From: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth)
Subject: WHAT WE NEED IS CLASS STRUGGLE
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 01:43:03 GMT

<<< via P_news and p.news >>>>
 
 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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