Pretty sure this means that the workers will no longer be protected by law from losing their jobs. If the union leaders condone the strike, they could go to jail. If the union doesn’t condone the strike, this is a wildcat strike and the firm can sue the union if they don’t expel the workers participating. Furthermore the government/firms will be less likely to engage in negotiations with the union if they go through with an unprotected strike.

If the striking workers are government employees, then there could be further reprisals (in some states it’s illegal for government employees to go on strike, as government employees do not have a legally protected right to strike unlike those working in the private sector).

Basically, you always have a legal right to not go to work or to participate in a strike, but there are “protected” and “unprotected” strikes/union action. Workers who participate in a protected strike have certain legal protections over workers in unprotected strikes. Also, while it isn’t illegal to participate in an unprotected strike, disrupting work or unlawful assembly could land strikers or union leaders in legal trouble.

I got all this through 30 mins of googling so if anyone knows more, or if I’ve said something incorrect, please correct me

• https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2005/12/when-did-strikes-become-illegal.html
• https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-in-the-USA-you-can-be-arrested-for-going-on-strike-to-defend-or-improve-the-conditions-of-your-employment
• https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/20/20873867/worker-strike-walkout-stoppage-firing-job
• https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/labor-employment-law/wage-and-hour-law/when-is-going-on-strike-illegal.html

Dude, WHY would you post something like this on the clearweb. You still have time to delete this

Seriously it’s fucking nuts. I saw a post on r/judaism, which is a thoroughly zionist sub that I lurk sometimes to see what zionists are saying, about a person complaining that they didn’t feel comfortable wearing a sweater with a latke on it to a party, something really inane like that, because they were scared of antisemitism.

Actually here is the post, just found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/s/ZkIh2l7ZsJ

Feeling sad about showing my Judaism this holiday season

After seeing the vile responses to quite a few Hanukkah well wishes posts on social media, I am nervous to share my Jewishness this season. We have my work holiday “ugly sweater” party tonight in our downtown area (large metro city in FL), and I don’t want to wear my ‘spinner spinner latke dinner’ sweater in fear of someone retaliating in public. It’s making me very depressed all around having to think like this.

THERE ARE BABIES UNDER FUCKING RUBBLE, like just the sheer scale of human suffering and devestation in Gaza is so imaginable, and you’re worried about a fucking SWEATER??? what the actual fuck?? I mean don’t get me wrong it really sucks that people feel scared to express their Jewishness and America absolutely is really antisemitic, but this is really pathetic.

If hamas is in germany, does that mean hamas is hiding among the german public and using them as human shields? Does that mean we get to shoot, bomb, starve, kill, and torture germans in schools and hospitals and churches indiscriminately until hamas is eliminated?

That’s not true. A slave is at least given some meager scraps of food, shelter, and clothing so that they can survive and reproduce. This professor would be given nothing.

I don’t have books that disprove your idea besides general Marxist and Maoist works, but approaching from a Maoist perspective, I would critique the first part of your thoughts because I think it falls way to deeply into great man theory.

If the communist movement faltered because of the death of people like Fred Hampton, then the movement was weak to begin with and probably would have faltered anyway had those people stayed alive/true to the cause. Successful communist movements do not rely on strong role models, as you put it. You can have all the strong role models you want but it really means nothing if: a) the internal strength of the vanguard party is weak, b) the relationship between the vanguard party and the oppressed masses is weak, c) the unity of the united front is weak, d) the conditions necessary for revolution simply aren’t present (crises, specifically)

• As formulated by Huey Newton with his theory of “revolutionary suicide”, but also just by intuition, the death of a great number of people, civilians and revolutionaries alike, is inevitable in revolutionary war. Any revolutionaries like Hampton that were killed by the state may have been killed later on when the movement shifted to people’s war. How many “great, strong” revolutionaries do you think were killed during the Long March? A proper vanguard party and united front should be prepared for this inevitability by maintaining strong internal unity, linking themselves firmly with the masses, political education etc. Or do you think the solution would have been to wheel Fred Hampton in like a bulletproof steel vessel or something, lest he be destroyed?
• There were plenty of great revolutionaries who existed contemporaneously to Fred Hampton – he certainly wasn’t the only “great revolutionary” of his time. Many of them either a) fell to revisionism (Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver) b) were killed, imprisoned, or exiled for life by the state (Imam Jamil al Amin, Mumia Abu Jamal, Assata Shakur) c) or just died of natural causes after a life of being a successful revolutionary (Kwame Ture).
• The New Left of the 60’s, and their organizations and revolutionaries, were plagued by a great number of internal issues (misogyny, improper political education, splits/lack of unity, lacking security measures, adventurism), and these issues led them to be especially susceptible to being vanquished by the state powers. IMO this is what actually led to the downfall of the BPP and the other 60’s orgs, not so much Fred Hampton’s death.

and in a formal sense, by pushing parents and teachers that would pass those revolutionary behaviors and lifestyles down to their students to the periphery of livelihood and often killing them through social murder.

Don’t know what you mean by this, you could either elaborate using more accessible/clear language, or I can accept it if the question isn’t meant for me lol.

He condemned Hamas and Oct 7th when it happened lol. For me the dividing line would be recognizing the Al Aqsa Flood as genuine expression of colonized people under military dictatorship fighting for liberation, rather than an act of “terrorism” against “innocent civillians” (which is what Lula characterised it as in his condemnation).

Though it’s a different context, I think in State and Revolution, Lenin says something similar, that the real mark of a revolutionary (or something along those lines) is not just in recognizing the class struggle, but embracing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Not to mention, the american revolution happened because the settlers wanted to keep their slaves, keep expanding their colonies and genociding indigenous people, and didn’t want to pay taxes on shit. And it’s permissible and noble for them to revolt under those conditions

Meanwhile it’s bad when Palestinians rise up when they have been refugees and ethnically cleansed for 75 years

He will lose mainstream coverage very soon.

Some points:

I’m Indian, and part of me sometimes doesn’t mind the “reddit” feel of this place, since I’ve been using reddit for more than 10 years and was radicalized online, but hexbear does have this white online leftist veneer. And it does make me feel like I should be more of an observer rather than a participator, sometimes. I think another poster hit the nail on the head about trying to recruit from online spaces that aren’t reddit. I disagree with that poster about twitter tho, since I think there’s plenty of PoC communists using twitter.

The site’s culture and choice of memes (especially the wojacks, even tho I enjoy them lmao) is very white. Might be an unpopular idea but I think injecting some seriousness, education, and effortposting, and cutting back on the shitposts and chan lite culture is a good idea. I say this, because, while there’s nothing wrong with having unserious/casual culture (I personally enjoy it), we should contend with the fact that hexbear’s culture appeals to and is created predominantly by white people. So if hexbear’s point is to have like a lighthearted place to hang out, of course PoC comrades aren’t going to want to hang out since it’s not their culture! But don’t get me wrong I def don’t think the solution is to just remove or transplant hexbear’s culture.

Posting stuff from hoodcommunist.org. It’s a big communist Black/African blog and their writing has never been posted here lol (tbh I don’t mind posting them). Reposting blogs/writing/poetry from comrades in the 3rd world. Also repost PoC orgs like Black Alliance for Peace. Get real organizers and revolutionaries, or revolutionary orgs in the streets to do AMA’s here, and/or feature them in posts (while still maintaining hexbear’s independence of course).

I think it’s fine that a lot of site users are Americans and post about America, maybe because I am american as well lol, but there should be more posting and education about 3rd world liberation struggles. More emphasis, nuance, care about and for the Black and Brown world. What’s that, you don’t know anything about that? All the more reason to educate ourselves.

Sometimes it feels like when Black and Brown revolutionaries are discussed here, they are treated by people here as either just A) static tokens, where white leftists will like worship them without being able to appraise them critically or see them for their flaws and nuance or B) completely unknown, and just disregarded. An example of A is like you might have a thread about Thomas Sankara or Fred Hampton, where someone will be able to list all their accomplishments and how cool they were, but no one is really interested in, or able to criticize and see their faults. When you treat groups and people like this, it’s kinda tokenizing. there were very serious faults and flaws with these revolutionaries, and a lot of these other movements that we need to take seriously and criticize openly, not just bask in victories from decades ago. As for B, one of the largest and most advanced revolutions taking place rn is the Naxalite revolution of India. As far as Ik there’s never been any discussion on it. Here’s an hour long video covering it from Marxist Paul: https://youtu.be/exd74uNJaeQ?si=cCkpB9odCHHsGsLc There’s seriously plenty for white people to learn, study, and discuss from 3rd world liberation movements.