first off, plan 9--->the main reason amuricans don't pay attention to what happens in france is because it doesn't happen in english. amuricans are too fucking parochial and smug in general to bother learning languages that aren't english. this has consequences---the best health care system in the world is the french one. the only reason that was not on the table during debates in the us about health care was that the system operates in french. parochialism. arrogant, know-nothing parochialism. that's why amuricans ignore france.....and most other places.
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the simplest response is that the united states didn't want political trade unions because it was petrified of COMMUNISM so by the 50s had imposed sector monopolies--one union, one industrial sector---which had the effect of depoliticizing union activity. in france, you can have 3-4 unions competing in the same industry for the same constituency. they jockey and fight with each other in political language.
second there's a tradition of street actions.
1789, 1830, 1848, 1870, 1919, 1936 (popular front), the movements against the algerian war, 1968...
third, there's actually reason to believe that political action has effects. there isn't the wholesale disempowerment of people you have in the united states. people aren't so thoroughly managed. personally, i think the nature of american television has something to do with it---but that's connected to an entire model for organizing private space, another feature of which is hostility to public spaces and to the public more generally.
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o yeah, if you want an idea of what's going on, le monde is good. and it's still getting updated (what's up with that?)
Le Monde.fr : Actualité à la Une
on today, estimates were of a half million people out to protest at noon.
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/articl...ens_id=1305816
it runs through various sectors, particularly in transportation, and gives rates of workers who are out. there's apparently a growing gasoline shortage that's being caused by these actions.
11 of the 12 refineries in france are shut down and the 12, owned by exxon, is running on a minimum schedule. the indicators of the extent of the shortage keep changing, but it's pretty clear that this is starting to pinch.
a strike is meaningless really unless it can shut things down in a way that threatens to bring the wider system to it's knees. strikes are a way regular people have real economic power. economic power is political power. in the united states, people walk around powerless blabbing alot about how free they are. it's funny, when you think about it.