May Day 2012 and the Indian Spring: A Day Without America’s Outsourced Jobs?

How will Americans feel when they act in solidarity, during the May Day 2012 actions, with the very people whom are the recipients of the lost jobs Americans mourn?  Will they think that their brothers and sisters on the other side of the planet mock them?  Or, that they are simply the victims if a regional system even easier for corporations to exploit?  Will they excuse their obvious common cause out of hand, because of nationalism, prejudice, or just plain ignorance?  Will they resort to the old, tired, intellectually dishonest refrain that it’s “not my country, not my problem?”  Or, will it finally become a reality for them that we are all, the workers and middle-class of the world, the victims of a predatory capitalist system that knows no borders, and gives no allegiance to any country, or nation, and uses us all, one against the other, so that it may exploit us all equally?

Solidarity, in and of itself, is an enlightening experience.  Often more so than the end to which it is a means.

American efforts, in the 1880’s and 1890’s, to mount any opposition against corporate control of their government failed because they were convinced to act on their own ignorance and fear and make racism a dividing factor that eventually brought their movement to its knees.  Since that time, over and over again, religion, racism, and every other ugly manifestation of the culture war, a sort of societal cannibalism, a self-eating disorder caused by narrow minds, has succeeded in limiting the effectiveness of every best chance we’ve had at emancipation.

The almost 1.2 billion people of India have a rich history of political activism.  Like many giants, it may take what seems like a lot to arouse them, but when they are, and this particularly goes for the large rural population of India, they become fully, and fearlessly engaged.

The middle class in India has disappeared.  The wealth disparity greater than any of the countries currently rising up against unemployment, underemployment, corrupt politicians, and service devastating austerity measures.  The discontent hangs in the air.  The anger simmers.  A groundswell of organizing has begun.  India will be the next powder keg to blow and join in the global uprising.  The Indian people aren’t likely to be satisfied just setting up tents.

Well over half of America’s fortune 500 companies outsource jobs to India.  Greater than four million jobs in IT alone, and many more in the massive call center industry.  Solidarity with the global May Day actions have the potential to grind many services to a halt.

This is not a spectator sport. We must act in concert.  Our sisters and brothers from Bangladesh to Moscow, from Sao Paulo to Manila, From Belfast to Mexico, and from Los Angeles to Berlin, will be taking to the streets.  We must do it in solidarity.

While the media tries to portray the Occupy Movement as a temper tantrum of teenage angst played out in  parks around the globe, the movement itself has grown beyond their narrow comprehension.  The global nature of the movement is no longer just a visceral reaction to social and economic injustice.  The movement is becoming a well organized network poised to become the necessary change they want to see in the world.