>I can't think of any strikes I didn't welcome. As bad as the UAW is, I'm
>always happy to see them strike,a nd I even pay them dues. I like most
>actions that fuck things up. But I don't like exaggerating things either.
So far so good. Modesty is a good thing - at least as long as it doesn't blind us for the opportunities which do exist.
>The LA riots were not an "uprising," as some lefties like to say. They had
>no political content. The Hyundai workers were on strike, and you always
>support workers on strike, but they weren't the avant garde of revolution.
Maybe not, but it's still in situations like these that many people start to draw more radical political conclusions.
The big question is another, IMO: Will these embryos of radical political thought develop or just die?
In the boom years of the late 50's to late 60's a strike would rarely make such thoughts develop. The dispute would be settled and life would go on. But today most strikes - or other 'mass actions' - will almost immediately cause our rulers to prepare for repression. An 'unpolitical' struggle for job security or for the pay check to keep up with inflation will under such circumstances make many people question a lot of the ideological bullshit that is poured into us on a daily basis - and which most people (to some extent at least) believe in "normal" times.
Take the French strikes of december 1995 - France's Hot December - which were basically around pay and pensions. Still they developed very fast into the question of whether the Juppé government should live or die. Why was that? Because in 1993-94 there had been protests, strikes etc. against the drip-drop attacks by the Balladur government. This had built up confidence so that when Juppé tried his frontal attack he ran his head into a wall and had to go. - And the strikes of december 95 strengthened this confidence, so that in 1996-97 you saw in France (for the first time in years) mass demonstrations directed against Le Pen.
Or take Indonesia. Even if for the students the movement was political from the outset, it was only when workers took action for pay or against closures etc. that it translated into the downfall of Suharto.
Even the big Danish strikes of this spring, which were heavily confined by the TU bureaucracy, has caused many people to re-think: The SocDem government is facing new opposition from it's own supporters almost everytime it proposes new attacks. This opposition is most often unorganized, not very radical, but it has the weight of being built on a huge strike just half a year ago.
My point is that we are in a 'period of wars and revolution' where even modest demands can much easier than just a couple of years ago translate into struggle on a much more generalized scale. The 'Chinese Wall' between economics and politcs of the boom years has been eroded a lot since the heydays of 'New World Order' and is beginnning to fall.
So we're back to: Will these embryos of radical political thought develop or just die? The answer to this is best answered by another question: Is there at the Hyundai an organization committed to develop these embryos of radical thought and committed to organize among their co-workers? I don't know, but the strikes open up lots of new opportunities for socialists to intervene - if we are willing to se them.
Yours
Jorn
-- Jorn Andersen
Internationale Socialister Copenhagen, Denmark IS-WWW: http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/is-dk/