Prog Spring: OWSies coming out of hibernation, preparing for May Day!

Ah, spring! The trees are greening up like so many broccoli sprouts across the landscape. The daffodils and daisies and dandelions are dotting the lawns of many a foreclosed home. Young men's hearts turn to thoughts of beer. And the Cubs are in last place. Yes, spring is in the air (see the pollen and mold counts).

Spring. It's a magical season. The earth comes to life, and we do with it. So it is with the young progressives. Their hearts turn to thoughts of occupying places. And so it is that after the long winter of their packed-up tent, the OWSies are coming out of hibernation! Mic check! The 99%ers are BACK, taking it to the streets, speaking truth to power, and sticking it to The Man! This is the Prog Spring of 2012!

Occupy Wall Street just had their "Spring Awakening," and other events are happening in New York and around the country throughout the month of April. But the Big News is . . . MAY DAY! MAY DAY! That's right, plans are in the works for having a huge, massive MAY DAY GENERAL STRIKE (#M1GS, for short). We'll show those lousy capitalists who we are! We'll make them sit up and take notice! GENERAL STRIKE! No Work! No Chores! No. . . . Wait. How is this different from any other day for the young progressives? Oh, well. . . . MAY DAY 2012! GENERAL STRIKE! TAKE THE STREETS!

Occupy meets May Day, a match made in Leningrad. We read about it in this THREAD, "Occupy May Day: Not Your Usual General Strike," and this THREAD, "MAY DAY! MAY DAY!" (BTW, did you know DUmmieland even has its own Occupy forum? That's where they can keep the five or six people who are so preoccupied with the Occupy movement that they need their own forum.)

So let us join the masses preparing to do nothing, in Bolshevik Red, while the commentary of your humble guest correspondent, Charles Henrickson--wondering if a) our favorite OWSie, Trust Fund Ted Hall, will be back out on the streets this spring, and b) the 40-Year-Old Insurgent, William Rivers Pitt, wll finally pull himself away from the Bruins' games on TV to actually go to one of these Occupy thingies--is in the [brackets]:

Occupy May Day: Not Your Usual General Strike

[Is there a "usual" General Strike?]

Last December, Occupy Los Angeles proposed a General Strike on May 1 “for migrant rights, jobs for all, a moratorium on foreclosures, and peace – and to recognize housing, education and health care as human rights.”

[What about free nachos? Nachos with meat and cheese. Not that yukky, stringy Velveeta stuff, either. Good cheese. So add free nachos to the list, as long as we're generally striking.]

The idea has spread through the Occupy movement.

[Like sands through the hourglass. Like Velveeta through the DUodenum.]

Occupy Wall Street in New York recently expressed solidarity with the proposal and called for “a day without the 99%, general strike, and more!” with “no work, no school, no housework, no shopping, take the streets!”

[w00t! Parr-tayy!! Will Trust Fund Ted be there?]

Reactions are ranging from enthusiastic support to outraged skepticism.

[To gales of laughter.]

Most Occupy May Day advocates understand that a conventional general strike is not in the cards. What they are advocating instead is a day in which members of the “99%” take whatever actions they can to withdraw from participation in the normal workings of the economic system. . . .

[As long as it's convenient. Real commitment may not be in your cards.]

by not working if that is an option. . . .

[Not working, an "option"?? Heck, it's a way of life!]

but also by not shopping, not banking, and not engaging in other “normal” everyday activities. . . .

[Just put all that stuff off till May 2.]

and by joining demonstrations, marches, disruptions, occupations, and other mass actions.

[Hear that, Pitt? Get off your Barcalounger and head for the barricades!]

What Occupy May Day Could Achieve

[ ]

The Occupy May Day event is first of all a great chance for 99% to show itself, see itself, and express itself – to represent itself to itself. . . .

[To occupy itself with itself.]

If it truly draws together a wide range of working people, ranging from the most impoverished to professionals, from urban to suburban to rural, and including African Americans, Latinos, whites, and immigrants, it can embody the ability of the 99% to act as a group.

[It will probably be 99% white upper-class "students," looking for hashish and hook-ups.]

Occupy Global General Strike on May 1st.

[Not One D*mn Anything Day!]

Strike for:
IM/MIGRANT RIGHTS
ECONOMIC, SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE and LABOR RIGHTS
PEACE WITH JUSTICE
CIVIL LIBERTIES — END THE POLICE STATE
HOUSING, EDUCATION AND HEALTH CARE AS HUMAN RIGHTS
WOMEN’S RIGHTS, LGBTQ RIGHTS & GENDER EQUITY

[FREE NACHOS
CUBS' WORLD SERIES
UNICORN SPARKLE FARTS AND RAINBOWS]

What is #M1GS?

[Twitterese for "Epic Fail."]

Occupations across the world have made similar calls for a General Strike, or day of economic disruption, in direct response to Occupy Los Angeles, or through a synchronicity of thought, a buzzing hive mind that feels the need to express solidarity with movements. . . .

[Or that buzzing in your head could be a hashish hangover.]

How can I participate?

[Do nothing on May 1. Should not be much of a stretch.]

If you can’t participate on #M1GS, you can contribute in other ways. Spread the word. Poster your neighborhood. Help form Strike Committees in the workplace. Agitate. . . .

[Make a pest of yourself. Again, not much of a stretch.]

It would be great to see a big May Day turnout for once in my life.

[Sure, you've been disappointed in the past, but this, this will be different! Masses of hordes of throngs of people, all united, black and white and transgendered and Wiccan, all of us standing up together, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, nose ring to nose ring, making our voices heard! Yes! It will HAPPEN!! I can FEEL it! Oooh I can't wait I can't wait I can't WAIT!! Soon, soon, the world will be a better place! May 1st, baby! We're makin' HISTORY!!]

MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

[The Day When Everything Finally Changed 47.2]

To the activist, the rebel, the revolutionary, the dreamer.

[To the college student who wants to skip out on classes.]

To all who believe in a better world.

[Not you bad people who want to have a worse world.]

To those who have found their voice. . . .

[And would like to find a hippie chick to hook up with.]

Raise your fists, break your chains. Shake the world under your feet. . . .

[You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around. . . .]

make a noise so loud, that the 1% will cower in their marble halls.

[SPEAK TRUTH TO MARBLE!]

For the time of The People has come.

[May 2 will be the time of The Laughing.]

Those who consider themselves our masters will find themselves standing in the path of a force the likes of which the world has never seen.

[NEVER. SEEN.]

You are a force so strong that Mother Nature herself cowers in your presence.

[SPEAK TRUTH TO MOTHER NATURE!]

For we are many. We are strong. We are awake.

[We are crazy.]

We are above your fear mongering, you who seek to silence us. You cannot threaten us with lies of alarm and panic. Your words are mist that dissipates as we march.

[Guerrillas in the mist.]

We will take to the streets, and march on until we reach a dawn that mankind has never been witness to.

[NEVER. BEEN WITNESS TO.]

This dawn will produce a light so strong that the fear hatred and doubt in our hearts will vanish like the early morning dew upon a blade of grass.

[Like DU upon the grass.]

Our hearts will instead be a raging inferno that cannot be extinguished.

[Like a towering inferno, like a disco inferno!]

Fear us, you 1%, for we are coming, and we are already here.

[I can smell you already!]

We are here, and everywhere.

[Like Chickenman.]

General Strike on May 1st. Join us.