There was an excellent article written about this very idea in Harper's by Garret Keizer titled Specific Suggestion: General Strike, quote:

"Of all the various depredations of the Bush regime, none has been so thorough as its plundering of hope. Iraq will recover sooner. What was supposed to have been the crux of our foreign policy—a shock-and-awe tutorial on the utter futility of any opposition to the whims of American power—has achieved its greatest and perhaps its only lasting success in the American soul. You will want to cite the exceptions, the lunch-hour protests against the war, the dinner-party ejaculations of dissent, though you might also want to ask what substantive difference they bear to grousing about the weather or even to raging against the dying of the light—that is, to any ritualized complaint against forces universally acknowledged as unalterable. Bush is no longer the name of a president so much as the abbreviation of a proverb, something between Murphy’s Law and tomorrow’s fatal inducement to drink and be merry today.

If someone were to suggest, for example, that we begin a general strike on Election Day, November 6, 2007, for the sole purpose of removing this regime from power, how readily and with what well-practiced assurance would you find yourself producing the words “It won’t do any good”? Plausible and even courageous in the mouth of a patient who knows he’s going to die, the sentiment fits equally well in the heart of a citizen-ry that believes it is already dead.

Any strike, whether it happens in a factory, a nation, or a marriage, amounts to a reaffirmation of consent. The strikers remind their overlords—and, equally important, themselves—that the seemingly perpetual machinery of daily life has an off switch as well as an on. Camus said that the one serious question of philosophy is whether or not to commit suicide; the one serious question of political philosophy is whether or not to get out of bed. Silly as it may have seemed at the time, John and Yoko’s famous stunt was based on a profound observation. Instant karma is not so instant—we ratify it day by day.

The stream of commuters heading into the city, the caravan of tractor-trailers pulling out of the rest stop into the dawn’s early light, speak a deep-throated Yes to the sum total of what’s going on in our collective life. The poet Richard Wilbur writes of the “ripped mouse” that “cries Concordance” in the talons of the owl; we too cry our daily assent in the grip of the prevailing order— except in those notable instances when, like a donkey or a Buddha, we refuse to budge.

The question we need to ask ourselves at this moment is what further provocations we require to justify digging in our heels. To put the question more pointedly: Are we willing to wait until the next presidential election, or for some interim congressional conversion experience, knowing that if we do wait, hundreds of our sons and daughters will be needlessly destroyed? Another poet, César Vallejo, framed the question like this:

A man shivers with cold, coughs, spits up blood.
Will it ever be fitting to allude to my inner soul? . . .
A cripple sleeps with one foot on his shoulder.
Shall I later on talk about Picasso, of all people?

A young man goes to Walter Reed without a face. Shall I make an appointment with my barber? A female prisoner is sodomized at Abu Ghraib. Shall I send a check to the Clinton campaign? "

*politics, it's a better place for this.

The antiwar marching was just short of being useless.

All it did was illustrate how many people were against the war. It did nothing to stop it. It didn't even slow it down.

General strikes will slow down the war machine.

If once a month - or better, once a week - the lawmakers in Washington had no waitresses or bartenders or pizza delivery people or receptionists or delivery men, they might start to take notice.

And, of course, if people stopped showing up to work in and around the specific companies that make the war possible - the bullet makers, the gun makers, the bomb makers, etc. - that would be even better.

A monthly, or weekly, general strike throughout the USA and specifically in the power centers, will impact the system. We don't need permits to do that. The police can't arrest us and throw us in vans. The Feds can't videotape us, figure out who we are, and tap our phones.

We won't change anything until we impact the machinery of war.

That's assuming that people want to stop working. Unemployment is at an all time low. Stopping everything for a day will only hurt the economy and thus harm the consumer. Making a few people "suffer" a day without eating at a restaurant will mean jackshit to the billions of dollars in lost productivity and exploding inflation caused by the fallout of such action. It would only hurt the working people.

In sum it's ridiculous and an all around short sighted reaction to a disapproval of current administration. I for one would welcome the opportunity to take in the thousands of dollars up for grabs if such a thing were to take place. People wont stop looking for services. Especially when there is limited supply.

Think before you act.

I am thinking, Gorgon.

The whole point is to throw a wrench into the system.

It's not ridiculous at all; it's probably the only thing that would work.

And, no, it would not hurt the working people, not very much. A day's lost wages, maybe a lost sick day. Few would be fired, because nobody would have to admit that they were doing it as part of the general strike. It could just be one giant coincidence - sort of like 9/11.

If senators and congressmen and Wall Street assholes suddenly stopped getting their UPS or FedEx, or if their receptionists didn't show up - I'm certain that such active "inaction" would make the people on top start to question whether or not this war is worth their trouble.

"Their trouble" being the operative words.

It's not just a days lost wages. It's going to drive up the price of EVERYTHING! Economics 101, the law of supply and demand. If demand cannot be met the price of the good will increase. The market can flex if 3% of it's workforce is out sick. It can't if a large enough percentage of that halts production of needed goods.

Are you calling 9/11 a coincidence? Tell you what do some research on how economics work in a capitalist society and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's not just going to wake people up to a war it will cause one. Where people will kill one another just to get what they need to survive. You don't comprehend the impact. It would kill more then the Iraq war ever has.

Hospitals and nursing homes would have thousands if not millions die. Power loss would grip every major city. Wall Street would crash and a depression would lay in it's wake that would destabilize the world. Millions would be stranded and homeless... I think I'll take a small war with another country first.

"It's not just a days lost wages. It's going to drive up the price of EVERYTHING!"

So be it.

You fail to see that wrecking the system until it stops the war is the whole point of the exercise. We wreck the system until the system ends the war in Iraq, then we go back to work and play nice again.

This war will not end until the people on the top of the food chain start feeling some heat.

A general strike is probably the only way we can bring that about.

"I think I'll take a small war with another country first."

A person who would wish the misery of war upon another country and another people, for the sake of his own convenience, is part of the problem, not the solution.

Your insane and your scope is too large. You'd condemn millions to death and poverty rather then endure a minor war? You'd rather live in anarchy and despair rather then seek and alternative? You'd throw civilization back to the dark ages for your own selfish agenda? Fact: It won't happen, society won't allow it.

"Your insane and your scope is too large. You'd condemn millions to death and poverty rather then endure a minor war?"

You're naive.

Your conclusions are based on the system being so belligerent that it will not end the war in Iraq in order to save itself.

"My selfish agenda?"

Ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, ending the war in Iraq, how selfish of me....

I don't question your goal. I'm sickened by the means and lack of ethics you use to support it. Like I say do some research and you'll see that what your proposing is ridiculous.

The very fact that you're against it, Gorgon, is a pretty good indication that I'm on the right track.

You are sickened by the possible inconvenience it might cause you (which you have blown clear out of proportion), so you choose to support a "minor" war that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and has been absolutely no bother to you whatsoever.

How noble.

A person who supports war for his own convenience shouldn't lecture anybody about ethics.

doh..video would have really worked well here.

Good link, Fedquip. Thanks.

It would need a cool name. "Sick Out" is all I can think of for now.

It will be hard to get started - will probably have to start in the colleges and high schools with coordinated "sick outs." After that, start moving up into delivery services and customer services (supermarkets, gas stations, fast food joints, etc.)

The beauty of it is that the people who will be part of the "sick out" movement are the younger people on the lower end of the economic scale, which is the very class of people suffering the most from this illegal war in Iraq.

I like the idea of doing it monthly - because it gives the movement time to build, once it looks like it's peaking start doing it weekly.

I agree - start out monthly, or even bimonthly. Be low-key about it, keep people guessing, get people talking.

I think the schools would be the best place to start, too.

I wonder if they'd even consider talking about this on Air America?