20th September
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Being the eternal optimist (contrary to the prevailing view of my comrades) I think this general strike may well be of importance and have a significant political effect if the trade unions follow through with what should be expected of them. (the doom and gloom pessimist in me doubts that they will participate)
Thus the 20th September General Strike deserves its own dedicated thread.
An appeal for action from the usual suspects such as Chomsky
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/24/were-stepping-join-us-day-halt-climate-crisis
“…we’re not comfortable letting schoolchildren carry all the weight here – they need our backing. And disrupting our normal lives seems key – it’s normal life that is doing us in, the fact that we rise each morning and do pretty much the same things we did the day before, even amid an unfolding crisis.
We are the people who happen to be alive at the moment when our choices will determine the future for tens of thousands of years…”Our part is to be present in as many numbers as we can muster under our banners and have our answers prominently heard and seen.
A new eco-themed banner, ample pamphlets available, public speakers with a PA system at our stall(s), An outdoor projection screen. A gazebo so to be prepared for the weather turning against us.
We can produce free giveaway flags based on our globe and the slogans “spare the planet – share the world- save the planet- a world to win.” Something substantial that those who get one take home and pin to their bedroom wall as a souvenir of the day and a permanent reminder of ourselves.
Should we have a leaflet and be accused of contributing to the resource/waste problem? If we don’t, then the money saved can go to those other proposals and members congregate around our stalls rather than dispersed dishing out leaflets.
The aim is to have an event which brings the audience to ourselves, to become a centre of interest.
4 months to prepare…Countdown starting now…tick-tock, tick-tock
I don’t know about anybody else but the only “usual suspect” apart from Chomsky and Naomi Klein that I have heard of is John Holloway. Anybody heard of any of the others?
The only other names that struck a bell was Margaret Atwood and Vandana Shiva.
But, of course, just how many of the signatories and those generally in the eco movement have actually heard of us?
This is what we have to address…our political anonymity within perhaps the most prominent social movement of the present time.
How successful they will be involving the wider labour movement is going to be a challenge. Embarking on a series of one-day strikes may resonate in some parts of the world, and fall very flat in others.
In the end, it is a very limited application of the general strike, more a token gesture and certainly not as a weapon of liberation but merely a lever to pressure government policy.
But surely our role is to ask…Why stop short?
No, i’m not advocating the use of the General Strike for establish socialism We have the vote for that.
But it is a hopeful sign that people are organizing outside the constraints of the conventional political parties, who are all rushing to be on the band-wagon…Ministers declaring climate emergencies…
I think we can go further and convince environmentalists to declare class war against the whole capitalist system, not just a few target fossil fuel corporations…and this is the message we need to get across. If we are not present, and I mean visibly in attendance, there will be no-one to hear and listen to such ideas.
A reminder that if some of us have forgotten, others haven’t
This site is pretty good as well: https://globalclimatestrike.net
And it suggests there are two dates being planned (from the FAQs section of the site):
“Different groups in different parts of the world are mobilising on either or both September 20 and 27 for different reasons – you can see a list of key dates for countries here (available soon).
On September 20, 3 days before a UN emergency climate summit being held in New York, young people in the Fridays For Future network are mobilising for their largest global climate strike ever. They have invited everyone to join them on Friday, September 20 and again the following Friday, September 27 when they will join Earth Strike for a general strike.
Global Climate Strike partners encourage everyone to join on both dates and well beyond.”
Also, have you come across this book – The earth is not for sale: the path out of fossil fuel capitalism to the other world that is still possible by Peter and David Schwartzman – it sounds interesting but have not yet read it.
One of Germany’s largest unions, Verdi, called on its members to join the Fridays for Future protests as well, with Verdi head Frank Bsirske telling the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that “we need a much more consistent approach to climate change policy.”
He said, however, that he was not calling on union members to skip work, but attend the demonstrations at the end of their shifts.
Just had a phone call from the comrades in India. They are going to produce a leaflet. We have asked them to send us a copy so we can use it here too.
Having said that, what’s supposed to happening then all seems a bit confusing, even the date is not clear. I’m not sure there are going to be mass meetings at which we could hand out leaflets. And they might not appreciate this as in their view it would be a waste of trees. I think they just want people to stop work as a means of bringing pressure to bear on politicians to do something more about climate change.
I recall many years ago when the nurses first began to protest about their conditions but declined to put patients in harms way by withdrawing their labour, my own union and some others such as the NUM, called upon members to strike for them but it was a recommendation to the members. Many of us when the nurses march passed our office, joined in solidarity. Nothing dramatic, nothing earth-shaking but a gesture of support that was appreciated by the nurses and provided them confidence. I dare say that will be what will happen on the 20th and the 27th.
As for where the action will take place, it may mean watching social media and responding quickly to get to the scene.
I did mention in another post on another topic that a leaflet may not be the wisest means of communication…a re-usable little red flag with our logo and slogan was my suggestion…
If we miss this opportunity, be assured there will be many, many, more protests and demonstrations escalating until it is the final wake for the death of the planet…ok…i’m exaggerating… but as the severity of the effects of climate change is experienced, the more angry and demanding will the protests become
Here is the text of the leaflet the Indian comrades have prepared for distribution in Calcutta at the event there:
Save the planet, share the Earth
* Climate change is real and is a serious problem for all of us.
* Climate change has resulted from human activities, more exactly the activities of a minority privileged class of capitalists. .
* Capitalism by focussing on the short-term is unlikely to take the longer term, and hence the environment, into account.
* Capitalists and corporations will seek to distort the facts of the matter so they can carry on as usual.
* Capitalists are ideologically blinkered against climate change since it exposes the dangers of capitalism as a threat to the environment.
Therefore, we cannot expect the problem to be solved within capitalism. All the signs point the opposite way. Consider the fact that this has been on the international agenda since the 1970s when scientists first expressed concerns and nothing much has been achieved; emissions have even increased over previous decades. The agenda of all environmental activity groups, who seek to change things without completely scrapping this system, will prove to be futile.
Ultimately the issue of the environment is an issue of power, of who has the power to determine what happens to this planet. Only in a society where we have the power to determine what can and cannot be done will we be able to stop this headlong rush to environmental devastation. That means a world of common ownership and democratic control. Anything else which anyone offers is merely using band aids to seal a volcano.
Radical change is necessary, a change in our thinking leading to a radical change in our socio-economic system. To save the Earth, life and human civilization, we have to replace existing, profit-based, exploitative, oppressive, manipulative, disruptive and dehumanizing capitalist society with long-overdue socialist society. A worldwide association of humans irrespective of nationalities, race, ethnicity, and sex has to be organized, which will function on the basis of participatory democratic principles.
This socialist, resource-based sustainable economy, with democratic control over the means of production and distribution, will produce things as per social needs. Preserving ecological balance is only possible in a world, socialist society. The most serious barrier to doing this is the prevailing capitalist mode of production. It’s the responsibility of the working class, who create and sustain human civilization, to protect it by establishing world socialism democratically with the force of our immense majority.
The exact class which is actively cranking up the global thermostat that threatens to inundate 20 percent of the world’s population currently controls the United Nations and the parliaments of the different nations. So, we, the working class, should expect nothing from the ruling minority capitalist class but should rapidly organize ourselves into a political party of our own on a global basis, with the aim of establishing socialism worldwide, democratically. This is the only way out for humanity.
I know, Alan, that you set great store by this but face the facts. “Thousands” taking part in a “global” “strike”. That would be pathetic. Just a drop in the ocean. One of those quoted in the link and on a video there is more ambitious:
“We’re talking about trying to get two to three percent of the population, which doesn’t sound like a lot but that’s a lot of people,” a student organizer named Sana, who is attending a climate strike in New Jersey,
She’s right. It is a lot of people. The population of the US is 323 million. Two per cent of that is 6.46 million. The population of the UK is 65 million. Two per cent of that is 1,3 million. If they can get over 6 million in the US and a million in Britain to take part that would be something. But I doubt whether they will mobilise even one million in either country. I hope she’s not going to be too disappointed and become disillusioned.
The stated aim is to get capitalist governments to do a lot more to limit carbon emissions in the context of capitalism and its competitive struggle for profits. Good luck to them.
It is true that XR does have a more lofty aim:
Shortly after the Week of Action ends on September 28, Extinction Rebellion will begin its own “Worldwide Rebellion” involving the peaceful occupation of parts of London and calling on people all over the globe “to rise up and rebel for our deep love of life and the need to protect it.”
Oh dear ! This is just self-indulgent Christian-like bearing witness which eventually is going to piss off the rest of the population. Completely counter-productive.
We are preparing to produce a few thousand copies of the Indian leaflet to hand-out at various street stalls and events in September and there’ll be the editorial and a couple of articles in the September Socialist Standard. I doubt, though, that any member of the Socialist Party will be taking part in this rather naive so-called “global strike” which has no more credibility than the Trots incessant calls for “a general strike now”. The schoolkids’ strike is ok, though I don’t think we have any schoolkid members. We do have parents. They’ll probably be encouraging their kids join in and not go to school on 20 September.
And here I am the one usually accused of pessimism. 😛
I don’t think they will achieve the global figures that 2003 anti-war demos did.
But neither do I think this is anywhere near the peak (to use a familiar term) for the eco-protests.
Climate change isn’t going away and the effects of it will be intensifying and escalating. It is not a one-off political event. The problems are no longer going to be indirect or theoretical but many will be confronted by them in person.
There is going to be this year and next year and then the year after, and the year after that and the more apparent the detrimental impacts of climate change, the more people will take to the streets in more and more cities, in more and more countries expressing more and more anger.
Be prepared for the long haul, environmental activism is no passing fad that will fade away.
The more governments try and fail to mitigate the global warming emergency, and the more frequent the so-called “natural disasters”increase, more and more people will be looking outside national and international legislation and regulation for a solution. That is where we need to come in.
But also lurking in the background will be very powerful reactionary forces of nationalism, racism and xenophobia ready to provide their deluded answers. And I am sure there will be a substantial number of people taken in by their simplistic message.
If we aren’t there raising our voices, there won’t be anybody to hear us. We need a presence to be listened to.
As been mentioned, our traditional means of campaigning, leaflets, I don’t think will resonate with our target audience. They have been brought up to be receptive to social media and You Tube. Yes, even my little red flags won’t suffice.
If we intend to intervene we got to be more imaginative. But i’m afraid I can’t come up with the right way to do so.
Perhaps if we begin to get out among the participants and start asking them in, we may get an inkling on how we should be responding.
I tried to look on the web for info on events and came up with nothing that we can plan for in advance.
A million marched in 2003 because there were convoys of buses. Same for 2005 and Make Poverty History when quarter a million came to Edinburgh and the churches opened their doors and kitchens. Let’s give it to religion and the Trots they know about the logistics, (maybe its all because of the tradition of loaves and the fishes.)
I’m very much an outsider, looking in. This non-participation of those who are sympathetic but can’t be coaxed into doing something – i think they have to address it to achieve the involvement they seek. But as I said…there will be plenty of other opportunities arising in the future.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged members to support student climate strikers on 20 September. A proposal by the University and College Union (UCU) originally asked the TUC to call for millions of workers to stop work for half an hour, aimed at shifting government complacency over the climate crisis. However, an amendment put forward by the rail union Aslef means the TUC will call for “workday campaign action” instead.
Ahhh well, better than nothing and every little bit helps
The UCU is urging workers to join the action alongside students at lunchtimes and before and after work, and to ask employers to jointly declare a climate emergency with staff unions and student unions.
Amnesty International called on head teachers worldwide to back their global protests. Its secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, has written to almost 25,000 schools in the UK and 2,000 more in Canada, Hungary, Spain and New Zealand, urging them to let pupils take part in the global climate strikes without being punished.
https://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2019/09/climate-strkers-banned-from-princes-st.html
Apparently in Edinburgh keeping the trams running on time is more important than calling for the planet to be saved.
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