Arabisto.com
The text of the document from when all this activity apparently springs is as follows: “All national forces in Egypt have agreed upon the 6th of April to be a public strike. On the 6th of April, stay home, do not go out; Don’t go to work, don’t go to the university, don’t go to school, don’t open your shop, don’t open your pharmacy, don’t go to the police station, don’t go to the camp; We need salaries allowing us to live, we need to work, we want our children to get education, we need human transportation means, we want hospitals to get treatment, we want medicines for our children, we need just judiciary, we want security, we want freedom and dignity, we want apartments for youth; We don’t want prices increase, we don’t want favoritism, we don’t want police in plain clothes, we don’t want torture in police stations, we don’t want corruption, we don’t want bribes, we don’t want detentions. Tell your friends not to go to work and ask them to join the strike.” It was signed by and supported by the Al-Karama Party, the Al-Wasat Party, the Labor Party, Kifaya, the Bar Association, Educational Workers Movement, University Professors, Grain Mill Workers and of course the Ghazl Al-Mahala workers. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo, however, does NOT support it and has threatened to fire anyone who misses work on Sunday.
It is obvious from this text that workers the world over are fed up with Capitalisms failed strategy of Free Market self regulation. While the world enjoys the greatest food surpluses in history, food prices are rising and wages and employment are falling. While imperialist regimes subsidize multi-billion dollar banking interests, they tell the masses to go eat rocks. They also drive home the fact that if workers complain about the impoverishment they are suffering that they will "fire" them and hire someone who is willing to work for peanuts in any event. It is hard (though not impossible) for me to find guilt in anyone who is trying to earn a buck to survive in spite of a workers' strike, but institutionalized hunger and poverty is exactly what allows big business to operate in spite of a workers' strike.
I was SHOCKED on April 1,2008 when the Teamsters had announced that there would be a general strike of the trucking industry in the U.S. but the roads were still crowded with big rigs. The fact is that if some independent truckers stop their trucks, even for a day, they will lose their livelihood altogether. I understand this position. But the economic leverage that big business has over "the little guy" is clearly demonstrated here. Work and go slowly under or strike and free fall into absolute poverty and homelessness.
So, the question becomes not when we will strike to flex our collective economic muscle but when we will Socialize all industry and remove those corrupt "middle men" who contribute little or nothing to the value of a product or service from the economic food chain. Striking does indeed serve a purpose. But it will not be the vehicle for social change. Only sweeping global economic and political reforms hold any chance of removing the element of greed from the global approach toward a free and prosperous global society.
Strike if you will and strike if you must. But solidification of all left and socialist groups, parties, and peoples in their common goal will be necessary to correct the damages wrought on society in general by "free market" and Capitalist Privatization. Only a unified voice aimed at removing the influence of special and private interests from the decision and policy making processes of governments can ever promote the progress that our world so desperately needs. And for this we need leadership from within our ranks. And there is not one headliner candidate in the U.S. Presidential Campaign that fills that bill.
