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Comment by mingus88 | Hacker News Reader

It’s called a general strike.

Is it? I genuinely don’t know, this is the first thing I’ve heard about a national shutdown and the source link doesn’t point me towards any more information. Is this a nonprofit thing or does it have broader currency? Has it been in the works for a while and I just didn’t hear about it? If I tell my boss I’m going on strike tomorrow morning, will I be one of many or one of one?

But the EFF doesn't provide services to the government; this action will actually benefit the 'offending' government officials by relieving them of the pressure the EFF is intended to effect.

You don’t seem to understand what a general strike is

If everybody doesn't participate equally in the general strike, then it's basically burning down your own neighborhood to protest something that happened on the other side of town.

If everybody does participate, then it amounts to burning down the whole city.

It's such a dumb idea that it's almost indistinguishable from an attempt at subversion by the actual parties/powers being protested. Announcing such an effort 3 days ahead of time while making no specific demands is just icing on the proverbial cake.

I just don't think a general strike should necessarily involve government watch-dogs; people like them and the media should work harder to amplify their messages.

Why should anyone care what you think about this? You clearly don’t understand collective action, so why don’t you just go about your business as usual?

living up to the name dingus88

And yet many people here are just hearing about this due to the EFF announcement.

sounds like it's a religious ceremony to you. the purpose of the strike is to increase pressure on the government, you're demanding actions that decrease that pressure, apparently for piety reasons.

Exactly. The Monday backlog will be twice as big as usual and somehow this is also the measurement for a successful strike??

Sure, if you needed a haircut the day of the strike and you didn't cut your own hair, you're still gonna have to go to the hairdresser the day after. Maybe as part of the general strike you cut your own hair or you just skipped a completely optional purchase though so there is no backlog the next day.

Many strikes don’t directly affect government services, so I don’t understand your point.

In this case, the EFF striking would help "ICE's reign of terror", by removing a watchdog.

It calls for no work, school or shopping, not for them to stay home and close their eyes.

I thought that the EFF’s ‘work’ was to ‘open people’s eyes’ by highlighting important concerns.

Put another way: should television and newspaper reporters not work, and avoid covering any of the protests?

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