NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8483

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 7.1 KB | 207 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Hank Roth)
Subject: WHAT WE NEED IS CLASS STRUGGLE
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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 01:43:03 GMT
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 WHAT WE NEED IS CLASS STRUGGLE.
          Hank Roth

Recently I met with some people from
the Florida Peace and Justice Coalition
and we talked about a lot of things. My
awareness has been much more on a
national level since leaving here in 87
so I had some catching up to do on the
local front. They told me that since the
cold war has ended many local groups in
the state, especially Orlando, have lost
members, that many who were once active
are no longer involved in the
organization. They told me that they are
undergoing an identity crisis and lack
focus. I found all this rather
disappointing, but not really
surprising. And they asked me what hope
I saw on the horizon for the Left?

It isn't as if our problems have
disappeared. If anything they have been
refocused for us. The economy, the
economy, the economy. We are in the
throes of a very real depression for
most in this country. The way we do
business has changed drastically over
the years. Today everything is a chain
or a superstore, which has forced many
"mom & pop" stores out of business and
is eliminating the diversity (choices)
that once existed.

And big corporations have gone from
cheap labor in the South, to cheaper
labor even more to the South in Mexico--
-and as Mexicans wise up and organize,
these multinationals will and have been
packing it in and moving to Asia for
even cheaper labor and resources. An
entire class, the working man and women
in Amerikkka is becoming a third world
country. NAFTA is only the tip of the
iceberg. And what all this does is give
real focus to the crux of the problem
which is class struggle. Everyone should
now go back to reading their Marx.

An American anarchist once said every
anarchist must be a socialist, (though
every socialist may not be an
anarchist). It doesn't matter. Feminist-
Socialists, Anarcho-Socialists,
Marxists, Greens, and all the other
groupings in between have their focus
and it should be to oppose the
capitalist system...

This system is oppressive, it doesn't
have a humanitarian sense about it. It
is completely unfeeling. Corporations
don't feel, they're not real....They
can't be locked up. They can be fined, a
pittance in proportion to the damage
they inflict on us, and they can declare
bankruptcy to avoid their environmental
destructive responsibilities.

There was a gentlemen there who has
polio. He was one of the few who got it
from the vaccine. A grown man who up
until recently had no insurance because
no one would sell him any. He left home
to spare his family the financial burden
of caring for him. There was another
young man with cerebral palsy who
requires a wheelchair and a lift on his
van for transportation. He can't get any
public assistance, yet the lift and
other special equipment on his van cost
his parents over $10,000 and a new
wheelchair starts at over $5,000 (that's
the cheap, no-frills, economy model). He
is 29 and the wheelchair he is using is
over 17 years old because he can't
afford another one, but this one doesn't
fit him right. As he grew his
requirments changed (he needs a chair
that is wider and has a higher back to
support his spine and he needs a
cushioned seat and of course his
equipment also breaks down) --yet this
sorry ass government of ours won't
provide him with any assistance. He
can't get insurance, except for Medicare
(because he worked at one time and paid
into it enough to qualify. That was only
way to get in the system--for someone to
put him on their payroll and pay in the
the premiums--so his father carried him
on the books in their business so he could
get his medicare.) and Medicare doesn't cover
everything, just those things the
government thinks it should pay,
which is never enough. It doesn't cover
a new lift or wheelchair for this young
man. And here is the kicker. He can get
some SSI (supplemental income amounting
to a couple of hundred dollars a month
and some food stamps) ONLY if he moves
out of his home. If his parents _evict
him_ he can receive some (barely enough)
supplemental income--but since he lives
with his parents and they own their own
home, the government says, _"Fuck you"_
They would rather see him homeless.

I was waiting for funding to come
through for a job as an AIDS caseworker.
The funding never materialized so I'm
opening a mall music, book store with my
son (who is the 29 year old handicapped
young man I just described). But the
tragic part of all this isn't my job, it
is the funding that didn't also come
through for the AIDS patients (and no
public funds are available), so as of
October 1st, 70 HIV positive and AIDS
infected people in the city of Orlando
have run out of money (the funds were
coming from United Way and private
donations, but they dried up) and now
these infected and sick people are
homeless. The funds were being provided
for temporary housing and other
assistance. Amerikkka says,
 _"Fuck you."_

And this government says _"Fuck
you"_ to all of us because the only
thing that matters in capitalist
societies are profits and there is no
profit in helping the desperate,
the infirm and the hopeless,
helpless in this country.

They say leave it to private charities.
That should not be necessary. If we
really wanted to be a _humane_ society,
a humane caring people, like we
sometimes profess to be, then it should
be the right of every citizen that NEEDS
help to be provided that assistance by
the government. But capitalism doesn't
work that way. It is profits before
people. It is profits and to hell with
people.

The crisis of class privilege is in the
sick and injured who are turned away
from hospital emergency rooms. We hear
all the time how great the Amerikkkan
medical system is but who can afford it?
The 42 million without medical insurance
in this rich country can't afford to get
sick. And those with insurance often
can't afford the part their insurance
doesn't pay. So what good is having the
best medical technology and medicine in
the world if it is inaccessable except
to those privileged wealthy classes?

It is the measure of our own humanity to
insist on decency, peace and social
justice. To make it happen, _class
struggle_ is essential.

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