resistance and rising expectations

I was recently asked if conditions in the economy were such that we might have real social resistance or an uprising. My initial answer was first I thought the American people had become too passive, second, I was sure that I couldn't imagine what an uprising would look like in the present era, but my third point was that unmet rising expectations help the chances of any revolution.

Two case studies in economic resistance to the down turn suggest that I may be wrong on my first two points.

The most well known of the two is the United Electrical Workers Local 1110 workers at Republic Windows and Doors occupied the plant after the company tried to close up shop with out providing the legally requisite 60 day notice & severance pay. This tied into the companies failure to get loans, the common economic malaise. In the end the workers got there demands met, and for good measure Obama even weighed in saying he thought the workers were right.

The second story comes from Miami in the midst of rising foreclosures where a group called Take Back the Land is doing just that. For about a year now they have been helping homeless folks squat foreclosed houses, around a half a dozen homes have been liberated this way.

Both these cases show that people faced with dire conditions are taking direct action with success. While I'm not anticipating Obama weighing in on Take Back The Land. This kind of direct action is what I would imagine an uprising to look like. to get to a real revolution things will have to be more wide spread, and will need to be taken even further. Eventually occupied homes will need to be defended either through legal agreements (according to the AP story that covered the Miami Squatting such may be the case in Cleveland and Atlanta)or through extra-legal means. Demanding severance pay is no substitute for a job. An example of where this could go is what happened in Argentina, where workers have squatted closed factories and started producing as a workers cooperative.

Homelessness looks like a problem that wont go away until you look at the stock of foreclosed housing. If the auto industry goes down there will be no shortage of factories ripe for squatting. Perhaps then a wider uprising, one that would look familiar to me might be possible. If things go that way I will be delighted to have been wrong on my first two points. Lets keep our expectations rising!