Chapter 36: Strategies and Tactics

In a traditional strike, employees close down the workplace by refusing to perform their functions as they picket in front of the facility carrying signs and otherwise publicizing their issues while negotiating with employers for improvements in salary, working conditions and more. Strikers shut down production as a way of forcing employers to take them seriously and generating public awareness of their struggle and plight.

The traditional strike entails a serious sacrifice and risk for strikers, who will have to live without pay for the duration of the strike. Union strike funds are usually insufficient for a prolonged confrontation. In many cases strikers may be subjected to violence, harassment and intimidation from the company against which they are striking.

The traditional strike has been an effective way of gaining improved wages, rights, and safer working conditions in the past, since shutting down the company's production and/or distribution operations halts the flow of profits. It is a battle of attrition. When successful, a strike wins gains for employees when the employer reaches a point where loss of revenues and stock prices due to non-production and public boycotts becomes severe enough for the Feudal Lords of the company to begrudgingly make concessions in order to minimize losses.

Employers usually try to bring in scab (non-union) workers past strikers' picket lines to continue production. Strikers often have to physically battle in order to prevent scabs from gaining access. The public, being overwhelmingly made up of employees living on inadequate pay, have traditionally been largely supportive of strikers because of their widely shared economic reality. Strikes are generally accompanied by large-scale boycotting of the employer's goods and/or services, which puts further economic pressure on the company to seek a compromise in order to get production and distribution up and running. Unions traditionally maintain a Strike Fund, paid into from Union dues, for the purpose of assisting workers in surviving during the wageless period of a strike.

The traditional strike has been an effective means of forcing change and improving living and working conditions for employees in the specific industry or company where the strike occurs. The prevalence of strikes has resulted in the overall improvement of working conditions, pay and other compensation, treatment and rights of employees overall in the Community. Over time, this has even resulted in the passing of laws protecting these rights.

Sadly, at this point in time, in a growing number of Capitalist societies and countries, the traditional strike has been rendered much less effective by a combination of factors:

1) Powerful corporate lobbies have driven governments to generate effective propaganda portraying unions and strikers as disruptive elements, unsavory, criminal, even labeling them as "economic terrorists." Corporations pay large sums of money to disseminate propaganda and disinformation, often misrepresented as government-generated or as coming from a source whose mission is to stand up for the good of employees.

If one encounters a statement on a website, in a magazine or on TV, purporting to come from "Citizens for a Safer Workplace" or "Workers’ Alliance" or "Citizens for Freedom," most people will tend to trust that the source is oriented towards protection of employees’ rights and well-being. We will tend to be pre-disposed to accept what is written there. If the language is carefully crafted, it can and often does lead many readers to believe that unions (not employers) are the exploiters of employees, that higher wages, safer working conditions or better healthcare insurance will lead to layoffs and job loss, and are therefore bad for employees. It is the real-world manifestation of the “doublespeak” made famous in George Orwell’s book “1984.”

This creates a serious rift within the ranks of the employees and the general public while fostering an endemic attitude of indifference or even hostility toward unions and strikers. Even the constantly-rising cost of living is blamed on labor costs by those whose policies toward employees place them in the position of needing to demand higher pay in order to survive in the first place.

Under pressure of the psychological reinforcers inherent in Capitalist paradigms, all parties are reinforced to maximize the accumulation of money, which is kept scarce and always comes to one at the expense of the other.

2) The media are increasingly driven by Corporate and other big-money interests' agendas. Reporting has largely ceased to be about seeking the truth with no preconceptions. It has become a matter of making sure the story is told as the reporter's bosses want it to be told. If a Network’s Feudal Lords do not want a strike reported, want it downplayed, or want it portrayed as the work of subversives, malcontents, criminals, terrorists, hooligans or disruptive elements, then that is how it will be portrayed. With few exceptions, the populace sees what the Feudal Lords want them to see.

This is equally true in China, North Korea, Syria, Russia, Iran, the United States of America and other countries. In such an environment, a strike gets drowned out and downplayed to the point of going virtually unnoticed, and vilified when it is noticed.

3) Many unions themselves have become complacent, corrupt, and disconnected from their real purpose and mission. In many unions, leadership has been seduced by the lure of money to become susceptible to clandestine influence by, and cooperation with, management, to the detriment of workers in the union.

A dramatic example of this in the United States was when the Teamster's Union was used by growers to intimidate and suppress farm workers in the American Southwest when they were first organizing the United Farmworkers’ Union. Sadly, employees can no longer fully trust or count on Union leadership to defend and protect their interests.

4) Because of the history of gains made in the past by Labor Unions and labor movements in general, people have come to perceive themselves as having arrived at a better, more equitable situation than employees in the past. While this was true for a fairly long period of time, resting on that assumption has led to complacency, apathy, and a false sense of well-being and safety in the workplace and labor market.

5) An increasing number of companies have taken to hiring people as "contractors" instead of employees. Contractors do not legally have the same rights as employees, which saves companies a lot of money and relieves them of having to follow many of the laws that protect employees.

The tactics of the Transition will have to be innovative, aggressive, nonviolent, and immune to the vulnerabilities of the traditional strike. Think of a "reverse strike" - more on this soon.

The General Strike has been used effectively in many European countries to force change in economic policies, practices and laws. In a General Strike, the entire population or a significant portion of it refuses to go to work in all sectors, effectively shutting down the economy.

The general strike is even more effective if strikers, hopefully most or all of the population, also refrain from making purchases or conducting any economic activity whatsoever during the strike. It has the advantage of being nonviolent and less vulnerable to the use of targeted intimidation or scab labor than a traditional strike.

This is more effective than strikes aimed at specific employers, industries or facilities, when the goal is to bring about systemic change in economic policies, laws, and practices across all industries and sectors of a country or Community.

Personal risk is less than in a traditional strike since there is no concentration of strikers in a place where they can be targeted for intimidation or arrest on whatever pretext. There is no concentration of angry frustrated people that can easily degenerate into a purging of anger and frustration rather than a concerted action focused on a mission or goal to achieve clearly-defined changes. The use of the general strike will likely be more effective than the traditional strike in forcing economic change, and it most definitely has its place in the strategy and tactics leading up to the Transition depending on conditions in a specific country or community. Vital services such as hospitals and firefighters need not be shut down as long as the economy as a whole is brought to a standstill.

The main limitation of the general strike for the purpose of bringing about a complete and smooth shutdown of the pyramidal Capitalistic economic system and quickly, smoothly replacing it with the new Paradigms, is that once the General Strike's goals have been met, the Capitalist economy resumes operation. Whether the issue in question is wage parity for women or minorities, safe working conditions, the end of specific practices by banks or manufacturers, or the holding to account of specific corrupt officials or other persons, once these goals are met, the overall Capitalist economic mechanisms come back online, unchanged in its core structure and principles of operation. The gains thus made will in time be reversed by the intrinsic power and influence of the neo-Feudal lords in the such societies.

It is highly unlikely that a General Strike would be an effective strategy to force legislators and Corporate boards of directors to disband, deconstruct the economic power structure and willingly hand control over to the workers under supervision of the People, much less to abandon the use of money altogether.

A new strategy is needed if we are to achieve a true end to Capitalist paradigms and mechanisms, if we are to create a paradigm based on principles that, when translated into actions, policies, and reinforcers, lead to a functioning mode of operation that brings about an empowered, thriving, synergistic, symbiotic population of empowered, fulfilled individuals working together to fulfill the dreams, aspirations and well-being of each and all. Measures aimed at "fixing" and regulating Capitalism to curtail abuses and excesses will never bring about a fundamental change any more than cough syrup will cure lung cancer or the rules of chivalry could make war any less savage. This is where the "reverse strike" comes in.

The "reverse strike" works like this:

On an agreed-upon day, everybody will come to work as usual and do their jobs almost as usual, with a few important differences:

1) Functionally, work will go on almost entirely as usual. Assembly lines will continue to assemble, power plants will continue to supply electricity, hospitals will continue to treat patients, crops will continue to be tended, trucks and trains will continue to roll, ships will continue to sail, planes will continue to fly, schools will hold classes and so forth.

2) Behind the scenes there will be massive changes in procedures. Workers in finance and billing departments will have a new mission: to ensure that all clients/subscribers receive their goods and services, period. Billing will stop. Instead, all accounts will be marked paid in full and current in order to ensure the unobstructed, uninterrupted flow of goods and services. Even past-due accounts will be marked paid in full.

Software developers will go to work rewriting business software to eliminate billing, collections, and related functions altogether. Ideally this will have largely been done prior to the Transition so that on the day of Transition, the existing software will be patched to eliminate all billing, collections, and termination-of-service functionality. But the necessity of the element of surprise may make it impractical to modify the software before the Transition.

Pharmacists will give patients their prescriptions without billing or charging, likewise doctors, dentists and other providers will render their services without charge. On the day of Transition, people will cease paying rent or mortgage. Insurance, billing, banks, collections, stock exchanges and finance companies will find themselves locked, closed, cut off from all power and communication, their entrances physically blocked, as their functions will no longer be needed.

Stores will be open and cashiers will be ringing customers out but not charging them. The ringing of transactions will be purely for the purpose of inventory tracking and resource management. Gas stations will set prices to zero, effectively not charging. Simultaneously, the workers at provider and distributor locations will cease to charge the public, and the public will cease to pay. If payment is offered, it will be refused. If payment is demanded, it will not be given.

3) Managers, especially upper management, Board members and CEO’s, will be the last to realize that something has changed without their involvement. When they or their representatives go on-site to factories, stores, farms, etc. they will find workers running things smoothly while not responding to their orders.

When the now-dethroned upper echelons of the defunct Pyramid attempt to assert their authority, they will be met with polite but unwavering resistance and refusal to comply. Workers will inform their former managers and those above them that they are no longer in control and that their accustomed function is no longer needed.

Some of these former executives and officers will attempt to use physical force to enforce compliance. They will be met with firm, calm but effective verbal and physical resistance, up to and including being bodily removed from the facility, but not harmed in any way nor spoken to disrespectfully.

When those formerly in charge realize that they have lost control of the operation, some of them will attempt to use the legal system and law enforcement to enforce their will, which will entail forcing the workers to shut down operations. However, at least a significant percentage of police and the military will have realized that the Transition is in the true spirit of the oaths that they have sworn to protect the peace and the people. In the United States for example, they will have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Since Capitalism is a direct domestic threat to the Constitution and the Transition is restoring governance to the People, many of them will refuse to follow the orders of the former Feudal Lords, and will in fact apply themselves to preventing violence against the people in Transition. In instances where the government attempts to force restoration of the power of the neo-Feudal Lords, we must refuse to comply, stand firm and fast and resist, only using physical force in self defense if physical force is used against us. We will not seek to overthrow the Constitutional government; however, we will not comply with nor accept its mis-application as instrument of enforcement for the anti-democratic Capitalist power structure.

4) There will be some at every level who did not get the word about the Transition. Some will attempt to resist or sabotage the Transition, either out of fear, resistance to change, or a sense of loyalty to the old Paradigm. If the overthrow is carried out well, then those engaged in initiating the Transition will contain and restrain these people in ways similar to those used to contain individuals who become violent or combative due to dementia, mental illness or drugs. All workers will be prevented from performing functions of billing, disconnecting, invalidating, denying service or otherwise enforcing the patterns of the deposed Capitalist paradigm. Such people must be prevented from doing damage but be treated with respect and not harmed in the process.

5) The media may or may not cover the overthrow and the Transition objectively, factually, or at all. We must keep in mind that the workers involved in media, the reporters, camerapeople, grips, drivers, editors, etc. will largely be part of the Transition, but not all of them will be.

Even if the media are prevented from carrying the story, millions of cell phones and other devices will stream the story to the world via the Internet. The people of the country in Transition and of the world will see the truth of the situation: the change-bringers will be in fact the reasonable, level-headed party, bent on keeping the normal functions of life continuing undisrupted. It is essential that the people of the world see this for themselves. The CEO's, billionaires and other dethroned former Feudal Lords will be forced to show themselves as violent, unreasonable, power-addicted thugs bent on preventing life from going on, shutting off the lights, and preventing food from reaching people's tables. The respective roles of the people of the Transition and of the Capitalist Feudal Lords and their loyalists will be obvious for all to see and understand. With every human being acting as a live reporter, it will not be possible to suppress the reality of the Transition.

This will also differ from traditional strikes in that there will be no negotiation, no offer and counter-offer, no return to the way things were. Work and production will not be disrupted. What will be shut down will be the Capitalist economy itself, the parasitic, predatory functionalities. That side of things will be shut down permanently.

If and when the denizens of the old paradigm attempt to use violence and coercion to enforce their will, they will be dealt with in the same way that a community responds to anybody attempting to disturb the peace, intimidate or assault other people, commit vandalism or otherwise do harm. Transitionaries will strive to avoid the use of violence and disrespectful language and behavior, except to use such physical force as is needed to defend ourselves and each other while keeping normal production, distribution and delivery of goods and services running normally.

6) Concurrently while the Transition is happening, statements will be released in all media: television, radio, printed media, the Internet and individual to individual by email, text, social media and Instant Messaging. These statements will announce, explain and state succinctly in clear, balanced terms what is occurring, why it is occurring, and the basic principles, tenets and goals of the Transition and new Paradigms. These messages and statements will not be demands, nor will they decry or denounce individuals or groups, not even those modern day Feudal Lords who are at the top of the Pyramid.

The messages will state that the previous socio-economic paradigm has become nonviable and unworkable, and that the People are effecting a change, a Transition, to a paradigm that will result in a vastly higher level of human happiness, well-being and relationships after replacing the epidemically adversarial, mutually predatory win-lose-lose socio-economic dynamics of the economic Pyramid. We will explain that the new paradigms will be a synergistic, cooperative win-win-win paradigm, a democratic economy to more faithfully realize the principle of government of, by and for the People. It will emphasize that there can be no democracy, no government of, by, and for the People, without economy of, by, and for the People.

When the Transition comes to the United States of America, it would be a good starting point for this mission statement to quote the Declaration of Independence citing the following excerpt: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The statement can then proceed to explain how the pyramidal economic power structure has devolved into a form that is irreconcilably inimical and destructive to the core Constitutional principles, that therefore the People are exerting their right and duty to alter and abolish the economic power structure.

In the United States the message should include a call to all who swore an oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic" to recognize that their oath compels them to support, defend, and participate in the Transition.

The statement must include strong expressions specifying that the goal is a nonviolent Transition through changing the principles of economic organization and operation, while seamlessly and smoothly maintaining the processes involved in daily living. It must be absolutely clear that nobody, not even those deposed and dethroned by the Transition will be vilified, lynched, humiliated, disrespected or harmed, though they will no longer be in control of anything but their own lives.

The Statement will include a declaration that henceforth no person or organization shall charge money for goods or services, that no one shall be required to pay for anything, that all dwellings are henceforth the property of those living in them and all unoccupied lands and buildings are legal for persons to occupy and that violence or coercion by anybody will not be permitted.

In each country the Statement will be adapted to the culture, institutions, issues, fundamental principles and defining documents of the specific country. This statement will be put forth in all media, passed from person to person by text, email, Instant Messaging and Social Media, and delivered in multiple media to the embassies and consulates of all countries in the country in Transition.

A similar message will be presented to the world as a whole. The content will be mostly the same as the domestic message, but with additional language expressing that the Transition is carried out by reasonable people who intend wherever possible to honor existing treaties, alliances and contracts, with the provision that all production and distribution facilities in the Transitioning country are henceforth owned and operated by the People who work them, and that all corporations are henceforth null and void. The message will assure the world that new trade agreements will be made which respect all participants' interests, and that the post Transition country will respect the sovereignty and the will of the people of all other countries, but will not conduct business nor perpetuate contracts or agreements with parties engaging in human rights violations nor environmentally destructive practices.

Assurances will be made that the nationals of all countries are guaranteed safety during and after the Transition. All parties will be encouraged to continue their activities as usual. Exceptions will be advising all people to refrain from charging or paying one another and the fact that the former occupants of the upper portion of the Pyramid are no longer in control and are not to be heeded, obeyed, harmed or harassed.

This way of initiating the Transition will ideally result in little no disruption of the lives of the overwhelming majority of residents in the involved Community. In less-than-ideal scenarios, the disruption will be far shorter-lived and less severe than in traditional methods of overthrow and overhaul.

It will take some time for all of the aspects of the Transition to come up to full function. Designers and engineers will redesign products and technologies. Factories will retool. Some stores will reorient and combine into distribution centers while others will be re-purposed due to redundancy.

People who formerly worked in obsolete parasitic industries, such as insurance, sales, marketing, banking, stock trading, etc. will need to be assisted to find fulfilling niches in the new Paradigm that utilize their skills and areas of expertise in new ways. A large-scale project will be mounted to encourage, train and support individuals and communities to develop new small-scale infrastructures for energy generation and food production, among other things. This will lead to the decommissioning of a growing number of large-scale generation plants, factory farms, and other antiquated and obsolete facilities. During this phase of the Transition, workers in all sectors of the community will work together to keep goods and services flowing as efficiently as possible while shifting emphasis, methodology, and logistics. If this is done properly, the typical citizen will experience only minimal disruption of their lives, probably less than they were accustomed to under Capitalism due to other causes.

We can anticipate that among those accustomed to wielding wealth and power that will no longer exist, there will be some who will seek to suppress the Transition by violent means. If our Transition is to be a vehicle for truly lasting fundamental change that will result in a golden age of well-being, prosperity and harmony unparalleled in human history, then we cannot and must not initiate violence, nor escalate it whenever not absolutely unnecessary. Yet it would be foolish to not be equipped to defend ourselves.

At that point it will be the task of every person participating in the Transition to care for the wounded and render assistance to all injured parties, regardless of which side of the conflict they are on. Prisoners are to be disarmed, prevented from doing harm, given the same level of treatment and respect that is given to our own people, and then released unarmed but unharmed. This ethic must be adhered to rigorously and religiously for the sake of the kind of community we seek to establish. This will also make it clear to uninformed people of the country in Transition who are unsure what to expect, and to the watching people of the rest of the world as well, that this Transition is being carried out in full accordance with published intentions and philosophy. Our actions will and must show that the people generating the Transition are reasonable, humane, compassionate people of conscience, not terrorists, power-hungry mercenaries or brutal extremists.

Government will not be intentionally disrupted though it will be impacted by this Transition to the new Paradigm. Those in government will have to adapt to the new social dynamics in order to perform their functions. Elected officials will discover that they no longer enjoy a status above that of the typical citizen. Some may quit over this change and will be replaced in special elections with duly elected candidates able and willing to work with the new Paradigm to serve the well-being of the people.

This is not just a Transition to a new socio-economic Paradigm. It is also a new way of implementing an overthrow and fundamental paradigm shift, in such a way as to avoid a blood bath and commission of atrocities in the name of vengeance disguised as justice. No Transition or Revolution whose first act is to purge, kill, beat, drag through the streets, humiliate or demean any person or group, can realistically hope to establish a new Paradigm leading to a truly free, safe, thriving community of highly empowered, thriving, symbiotic individuals embodying unity in diversity, e pluribus unum.

Once one country has successfully implemented its Transition, the world will know that it is not only possible, but practical, viable, and superior to Capitalism and other forms of institutionalized hierarchy in every way. Once the viability, superiority and practicality of the new Paradigms is established, people of other countries will be inspired and empowered to embark on their own Transitions, just as once the first airplane was built and flown, a vast profusion of different kinds of flying machines followed soon after. Once a new paradigm and set of principles are implemented and proven in practice, then if they are clearly viable, workable and superior to what was before, they will inevitably spread and propagate far and wide at an ever increasing rate until it becomes the new norm. So it will be with the Transition to the new socio-economic paradigms.