'Occupy Congress'? May Day general strike?

This message came out of Occupy Los Angeles (and other surrounding Occupies), and the L.A./Long Beach port troqueros, on Saturday, January 7th:

The Occupy Congress thing I have no idea about, but I imagine its coming from some of the same folks that were behind the widely rejected 99% Declaration. Maybe not same people, but same political perspective aka liberals who are trying to make sure Occupy has some type of electoral effect similar to how the tea party did/does.

On a May 1st general strike....this is coming from a couple different circles. There is a Facebook event that was created for OCCUPY MAY DAY - GENERAL STRIKE and this made by a user account called Occupy General Strike. I have no idea who is behind this account. It could be someone loosely associated with the IWW/CSAC groups, could be someone in one of the socialist groups, or could be one of the many unaffliated leftists that were inspired by Winsconsin that have coaleced in groups such as CALL FOR GENERAL STRIKE.

Then there's the call the came from Miami Autonomy & Solidarity that was circulated to the other CSAC groups, sympathetic folks involved in Occupy and some IWW branches.

As far as I know, LA, Boston, Minneapolis (possibly others?) have endorsed a general strike or mass 'no school, no work' day of action on May 1st.

ps - I totally made that first pic you posted

I have no idea what "occupy congress" is all about, I agree that it will probably be bullshit.

The call for a general strike on May Day is pretty far-fetched but on the other hand it already seems to have generated a fair amount of support. There are definitely meetings in LA and elsewhere on the West Coast planning for this and I know there is a committee building for the strike in Boston. With five months to plan and build, in combination with the usual May Day actions, this might be fairly big.

Well, I think that's why avoiding the term 'general strike' might be a wise thing, although I have mixed feelings on it. It's a pretty nebulous term that means many different things to many different people. Not sure how useful it is.

What do you think the downside is to using the term (besides getting our hopes up)? I'm not particularly wedded to it, but "day of action" doesn't have quite the same ring to it...

From what I've seen, the "Occupy Congress" thing has been pushed and organized by SEIU and Van Jones, though it has gotten some participation from the more reform minded and less skeptical among the movement. It's a blatant attempt at co-opting the occupy meme and channeling its energies to the Democratic Party.

Well, I think because it's a vague term that isn't really defined in the U.S. The strength of this is that we can define it, and it some ways Occupy Oakland did exactly that. But I think using the term instantly creates problematic modes of organizing that are tough to deal with right now. What I mean by that is that the term general strike, more often than not, means the following things to a lot of people.

-Collaboration with union leadership
-Going through official union decision making bodies
-Needing some impossible critical mass (75%-100%)
-You get various sects (whether socialist, platformist or liberal) coming down on you saying it isn't really a general strike.

This was certainly true in Madison, and I can see this bubbling up in Minneapolis, and probably other places.

Really, this is kind of getting into something I've been meaning to write about for a while now. Like, what is a 'general strike' and how has it been defined differently by various leftists, communists and anarchists. How it's actually happened in the States, how it actually plays out in Europe and Latin America, etc.

A 'no school, no work' day of action doesn't sound as sexy, but it's pretty clear what that is, and in any case, the only thing that could be seen as a national general strike here in recent years would be 2006, which did not use the term general strike, despite it being pretty much exactly that.

Juan that'd be awesome if you wrote something on this. I'd be especially keen to see you talk about those ideas then use that as a basis to talk about what went down in Madison.

You may have read it already but here's from a Ralph Chaplin pamphlet, " Much of the misconception results from an erroneous or limited conception as to what a General Strike is and what it is supposed to do. The General Strike, as its name implies, must be a revolutionary or class strike instead of a strike for amelioration of conditions. It must be designed to abolish private ownership of the means of life and to supplant it with social ownership." http://www.iww.org/en/content/general-strike-page-5

Elsewhere in the pamphlet he says that for the IWW the general strike means workers occupying their jobs.

What about the name "General Strike" implies that it must be a revolutionary or class strike, rather than a strike for amelioration of conditions? Is an "amelioration strike" not a class strike? Who decides when a strike is "revolutionary", and when it is just for amelioration of conditions? On what basis do they decide that, and when?

Does Chaplin's definition describe apply to any real-world examples of what people have called general strikes? Or is he just cutting off the feet to fit the body in the coffin?

Chaplin's definition is idealist at best. The IWW was at its most interesting in the 1930s, when Chaplin wrote this, and certainly publishing cheap pamphlets on the power of workers to halt industry is in line with that, but his definition is only a hair above that of Sorel's, and in fact shares a lot of the same problematic assumptions.

Speaking of which, I can't believe someone positively referenced Sorel in a serious political statement. Or that terms like "instrumentalized" get bandied about without any explanation. This is a perfect marker of how far class politics have sunk in the last 30 years...

Sure, here's some info from Greg Sargent, back in November when Occupy Congress was first kicking off. He interviewed Mary Kay Henry (president of SEIU) for the article.

Next up: `Occupy Congress’

And more info here: Here’s what attempted co-option of OWS looks like

Though yeah, I haven't found anything that says Van Jones or his group have been organizing this. He's been pushing that kind of effort generally and once tried to anoint himself the "spokesperson" of Occupy on CNN, but I'm not sure whether his group has been directly involved in Occupy Congress.

[never mind]

Oliver, Juan said he thought the term "general strike" was a vague term and that he wanted to write something about the various things the term means to various people. I posted what the term meant to Chaplin. You disagree. Fair enough. That supports Juan's point, that the term means a variety of different things to different people. Chaplin said that that was true in his day too, people meant a number of things by the term, and he laid out what he thought the term mean. Laying out the diversity of views of the term today and historically could, I think, help enrich conversations about what we might want to try to make the term mean, and whether or not to encourage or discourage its use. That's why I posted the Chaplin quote.

I just want to add, Chaplin's use of the term is basically the same as Haywood's in 1911 (I can find the link for you if you want, he said that a general strike had never happened in the US and he described it as basically the same idea that Chaplin did). Lucy Parsons talked about the general strike in the same way in her speech at the IWW founding convention in 1905. I suspect that there was always a range of views about what the term "general strike meant" within the IWW as well. I've not bothered to look and see what else the term meant to IWW members in the past. From what I've read, the use of the word here was the main use made by the IWW in its early days. If you've read stuff that suggests otherwise, great, I'd like to know so I can read it.

Beyond, it sounds like you have opinions on what you think the term means and why it should mean that, but I'm not sure, it's hard to tell what you mean, you mostly posted a lot of rhetorical questions. If you do have views on this I'd like to hear them, and if you have other things you think are worth reading that talk about how different people have defined a general strike, I'd like to know what they are. Also you saying "has Chaplin's use of the term ever corresponded to what people in the world have called a general strike?" doesn't strike me as a very good argument. I can imagine an identical point being made about the words "revolution" and "communism" along the lines of "these people talk about revolution but look at what has actually happened in the things people have called revolutions and look at actual communism, therefore these people are using that word wrong." I don't find that illuminating.

Finally, Sorel, have you read his writing on the general strike? If so, what in it do you disagree with?