In the winter of 2011, discussion about calling a general strike had already begun within Occupy Los Angeles. At the end of January 2012, in the wake of police raids against Occupy encampments, Occupy Los Angeles issued a call for a May Day general strike, which was quickly endorsed by Occupy Oakland.
Last month, editors at The Nation magazine published 13 mini-essays on the subject of how to make capitalism “less destructive and domineering, [and] more focused on what people really need for fulfilling lives” written by lefty thinkers in business, activism and politics. (more)
This year, the May Day march in Los Angeles was notably smaller than in recent years, but still lively and militant. The year-by-year count of May Day marchers can never be an exact science, but the history of labor is full of surprises.
The current global economic crisis is not just another roller-coaster ride. Many sane and sober observers fear that the international locomotive of corporatism is going off the rails. Is this a necessary crisis of the capitalist system, determined by the self-destruction and self-renovation of a perpetual motion machine?