Nowtopian

We had our second Spring Talk last night, featuring Greg Gaar and his unmatchable slide show of pre-urban and natural San Francisco. Standing room only, we were regaled by a systematic tour of the great sand dunes that once covered the entire peninsula from the breakers to the bay. One photo I was really struck by was taken in the late 1850s from Mint Hill looking due east, and just to the east of Valencia still stands some really tall (70-100 ft) sand ridges covered in scrub. The whole area from apx. 8th to 14th streets was characterized by a series of sand ridges with fresh water ponds in the gulleys. This was one of the first photos I’ve seen that showed it so clearly.

Last week’s inaugural Spring Talk on general strikes went really well too, drawing about 45 people, and much to my surprise nearly everyone stayed to the end and we had a very stimulating conversation. We touched on the problems of organizing, whether based on existing jobs and workplaces or in some new way on the basis of new(er) freely chosen associations. One woman smartly brought up the problem of the new globalized reality we’re in, and that solidarity today means connecting to the workers of China, who apparently staged over 6,000 strikes last year. (We’d love to host a forum on China and the connection to the local economy and political scene in the fall… if you’re interested in helping organize it, please contact me.)

We tried to illustrate the distinction between the theory of the General Strike as a political action versus a general strike as act of widespread class solidarity and sympathy. There is also the problem of the term ‘general’ which gets applied to region-wide strikes that cross many occupations, but also to simply industry-wide strikes in which, e.g. all coal miners strike. The San Francisco strike of 1934 was clearly more of a solidarity/sympathy general strike, and the Oakland strike of 1946 was even less of an overt political movement at the time. The choke point at Telegraph and San Pablo where one or two streetcar conductors stopped their cars led to a huge shutdown that turned into something of a three day party in downtown Oakland, surrounding the struck department stores (Kahn’s and Hastings). Fascinating stuff.

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