26 March 2012 General Strike in Central Park New York City Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:25:45 -0500 (CDT)

Subject: Tuesday -- 03.27.12  General Strike in Central Park

From: "Sixteen Beaver" <lists[at]16beavergroup.org>

To: generals[at]16beavergroup.org



Tuesday -- 03.27.12 ­ General Strike in Central Park



CONTENTS:



1. Invitation / Introduction

2. Some Background

3. Online Resources

4. Readings

5. Local Links

6. Precarious & Service Worker Assembly



___________________________________________________

1. Invitation / Introduction



What: Drifting Assembly on General Strike

When: Tuesday -- 03.27.12

Where: Central Park, meet up at the steps of Metropolitan Museum

When: 6:00 pm

Who: Everyone (dress warm)



During the winter, we participated in a molecular seminar entitled

'Welcome to the New Paradigm; The Crisis of Everything Everywhere.' A few

hundred people attended over the course of 9 days, some staying for a

session, others for a day, and yet others for the entire duration.

Together we organized, disorganized, ate, spoke, disagreed, speculated,

walked, mapped, manifested, felt, listened, played, and even mic checked

Diego Rivera. 'Welcome to the New Paradigm' was an allusion

to a banner we had seen in Washington Square Park at the conclusion of a

day of actions globally on October 15. That same night, after Gayatri

Spivak addressed everyone, we discovered that along with a lot of friends,

she had been thinking about the potentials for a General Strike.



At the time, the occupations at Liberty and across the globe were so

powerful; it was still unclear whether the idea of a General Strike was a

nostalgic regression or potential mode of amplification and generalization

of refusal. After all, the occupations were themselves a new paradigm of a

strike, not just striking against a work place or work but taking

everything, everywhere. As the coordinated and violent attacks by police started in late Fall on

the encampments, there was an even greater urgency placed upon everyone to

consider how this refusal of austerity, of faux solutions, of legalized

robbery, of new forms of enclosure, of an increasing surveillance /

security state, of ever greater ecological ruin, of continued structural

racism, could be expressed, embodied, uttered, collectively; and how could

this be done in a forceful manner, without further empowering or placing

all of our collective attention into a reactionary game with and on the

police force.



In January, we returned to the question of the General Strike and

we asked one another:



What it could mean a General Strike today given the global dimension of

financial capital, given the shifting qualities of the workplace and

work-time (namely its increased itinerancy, placelessness, instability,

meaninglessness), given the ever more invasive forms of extracting

productivity and value from the basic reproduction of our life and social

relations?



The winter provided to hundreds of people a season to formally and

informally meet, consider, propose plans and create possibilities for the

General Strike that has been called on May 1st.

In examining the shifted terrain of work, productivity, and thus strike,

the critical questions which emerge are:



How can this complex arrangement ...



- of placed and non-placed labor (i.e., labor that occurs in a

recognizable workplace as well as Starbucks or the neighborhood boutique

cafe or the street or in the home)



- of recognized and unrecognized productivity (i.e., a waged job, albeit

badly paid, contracted labor or just using Google, Facebook, YouTube,

indirectly producing immense data, content, value, profits) - of

remunerated and unremunerated life (i.e., the time which is paid for a

specific work and the time spent between any specific work just making

oneself available, preparing, learning new skills which could be reapplied

back into work)



- of visible and invisible, of legal and not legalized, of union and

non-unionized workers



redefine the strategies for a General Strike?



Where could be the sites of blockage? Where could be the site of flow

stoppage? Where could be the sites of non-cooperation? How to activate

other fields of non-cooperation such a debt strike under the heading

general strike? And where could be the sites of cooperation, of

communization, of convergence?



Seen in the light of occupation, how might the general strike also

question the ideals sovereignty, autonomy, or freedom that presume an

individual political subject? How has occupation allowed us to reconceive

the strike not just as total refusal, blockage, or stoppage, but as a

public gathering that demonstrates the practices and principles of

socialization, communization, and mutual aid and care? What would it mean

to rethink the social intransitivity of the strikeits lack of

instrumentality, of work, of means-ends relationsas neither undoing or

negativity nor direct action, but as opening onto the potentiality of

being-in-common?



What does it mean to strike if you are unemployed? Or "your own boss"? Or

a freelance worker? How to also take account of those whose time is not so

flexible, and who face greater threats and risks in walking off the job or

joining a public demonstration?



What qualities could a strike take to address the multiplicity of sites of

and modes of production? And if our consumption, obedience, and everyday

participation is part of our productivity, if our everyday social

reproduction is the lubricant of the economic machinery that increasingly

surveys and oppresses the multitudes and our shared habitats, how could

May 1st become the turning point to intensify a process not only of

withdrawal or a symbolic act but a call for the infinite strike, the

closest we can get of doing nothing, how actively we envision and realize

our lives without capitalism.



We are interested in continuing this discussion not only on theoretical

grounds but through proposals for specific actions online and in the city.

We would like to propose meeting at Central Park on Tuesday early evening

for a walk and informal assembly.



The walking assembly will be unfacilitated by the Central Park Exploratory

Committee, an ungroup attempting to reassert the park as a commons, and as

potential site of convergence on the day of the General Strike, resulting

in a meshwork of refusal, food, music, pleasure, sensuality, resistance,

communization. The group is interested in weaving together with others

great fictions and believes strongly that such visions or horizons will

resonate with multitudes not only on May Day but also for the days

after.



Come join us and bring things to share: proposals,

food, drink.



___________________________________________________

2. Background



A general strike has been called for May Day, first by Occupy Los Angeles

on November 15th, and locally by Occupy Wall Street on February 14th. In

the time between and since many other city and neighborhood assemblies

have taken up the call, and a number of other coalitions, collectives, and

committees have started to agitate and organize for a general strike in

2012.



These recent calls for a May Day general strike have taken inspiration

from Occupy Oaklands wildcat general strike of November 2nd, 2011, and

the struggles in Wisconsin last Spring which first reignited interest in

the concept. In the months since the Occupy movement began we have seen

general strikes called in Belgium, Egypt, Greece, India, Israel, Italy,

Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, and the United

Kingdom.



The general assembly of Occupy Los Angeles committed to the general strike

on December 19th; Occupy Boston on January 7th; Occupy Tampa on January

7th; Occupy Pasadena on January 8th; Occupy Phoenix on January 10th;

Occupy Williamsburg and Occupy Long Beach on January 17th; Occupy Brooklyn

on January 19th; Occupy Oakland on January 29th; Occupy Ventura on

February 7th; New York City on February 14th; Occupy Sydney on February

18th; Occupy Detroit on February 21st; Occupy Seattle on February 26th;

and Occupy Bushwick on March 1st. In the weeks between and since many

other cities, assemblies, and organizations have also called for the May

Day General Strike, and we expect more to follow suit in the next five

weeks.



___________________________________________________

3. Some Online Resources



NEW YORK CITY LINKS

http://da.nycga.net/mayday/

http://da.nycga.net/category/subgroups/may-day/

https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/strikeeverywhere

http://maydaynyc.org/

http://www.nycga.net/

http://occuprint.org/Category/MayDay

http://occupybk.org/

http://occupybk.org/groups/organize-bushwick-1128840377/

http://occupywilliamsburg.org/

http://strikeeverywhere.net/

http://university.nycga.net/our-courses/studying-may-day/

http://university.nycga.net/our-courses/studying-may-day/recommended-readings/

http://wiki.occupy.net/wiki/May_Day



ONLINE RESOURCES

http://www.gstrike.org/

http://insurrectiondays.noblogs.org/

http://interoccupy.org/may1call/

http://libcom.org/gallery/may-1st-2012-posters-graphics

http://www.occupymay1st.org/

http://www.occupymay1st.org/groups/occupation-coordination/

http://www.occupymay1st.org/resources/imagery/

https://www.facebook.com/events/337068492974144/

https://www.facebook.com/events/307864259256522/

https://www.facebook.com/events/119235331529404/

https://www.facebook.com/events/367411923279181/

https://www.facebook.com/events/185740101536525/

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyGeneralStrike

https://www.facebook.com/occupym1

https://www.facebook.com/occupymayfirst

https://www.facebook.com/strikeeverywhere

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-May-1st-General-Strike/160023040772206

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Resources-for-the-worldwide-general-strike-May-1st/354855194534813

https://twitter.com/global_strike

https://twitter.com/May1StreetTeam

https://twitter.com/Maydaystrike

https://twitter.com/nycgenstrike

https://twitter.com/OccupyGenStrike

https://twitter.com/OccupyGenStrk

https://twitter.com/occupym1

https://twitter.com/OWSGenStrike

https://twitter.com/OWSMayDay

https://twitter.com/StrikeEverywher

https://twitter.com/USGeneralStrike

https://twitter.com/WorldStrikeMay1



___________________________________________________

4. Readings



[unsorted]

--The Social General Strike - Stephen Naft, 1905:

http://www.mediafire.com/?t37d5nxsvshzdcr



--The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions - Rosa

Luxemburg, 1906:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1906/mass-strike/index.htm



--Reflections on Violence - George Sorel, 1908:

http://ifile.it/wpclbh/__Sorel__Reflections_on_Violence__Cambridge_Texts_in_the_

History_of_Political_Thought_.l_ntx2j6721x3xo9.pdf



--"The General Strike" - Bill Haywood, 1911:

http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/Haywood/GeneralStrike



--"Critique of Violence" - Walter Benjamin, 1921:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ew0x25f2guv



--The General Strike - Ralph Chaplin, 1933:

http://libcom.org/library/general-strike-ralph-chaplin



--"The General Strike" - W.E.B. Du Bois, 1935:

http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/sites/all/files/The%20General%20Strike.pdf



--Kill the Bill: The Power of a General Strike - Madison IWW, 2011:

http://libcom.org/library/iww-general-strike-pamphlet



--"To All the Working People: Call for De-Nuke General Strike" - Committee

for De-nuke General Strike, 2011:

http://jfissures.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/to-all-the-working-people-%E2%80%93-call-

for-de-nuke-general-strike/



--"Wisconsin's Lost Strike Moment" - Nicolas Lampert & Dan S. Wang, 2011:

http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2011/04/wisconsins_lost_strike_moment_1.html



--"What Chance a General Strike in Manhattan?" - Nikolas Kozloff, 2011:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011107135115719238.html



--"A Message to the Partisans, in Advance of the General Strike" - Society

of Enemies, 2011: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/01/18696540.php



--"Blockading the Port is Only the First of Many Last Resorts" - Society

of Enemies, 2011:

http://www.bayofrage.com/from-the-bay/blockading-the-port-is-only-the-first-of-many-last-resorts/



--"General Strike" - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 2011:

http://occupytheory.org/Tidal_5.html



--"What are the Origins of May Day?" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1894:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1894/02/may-day.htm



--"The Idea of May Day on the March" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1913:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/04/30.htm



--"May Day in the West and the East" - Leon Trotsky, 1923:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/04/mayday.htm



--"The First of May: Symbol of a New Era in the Life and Struggle of the

Toilers" - Nestor Makhno, 1928:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/makhno-nestor/works/1928/05_01.htm



--The History of Mayday - Alexander Trachtenberg, 1932:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/articles/tracht.html



--"A General Strike" - Mariarosa Dall Costa, 1974:

http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/mariarosa-dalla-costa-a-general-strike/



--"What do we mean by The General Strike?" - Chris Harman, 1985:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1985/01/genstrike.htm



--The Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day - Peter

Linebaugh, 1986



--"Birth of a Holiday: The First of May" - Eric Hobsbawm, 1994:

http://libcom.org/history/birth-holiday-first-may



--"Infinite Strike" - Anonymous, 2010:

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Anonymous__Infinite_Strike.html



--"Which Way Forward for the 99%?" - Occupy May 1st, 2012:

http://libcom.org/library/which-way-forward-99-build-power-show-power-through-

mass-participatory-bold-action





___________________________________________________

5. NYC Links



Brooklyn General Assembly: http://occupybk.org/

Bushwick General Assembly: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Bushwick.GA/

New York City General Assembly: http://www.nycga.net/

Strike Everywhere: http://strikeeverywhere.net/

Williamsburg General Assembly: http://occupywilliamsburg.org/



___________________________________________________

6. Precarious & Service Worker Assembly



Start:

03/28/2012 19:30



Category:

Precarious/Service Worker Assembly



Address:

360 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States



Tired of being treated like a servant by your customers? Tired of

management demanding more and more for less and less? Feeling alone or

frustrated? Come to the first Precarious and Service Worker Assembly to

network with others who share your interests!



As service workers, we are often both overworked and underpaid; with

Management forcing workers to work ever faster in an ever shorter amount

of time. Productivity and speed-of-service requirements increase while

hours per week are slashed. Its clear: The harder we work, the less we

get paid, and the richer they get!



Many of us are already in tough situations as parents, immigrants, young

people, and students. Racism is blatantly apparent at many of our

workplaces, with Latino and immigrant workers confined to back-of-house

positions, maintaining a racial hierarchy to keep us separated. For some,

a job at a restaurant or a cafe is a 2nd or even 3rd job, a result of the

declining wages for other careers. Even worse, we often find ourselves

forced into student loan and credit card debt because of low pay. All the

while, rent, food, and transportation costs climb through the roof.



Solidarity and support among local service workers can be empowering for

all of us. Remember, they cant run these places without us. Bosses thrive

by pitting us against one another, but if not for us, Management wouldnt

make a dime. So lets take whats ours!



Bring some goods to share from your place of employment if youd like, and

feel free to bring a friend or two ­as long as theyre not the boss! Well

be discussing how we can make our collective situation much more

interesting and how we can engage together in upcoming actions like the

May Day General Strike.



__________________________________________________

16 Beaver Group

16 Beaver Street, 4th fl.

New York, NY 10004



for directions/subscriptions/info visit:

http://www.16beavergroup.org



TRAINS:

4,5 -- Bowling Green

2,3 -- Wall Street

J,Z -- Broad Street

R -- Whitehall

1 -- South Ferry



