NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE FEBRUARY 17 2017

Friday, February 17th, do not go to work. Do not go to school.  Avoid buying anything. 

http://f17strike.com/

http://www.attn.com/stories/14749/why-organizers-are-calling-general-strike

1. No Ban, No Wall. The Muslim ban is immoral, the wall is expensive and ineffectual. We will build bridges, not walls.
2. Healthcare For All. Healthcare is a human right. Do not repeal the ACA. Improve it or enact Medicare for All.
3. No Pipelines. Rescind approval for DAPL and Keystone XL and adopt meaningful policies to protect our environment. It's the only one we've got.
4. End the Global Gag Rule. We cannot put the medical care of millions of women around the globe at risk.
5. Disclose and Divest. Show us your taxes. Sell your company. Ethics rules exist for a reason and presidents should focus on the country, not their company.

If you aren't going to march or gather, or picket, or hand out leaflets, or attend a meeting or conference, at least call your elected officials about the strike's main goals, or what your most important issues are, and make some calls to local officials about things in your community.  

But please, remove yourself from "business as usual."

Economic boycotts only work on one side of the equation: We The People as consumers.

But we are also the workers, the creators of everything and every service, and the creators of profit, and of government salaries and spending.

If you are willing to fight to death to keep your guns, or protest in the streets for social justice, then please, join a general strike that will restore the balance of power to the people.

Violence is not going to work.  We have to halt the wheels of production.  Of service.  Every single union needs to strike on February 17th.  Organized labor is under direct attack. Other than voting, organized labor is the only real power we have.

Those in power need to remember that that all of those billions of dollars of taxes and profits can be broken down into pennies.  It is true that individually we represent an insignificant portion of the vast sums of money the government and CEO's and owners get from us, but united we become unmanageable.

65 million (using Hillary Clinton's popular vote as dollars) is six hundred five billion pennies.  It's a metaphor, but it is a good example of what I mean about our power combined.  When you have to deal with pennies instead of dollars, buying something is a much slower process.

The Resistance to Trump is significant, but it is not working quickly enough. We have not been able to effectively remove a white supremacist as head of the NSC.  Steve Bannon is writing Executive Orders that Trump is autographing.  Bannon appointed himself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/president-bannon.html?_r=0

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/report-bannon-had-to-be-reminded-he-wasnt-the-president.html

Steve Bannon and all other Trump Cabinet members and his appointees are not fit for office.  This is unacceptable.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/trump-cabinet-tracker/510527/

We need to make this country "ungovernable" in order to take control of our government.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/make_america_ungovernable_20170205

Resistance is not revolution.  It is not systemic change.  We not only need to resist Trump, we need real change.  Fighting this Republican agenda to return to the previous status quo means that we are not advancing to real social and economic justice.

But first we need to flex our muscles.  We need a united show of strength.  Then we can divide up into factions for real change.

Strike. February 17th.