From: odin@world.std.com (Hank Roth)
Subject: Class Struggle
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 17:24:12 GMT

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 WHAT WE NEED IS CLASS STRUGGLE.
          Hank Roth

Last night 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 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 they 
presently "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 
eliminated 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). Feminist-Socialists, 
African-Americans, Native-Americans, 
Latinos, Anarcho-Socialists, Marxists, 
Greens, and all the other groupings in 
between (all of us) 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 labor 
exploitive and 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 is 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 because it is old, 
his equipment is always breaking 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 did work at one 
time and paid enough into the system to 
qualify as a worker who becomes too 
disabled to work.). BUT Medicare only 
covers some things (It doesn't cover a 
lift for his van and it doesn't pay for 
a new wheelchair.) And its limit of 80% 
of cost is really somewhere around 20-
30% of most costs. 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 have been waiting for funding to come 
through for a job as an AIDS caseworker. 
The funding never materialized so I'm 
opening a small 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. This lousy country we live 
in says to them, _"Fuck you."_ 

And this lousy government says _"Fuck 
you"_ to all of us because the only 
thing that matters in capitalist 
societies are profits and there is no 
profit (they think) 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. 

              Hank Roth 
              odin@world.std.com

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