A barricade closes the street, but it opens the way --French proverb
Look Chapos, I'm dead serious.
fake general strikes like this one do nothing.
--They Work. The airport protests that blockaded the gates delayed the Muslim bans by months. The barricades erected by students in Mai '68 were quickly followed by a general strike. The barricades put on train tracks by Indigenous people in so-called "canada" stopped the police incursion in Wet'suwet'en territory. The Oka crisis barricades stopped the construction of a golf course on Mohawk land.
--Labor doesn't start general strikes, social movements do. Fredy Perlman once observed that Mai '68 was not the product of communist parties or labor unions, but "a handful of madmen". The general strike of '68 didn't start with the unions but with students barricading the streets. It was only when the students mobilized that the unions followed.
--They do the same kind of economic damage that strikes do All construction is done on massive loans with massive interest. Every hour of delay is massive amounts of lost money. Stopping trucks, cement mixers, trains, waste interest, paid labor, and so much more. You are effectively forcing hundreds of workers to go on strike for the day.
So go to the protests, the lib ones, the socialist ones, the planned parenthood ones, and talk to them about blockades. A lot of times, folks will follow anyone with a bullhorn and a banner. They're the clipboard and yellow vest of protests.
I LIKE THIS I LIKE THIS I LIKE THIS
If you want to use the "American" phrasing, sit-ins during the the Civil Rights movement were essentially barricades. But I like the word barricades a lot more.