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Sandy Shelter Shock: Capitalism’s Murderous Dysfunction
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- 16 November 2012 297 hits
Bronx, NY. I had signed up with the NY State medical volunteer corps a week before, but they were demanding minimum 12-hour shifts, making it impossible for a working MD to participate. Only now, after a week, was it possible to make one’s own hours.
When I arrived, I saw the vast floor covered with wall-to-wall cots, including many children and the elderly, as well as a wall of cages for pet cats and dogs. People lined up to see me in small numbers, since no general announcement of my availability was made.
Of those I spoke to, nearly all came from Far Rockaway, 24 miles away, with a few from the burned-out houses of Breezy Point, Queens. Some had lived in Redfern public housing, 14 buildings where there is still no heat or electricity. Others were renters in low-lying homes or apartments and had lost all their possessions.
Since the storm they had been moved three times, from Queens College to York College to this shelter in the Franklin Armory in the Bronx. This afternoon, they were suddenly told they’d be moving again today, but no one would tell them where. As one elderly white woman said, “they treat us like criminals, not victims.” They had not had access to medical care for the last five days.
I saw patients at my table in full public view, with no way to do anything except take a blood pressure or listen to a chest (identical to my experience in villages in occupied Palestine.) Everyone had lists or bottles of prescriptions that had run out, for high blood pressure, diabetes, or mental health. Of the six insulin-requiring diabetics, only one had been told that there was a refrigerator where her insulin could be kept.
One elderly diabetic, whose Medicaid had been cut off, had no way of paying for her medication. After receiving no help from the shelter staff, a young volunteer lawyer managed to find a pharmacy three miles away that would fill her prescription, but there was no way to pick it up. Two others needed to go to the hospital for evaluation. But since there was no transportation, an ambulance had to be called for one, and I provided taxi fare for another. A social worker was scheduled to come in two days, when these residents would be gone.
There were two large cases of medical equipment, over-the-counter medicines, and some dressings, left by some agency. However, patients in need of more advanced supplies, like nebulizers or apnea machines, had no access to them. As I was getting ready to leave, passing around Motrin, Tylenol and what CHALLENGES I had, more patients asked to be seen.
While all this was going on, the place was packed with politicians, representatives of the Salvation Army in fancy dress, and a Turkish news agency. I demanded to speak to someone who could actually solve particular problems. Eventually I got filmed telling Scott Stringer, Manhattan’s Borough President, that there had to be a general policy that insurance companies could not refuse to pay for medications being refilled before their “due date,” if they had been lost in the storm. Not one of the bigwigs was able to offer any solution to simple problems like transport to the hospital or pharmacy.
The most helpful person I spoke to was a victim, Ed, who was still working at his job delivering phone books. He was trying to solve everyone’s particular problems, keep people informed, and challenging those in charge. He described how his son had been assigned to a school in Brooklyn, although they lived in the Bronx. They took him there to register with all their belongings in tow, since no secure storage is provided.
The next day the Department of Education (DOE) told him to switch his son to a school in the Bronx, and now they are moving again. The DOE threatens parents with ACS (child removal services) intervention if their child does not show up in school.
Ed also explained that if a family is moved to a hotel, they are given $2,000 to spend, which may last for 10 or so days. They can then look for an apartment, and if they find one and qualify for FEMA assistance, they may stay for 3-18 months. The $2,000 hotel allowance was deducted from the rental assistance. There is no assurance that most will be able to find a temporary or permanent residence.
Another family told of being awarded a FEMA grant which could not be directly deposited because of their bank’s malfunction. It was sent to their abandoned address. FEMA then refused to stop payment and redeposit the amount, saying the family would have to wait for the check to be returned.
Everyone in the shelter, black, Latino or white, was poor. It was clear that capitalism does not wish to take care of the working class. Racism is used to divide us in neighborhoods, schools and work, to super-exploit black and Latino workers, and to make invisible, the suffering during natural and man-made disasters. In this shelter, residents were getting along together, but their overwhelming individual problems and their constant motion made it difficult for them to protest.
Ed, like many others, agreed the system has to go. They see the murderous dysfunction of capitalism and its servant politicians. Many took CHALLENGE and we will get to know them and win them to fight for revolutionary change. We need to fight for a new world organized around workers’ needs, not the profits of a few.
Red Doc
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, November 12 — Up to 700 angry students from campuses of the State University of Haiti, up in arms over the racist police killing of Damaël D’Haïti, a young law student two nights ago, took to the streets here today, confronting armed police, some in an armored tank.
Starting at 8:00 AM, several hundred students assembled at the Law School, chanting that the killer cop be brought to justice, and demanding quality education. They marched to all the nearby campuses, gathering more students at each one, effectively shutting down many. At each corner along the route, they burned tires and set up roadblocks. Traffic in the crowded downtown area was paralyzed for much of the day.
After several more campus stops, including a private university next to the Central Police Station, they called on those students to join the march. When they returned to the Law School they were met by a squad car with about six police (PNH). The cops — armed to the teeth — tried to block their way but were vastly outnumbered and were forced to retreat.
The students moved on to the Police Commissioner’s Office, demanding that the killer cop not be moved from that station. (The PNH moves “troublesome” cops around in order to hide and protect them.) Back at the Law School, angrier than ever, the students faced off against six MINUSTAH (UN occupiers of Haiti since 2004 to suppress such actions), squad cars and an armored tank.
When the tank advanced on the students, the cops were met with a hail of stones the students had placed in the streets to block traffic. Then they retreated a few yards. When the tank moved forward, the students responded with more stones, then retreated again.
The battle continued for hours as students moved from school to school. This spontaneous outbreak developed into a more organized display of anguish and class hatred. Numerous students took leadership, many under the leadership of the Progressive Labor Party. Young but seasoned comrades worked side by side with new, emerging leaders. Flyers were produced, decisions were discussed and carried out. Plans were made for mass participation in the teachers’ strike the following day. Students spoke about revolution. A Party study group is in the works.
What provoked this outrage? Saturday night, at a concert at the Law School, the cop, employed by the nearby University Hospital and wearing civilian clothes, entered the campus illegally. (Haiti’s Constitution bars armed police from entering campuses.)
When the concert ended, there was a little ruckus among a few students, which quickly died down. At that point, the cop shot into the crowd, hitting Damaël in the face. He died immediately. (We met with a student who had witnessed the killing.) The cop ran from the school and tried to hide back in the hospital. However, some students followed and caught and held him until cops from a nearby station arrived and took him into custody.
On Sunday, the news spread quickly. Hundreds of students assembled at the Law School to decide on an action. Meanwhile, the Police Commissioner pompously announced that the cop “could not be guilty” because Hospital police don’t carry guns. “What does that prove?” the students countered; the cop carried an illegal gun!
The students decided to mobilize citywide and called for joint action for this morning. Leaflets were readied for distribution at all campuses.
Students in Haiti have a long history of militant fight-back. They have vowed to continue this struggle against racism and for justice for their fallen comrade.
Young black and Latino workers and students worldwide are considered cannon fodder for the bosses’ wars and at the point of racist cops’ guns from Port-au-Prince to New York City and beyond. This struggle is part of an international one against racist police brutality in a decaying capitalist system. It will surely lay the foundation to spoil the bosses’ plans for continued imperialist wars.
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Union’s Racist Sellout Attacks Students, Teachers
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- 16 November 2012 292 hits
Newark, NJ October 20 — Before the dust could even settle from the Chicago teachers’ strike, national union boss Randi Weingarten and Newark Teachers’ Union (NTU) boss Joe Del Grosso were quick to sell out the education workers and students here in Newark. The contract, which took over two years to work out, will give the capitalists and their puppets (like Superintendent Cami Anderson) easier access to implement their fascist rule.
While there are members of the teachers’ union organizing a “no” vote against the contract, the ruling class is putting their soldiers in line to make sure it goes through. Two of the biggest provisions of the contract are the two-tier wage system and the “Election to Work” agreements that teachers in closed schools are forced to sign to keep their jobs.
Two-Tier Wage System
The biggest part of the contract that has drawn outrage from union members is the two-tier wage system. This scale caps teachers at lower wages. It also refuses to recognize the difference between teachers with a BA, MA, and PhD, thus making the argument that additional certifications have no impact on how well they teach. Teachers can earn “bonuses” for being rated highly effective.
The union continues to push this merit scale. This will create a division among workers by putting them on two different scales and giving out a limited amount of bonuses to particular teachers. However, as we have seen in areas like Baltimore and other places, after this merit pay system is implemented the number of teachers rated highly effective will definitely drop.
Many teachers at the contract presentation voiced these concerns, something that the union leadership completely ignores. One of the main goals of the ruling class is to lower the cost of education as it prepares for wider, larger wars in the future.
Turnaround Schools and ‘Election to Work
Agreement’
One of the most unsettling aspects of the new contract is the union’s willingness to allow the Superintendent to close down 30 schools in the next three years. That is almost 50% of the Newark schools! When confronted with opposition to allow these closings, Del Grosso said, “Well, she can close as many as she wants, we are limiting her.”
Even more troubling than the complete cooperation of the union leadership in closing schools is the “Election to work” agreement that teachers in these schools will be forced to sign if they want to keep a job. Any teacher slated for one of these “turnaround” schools will have to sign an agreement that will override many of the rights that union members have fought for in the past. According to the contract, “the limit on the number of subject or content areas that a teacher may be assigned to teach shall not apply…The limit on the number of classes, consecutive assignments, preparation periods, and room assignments…shall not apply.” This is what the bosses would like the rest of the schools to be like.
Clearly this hurts both teachers and students. These schools, which are very similar to charter schools, can work a teacher for two or three years until they are burnt out and leave the education system. This can give the bosses greater control over teachers since many will not stay long enough to get tenure (which will be a thing of the past as well). They will be so busy keeping their heads above water that they won’t be able to organize and fight back even if they wanted to. It will save the ruling class millions in workers’ wages by having teachers stay for only a few years rather than making it a lifetime career.
Racist Attack on Students
In a school system that is 96% black and Latino, Newark’s reforms are more similar than different to the ones in Chicago, New York and other cities. Students suffer because most of these teachers will not have as much room to fight for student rights.
Teachers will not be as effective because of the different content areas that they are responsible for as opposed to becoming more proficient in particular subject areas. And the community of the school will lose out because of the increased turnover of teachers. This makes perfect sense for the ruling class, which does not care about ”educating” these students to understand the world, but simply to teach students obedience and basic skills to work menial jobs.
Preparing for fascism
and war
As the U.S. ruling class prepares to fight larger, more intense wars against its rivals, education will become increasingly important. The disciplining of the future working class to accept low wage jobs or unemployment as well as to give their lives in the bosses’ wars will depend heavily on the teachers’ reduced ability to fight back as exemplified by this contract.
This will also save the bosses millions of dollars in wages, giving them more wiggle room to spend money in other areas on the war front (reindustrialization for producing war materials and overseas spending) and allow capitalists to accumulate profits.
Contract Shows Need to Fight For Communism
This struggle has opened up the door for a student-teacher-parent alliance. Many parents have been passing out flyers to teachers urging them to vote no. Discussions in the school have become much more political as well. In one elementary school two workers were talking about the implications of the contract. One worker organizing against the contract spoke to a group of workers on the need to organize for communist revolution in the long term while fighting against the contract now. Some of the teachers were skeptical.
As the days went by and more information came out about that contract, one of the teachers put a note in the comrades’ mailbox at school saying, “You’re right, we do need a revolution.”
While it may be jumping the gun to believe that workers can be won to the overthrow of capitalism in a week, this shows that workers are more open to our politics. Those that argue for limiting our fight to reforming capitalism are starting to see the limits.
In the 1960s and 70s many courageous teachers in Newark fought hard and went to jail for the reforms that other teachers enjoyed. Now that the struggle has died down, the bosses have been working overtime to take these reforms away. This is not just happening in Newark but worldwide. The only way to guarantee that workers control their future and create schools that will allow students to reach their fullest potential is through the building of communism. Therefore, we will continue to work with teachers, students, and parents to fight the bosses’ attack, expose the class nature of capitalism, and link this to the need for a communist revolution. There is no other choice.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, November 13 — Sign reads “Brooklyn to Port-au-Prince: Professors Unite to Smash Racism!”
About 12,000 students and workers took the streets for a two-day teachers’ strike! The entire demonstration was carried by the energy and vitality of the students. The international solidarity was vibrant. We stopped in front of schools calling on students and teachers to join the march. It was militant, and resulted in a battle between the MINUSTAH troops and students. (See next issue for full story.)
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El Salvador: Putting Communist Ideas into Practice
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- 16 November 2012 266 hits
San Salvador, September 23 — It’s everyone’s job to put communist ideas into practice
The process of building a base for these ideas is hard but not an impossible task for each PL’er. We feel that the lack of commitment to establishing a collective that can plan and guarantee the accomplishment of the tasks assigned to each member explains the slow growth of PLP in El Salvador.
Our comrades have a large membership; we could have three zonal collectives and one leadership collective in charge of planning areas of concentration for each member. In this way, we can guarantee that communist theory and practice remain primary. This could also help us deal with some contradictions amongst our membership.
We are organizing among a working class not yet ready to believe in the need for a party, but that needs to find an alternative to fight against the oppression that’s suffocating and destroying it. The working class is tired of all the lies that the bosses and their associated politicians push. It’s urgently necessary to take advantage of the failures of the FMLN (National Liberation Front Farabundo Marti) government
Inter-Imperialist Rivalry
Inter imperialist rivalry is also played-out in poor countries. So-called leftist bosses play a dirty role, deceiving workers, trying to makes us believe that the Chinese economic model is better, when it’s just more of the same. The cooperatives that are being organized in indigenous and working-class regions aren’t designed to improve our lives and build class consciousness, or to foster collectivism. The support that the bosses are giving to some phony FMLN leaders is designed to create the false idea that some bosses are not so bad, but that’s a lie. Under the capitalist system there are no good bosses; they are all bad for the workers.
We must build collectives to improve our lives, and build solidarity and the awareness that as city or rural workers we can, in fact, transform this society.
