What the US doesn’t do enough compared to Europe are General Strikes, rather than protesting.
Protests don’t really hit the Owner classe were it hurts them the most and can easilly be portrayed as a violent rabble or simply not talked about (both things which in countries were the entirety of the Press is captured, are the norm in terms of news coverage).
For all the feeling of release of righteous rage they give to protestors, Protests by themselves are just people walking and shouting (with at most small shops rather than big companies suffering) and thus are easy for the powerful to ignore.
General Strikes, on the other hand, have a way bigger impact on the money making of the people who have a disproportionate amount of power and there are even more impactfull options when the HQs of certain companies or the homes of very rich people are targetted.
Unless they’re properly inconveniences the powerful only pay attention to Protests when they’re a signal that there is insatisfaction amongst the general population which, if not addressed, will lead to things much worse than Protests, and in countries were things don’t actually go further than protesting like the US, the powerful can easilly not care about protests.
Most industries are not unionized, so your job can easily be filled in your absence
Really high unemployment right now for skilled sectors like IT
A lot of people are paycheck-to-paycheck thanks to a host of factors like high rent
To say nothing of all the illegal shit government and private business will do to end and/or prevent a strike.
It’s not impossible, but it does mean that any reasonable person would like to know that millions upon millions of others will be striking alongside them. Support networks for unemployed strikers along with strategies to deal with scabs would be a good start, too.
Absolutelly: the system in the US is designed to remove choice from the “riff-raff”.
Then again to a large extent in the past it was also so in those EU countries talked about here (and, as an EU resident, let me tell that there’s a lot of effort going on around here slowly reverting things back to those days)
Further, people too have make it so in the US, for example by not joining Unions or by parroting propaganda about how Free a country America is (which is pretty close the opposite of true: real Freedom in America is something only the rich have).
Whilst I dislike the near-religious take on the “Founding Fathers” of America (who at best were “progressive” for slave owners) the “American Constitution” (a prototype for Democracy which is riddled with problems, hence the current situation), many things from that time including some said by American Founding Fathers are eternal truths, such as the one about “eternal vigilance”, and the one about the tree of freedom needing to be periodically refreshed with the blood of patriots.
What the US doesn’t do enough compared to Europe are General Strikes, rather than protesting.
Protests don’t really hit the Owner classe were it hurts them the most and can easilly be portrayed as a violent rabble or simply not talked about (both things which in countries were the entirety of the Press is captured, are the norm in terms of news coverage).
For all the feeling of release of righteous rage they give to protestors, Protests by themselves are just people walking and shouting (with at most small shops rather than big companies suffering) and thus are easy for the powerful to ignore.
General Strikes, on the other hand, have a way bigger impact on the money making of the people who have a disproportionate amount of power and there are even more impactfull options when the HQs of certain companies or the homes of very rich people are targetted.
Unless they’re properly inconveniences the powerful only pay attention to Protests when they’re a signal that there is insatisfaction amongst the general population which, if not addressed, will lead to things much worse than Protests, and in countries were things don’t actually go further than protesting like the US, the powerful can easilly not care about protests.
We have some monstrously large hurdles to clear in this regard. What’s working against a general strike:
To say nothing of all the illegal shit government and private business will do to end and/or prevent a strike.
It’s not impossible, but it does mean that any reasonable person would like to know that millions upon millions of others will be striking alongside them. Support networks for unemployed strikers along with strategies to deal with scabs would be a good start, too.
Absolutelly: the system in the US is designed to remove choice from the “riff-raff”.
Then again to a large extent in the past it was also so in those EU countries talked about here (and, as an EU resident, let me tell that there’s a lot of effort going on around here slowly reverting things back to those days)
Further, people too have make it so in the US, for example by not joining Unions or by parroting propaganda about how Free a country America is (which is pretty close the opposite of true: real Freedom in America is something only the rich have).
Whilst I dislike the near-religious take on the “Founding Fathers” of America (who at best were “progressive” for slave owners) the “American Constitution” (a prototype for Democracy which is riddled with problems, hence the current situation), many things from that time including some said by American Founding Fathers are eternal truths, such as the one about “eternal vigilance”, and the one about the tree of freedom needing to be periodically refreshed with the blood of patriots.