Election day, November 6, 2007, will be a day that many Americans will stop working, or buying, or both.

Garret Keizer proposes a General Strike in October’s Harper’s. He suggests that all Americas strike until Bush and Cheney resign or are impeached.

You should read his words; I can’t do them justice. I will just summarize:

1. The worst thing to come from Bush’s presidency is the loss of hope.
2. By continuing with our daily lives, we are assenting to the status quo. What else needs to happen before we take action?
3. The Bush administration urged us to proceed with life as usual after September 11, and we did, lest “the terrorist win.” Instead of defying terrorism, we have acceded to the “war on terror.”
4. Election day is the day most fitting for a general strike. We would honor those who died on September 11 by resisting the action since taken in their names, and we would stand in solidarity with those whose votes were stolen in the last election.
5. Here’s how it works: everyone stops working; those who must keep working stop buying. The strike is organized and publicized by its willing participants.
6. We should act, instead of waiting out our political procedure because “as long as we’re willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup.”
7. Achieving the strike’s objective would give more than the relief of having a next president who looks good in comparison with Bush. It would give us the hope of knowing we hold the power to hold our leaders accountable.

photo: Amy Smith

I found the idea intriguing, inspiring, and by the time I read these sentences, imperative:

I wrote this appeal during the days leading up to the Fourth of July. I wrote it because for the past six and a half years I have heard the people I love best—family members, friends, former students and parishioners—saying, “I’m sick over what’s happening to our country, but I just don’t know what to do.” Might I be pardoned if, fearing civil disorder less than I fear civil despair, I said, “Well, we could do this.” It has been done before and we could do this. And I do believe we could. If anyone has a better idea, I’m keen to hear it. Only don’t tell me what some presidential hopeful ought to do someday. Tell me what the people who have nearly lost their hope can do right now.

Keizer imagines the question of how he, a freelance journalist, does this: “What do you guys do for a strike, sit on your overdue library books?” So you might ask: What do stay at home moms do for a strike, cancel our play dates? Perhaps it is presumptuous to add my voice to the call to strike when I have no employer to answer to, no money to earn. But I will endeavor to end my consumption of nonessentials on November 6. And I will urge others to strike as well.

Like Keizer’s friends and family, I have been enraged over the state of our politics. I have asked “What do we do about this?” And I have felt unsatisfied with the answers. Until I read this suggestion. Will you join me?