the US. When Europeans say that you can't even see how much privilege you're not willing to give up, we say it because many of us heard stories from our elders of giving up everything to follow an ideal and join the resistance.
I say this with no hate, but seriously - go watch a documentary and grow some balls.
It's true in many ways, but balls aren't needed lol. The controlling systems (like maga that the voters elected) use propaganda against minorities for problems they did not cause to stir fear and tribalism. They keep people afraid, or unable, to take one day off, a Monday or Friday for a long weekend maybe. 23% don't have paid sick time to use for a day, maybe use vacation if they have it and ask early enough. True it's not like the fear of wars like in so many places today still, tragically. They are all caused by the controlling systems, for supernatural reasons, greed, punching down or all those.
Workers in other countries have those benefits and healthcare not bound to employers. Other countries have abusive working conditions and other life stress, that is another tragedy. Some states with enough Democrat majority, passed paid sick and family leave, school meals for all and other things that help working people. Those benefits could be national with enough Dem majority, AND for long enough to pass the changes, that people notice in their lives, like happened with ACA eventually, while maga attempts to sabotage it.
I'm afraid enough people get the "good benefits" so they wrongly think everyone can and don't want it for all, and they are team maga. It is part of the founding lore of usa, land of the free, do it all on their own with bare hands, self-made, etc. As if many people in other lands didn't work hard from meager start and do well. It's all been done before, not special, it's the indoctrination. Let's do better, unite to solve the global climate refugee crisis, and keep human health as the top goal! Be excellent to each other!
Oh just fuck all the way off. Jfc
There's not a lot more infuriating than DUMBASSES that don't live here sitting from their comfortable chair and stable lives dictating what we should or should not do all the while the people that live here know what it's like and moreover know there is no popular "resistance" to attach to like you're talking.
In case you are that fucking unaware, a third want this shit, a third didn't and does not, and a third didn't fucking care and still don't.
Whatever BS youre spewing clearly doesn't jive with reality in the US. All the while you ignore everything the op explained quite succinctly to you.
Signed, someone actually fucking here.
You are just displeased when the shoe is on the other foot. The world is watching you all fail, and just like you all did for years, have opinions about it.
We've all heard these excuses before. Why do you want to force me to repeat the usual answers?
What few rights you have were paid in blood, and you refuse even slight discomfort, you simply don't care enough, stop making excuses.
I don't see how the size of the country matters, when labor movements have always been GLOBAL. What does Europe have to do with this?
I mentioned Europe because places like France have their protest game on point. (grills mounted on tram tracks for making burgers while protesting? Genius.)
And yes, our labor rights (not much anymore as they are) were paid in blood. I remember learning about the Triangle Waistcoat Factory as a kiddo.
But I take issue with saying "slight discomfort" when referring to keeping my family housed and fed. Most Americans are living not just paycheck to paycheck but have zero significant savings to weather a medical emergency (or an open ended strike).
And the only alternative party to the current administration isn't offering options like, "if you all just wait it out for a few months, we can take back the House/Senate/Presidency, pass UBI, help you get your money and financial stability back... Oh and pad SCOTUS so some fucker in a red state doesn't sue to undo all this relief".
You have to understand. This shit is bleak. We are clawing on to the only thing we have because there is nobody coming to save us, and we cannot save ourselves.
Yeah the only action that could possibly have an impact at this point would be to resurrect the militias of old and start a good old county war. Not particularly viable in the current political and economic climate, also I'm not entirely sure where you attack to cause significant damage outside of maybe bridges on the interstate and highway systems, the rails, and maybe the electrical grid around industrial centers and AI data centers.
Saying that and doing that is also a massively different thing, back when the old militias were about they didn't really have in investigationn methods and also they could literally go to work with basically no reprisal after shooting up some deputy or whatnot.
Not a bad starter pack you got there.
Im an American-Scot Redneck, the theory behind how to cripple a government through unorthodox means may as well be genetic to me.
It’s not meant to be comfortable.
You’re not Netflix and chilling, you’re fighting for your country.
Why do we have to take special understanding for your country and your people? Why are you different to the rest of us?
Did I say comfortable?
I said keep my family house and fed. I'm already dodging parasite lettuce and massive food recalls, paying a sizable amount of my paychecks to rent and gas.
None of this shit is currently comfortable.
And you (or the original person I replied to) are saying, yeah, fuck your kids and your spouse and dog. Go throw yourself on the fire of REVOLUTION.
(Also, we had to cancel Netflix and most eveything else to actually afford to live, so that's fun.)
We're not different, but I don't see myself or other Americans telling the nebulous "you" to go throw yourself off the precipice for god and country.
In that case then, if it’s all that bad I have to ask what two more weeks of suffering, which is all it would take if enough did a shutdown, is going to add.
I’ll say this much, I would throw myself on it if it was that bad for me, because I’d have nothing to lose. I think Americans fail to understand that other countries had it better because they did that suffering and striking a while ago.
We all constantly hear how bad it is and how oppressed you are, well, what is there to lose? You’re saying it, not us, but you got no problem claiming we don’t get it or understand.
No one wants Americans to take violent paths but they are where they are because the easier options weren’t taken. That’s why there’s so much push from the outside for peaceful shutdowns. Yes, we know, you constantly remind us…jobs, kids.
There’s an excuse every time. Sorry, a reason, it must be remembered which nation that is and the filters applied.
The easier options work too, the Republicans prove that repeatedly. Or did. It might be gone now.
Don’t prove Churchill right again. The sooner it’s gotten out of the way, the easier it’ll be. It would have been easier if done earlier, though it’s got to be remembered this president was elected so there’s limited ways to get rid of him outside a vote or violence.
Shutting down the country (to paint a broad brush) to get enough influential people to act, Congress to act then enforce an impeachment seems to be one of those, looking from the outside.
I’ll add this; none of us outside and our governments, even if they wanted to, can help. We are having enough trouble with our own wingnuts and that in no small way has been driven by the problems with the US.
Mate, some of us got kids to feed. Them going hungry isn't just a slight discomfort.
Right, it's that system which pays so low and bad benefits, that you can't take one day off work, w/o pay or with paid sick or vacation, which workers in decent countries have since people deserve it and demanded it. Will never get that in usa when so many vote against it with maga.
Are you ok with the future that your kids will live in if nothing changes? Or do you believe that someone else will come and save you? Genuinely asking
Look, man, I get it, I really do, but I don't think you quite grasp the responsibilities some other people have. Maybe, just maybe, if we could actually coordinate something big enough to have an impact, but there's nothing like that to join. We had some of the biggest protests in national history multiple times, and nothing really happened. When we lay it all down and sacrifice everything not only for ourselves but on behalf of our whole families, under the current circumstances, what exactly do you expect to happen? A handful of us try a general strike, get fired, and immediately get replaced because the job market is absolute trash? Because that's what's going to happen if we just act on our own.
You want people to do something, and that's really understandable, but you're ultimately asking people to give a lot when the current circumstances mean we're unlikely to get much in return. If you want people to act, we need to figure out how to change circumstances or at least reframe things so people can see the value in their own personal sacrifice.
The only way you’ll change circumstances is if everything is shut down long enough for your Congress to act.
Yeah sure, vote in these midterms, hopefully they’re good
This position however that we don’t understand or don’t know…yeah it’s a cop out. One that’s not offered to others.
Yeah, it’ll take some hardship, cost some jobs, some people will go hungry for a while. We know and yes it’s easy for us to say…doesn’t change anything though. That’s the importance of taking the collective responsibility seriously.
If you want people to act, focus on giving them a way to act that feels meaningful and worth the sacrifice. There's not much for safety nets in the US, so if people are going to risk hunger and homelessness, they need to feel like they have a meaningful choice, one where their sacrifice makes an appreciable difference.
What option do they really have as individuals? You can say general strike as a concept, but people need concrete plans, and they need to be widely known so people can act in unison. Just telling people to get off their ass and act is trying to set people in motion without any idea how to keep all the headless chickens moving in the same direction. If there's not a fully coordinated attempt at massive unity, there's just no way it accomplishes something. People will act here and there, they'll get fired, they'll get replaced because tons of people need work, and the mess will continue. It must happen coherently, or it's just a bunch of martyring. We need to figure out how to coordinate on a large enough scale when so many people are so heavily reliant on corporate media and social media, who will most certainly be weaponized against any such movement.
That’s not my job. I’m not American and I didn’t get agency in the decision. However, their policies and governance affects all of us, sometimes without our consent, so we have a right to be concerned.
Preservation of life and liberty is worth the sacrifice. As for the rest, that takes hard, collective work, which means working together responsibly to achieve that and if they can’t, that’s on them. That’s not something a foreigner can build or show a rally point around.
Excuses for everything ay? Sorry, reasons.
I’ve seen US people in here discuss this and give instructions on how to join in so they’re around. Wrote to any influential and friendly politicians and people on it.
But it’s not mine or ours outside to fix. We or I shouldn’t be having to tell you how. This is what we’d do if it was us.
Frankly, I doubt it. Half the world seems to be sliding towards authoritarianism with the other half already there. America is leading the charge, sure, but nobody else seems eager to dive on their own grenade to fix it, either.
Yeah well, we haven’t adequately replaced evidence most Americans won’t.
That’s fine, doubt away. Yeah we’ve always had issues but they’re worse now, since the US and its conservative PACS are getting involved