classwarfare

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

War on Iran, War on Terror: No war on homelessness

Posted on 08:39 by Unknown

By Richard Mellor

The Wall Street Journal reports today that for the first time, more than 50,000 people slept in New York City’s homeless shelters each night in January this year.  This is the size of a small town and it doesn’t include those that sleep on the streets; the sick, the disoriented and mentally damaged victims of capitalism and the free market.

The Huffington Post pointed out that there was19 million vacant homes in the US in 2011. This recent figure on NYC homelessness points out that it is families that are swelling the ranks.  Homelss families have risen 7.8% in Boston, 18% in Washington DC (the seat of government in the US) while the number of children sleeping in shelters in NYC has risen 22% in the last year. A staggering 21,000 children, a figure the Wall Street Journal calls “unprecedented”and equal to 1% of NYC’s young people slept in a shelter each night in January.  In this world city whose mayor, Michael Bloomberg has a net worth of $27 billion and is home to the United Nations, Wall Street, millionaire film stars and corporate law offices, homeless families have increased 73% since 2001 and  21,000 children have no permanent housing. This is nothing less than criminal.

This is occurring as Obama and Biden are assuring US corporations and the Israeli Lobby that war with Iran is not off the table and the absurd War on Terror shifts its focus to uranium and natural resource rich Mali and Saharan Africa. What is off the table is a war against speculators, coupon clippers and slumlords.  What is off the table is the war against poverty and homelessness, by-products of their precious market.

Trillions of dollars are spent on predatory wars fought by US workers on behalf of Wall Street and the corporations and 22 veterans a day commit suicide as a result of it. The bankers that wrecked the economy were bailed out by the taxpayer to the tune of trillions of dollars.  Rich individuals are known to have stashed more than $26 trillion, the equivalent of the combined GDP of the US and Japan in offshore accounts to avoid taxes and all this as public services are slashed, jobs eliminated and wages driven downward contributing to further homelessness; even the WSJ can’t ignore this reality but goes no further than that.

The voices of opposition are muted. The heads of organized Labor whose worldview mirrors the bankers, coupon clippers and other wasters whose actions decimate our social welfare and pollute the environment, plead with the bosses and their representatives in the Democratic Party to return to the good old days, “Please, please, just be a little nicer.”

At its peak, mighty US capitalism could not provide its own population with the basic necessities of life. In its decline it has become mired in debt, increases its plunder of the natural world and the former colonial countries and is forced to put its workers and middle classes on rations.  It is taking from the American workers all that we won through a century and half of struggle and is doing so with the help of the leaders of the Trade Union movement.  This will not continue unabated.

Nineteen million vacant homes amid mass homelessness. “As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year,1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week..) according to some data.  Yes, America the free.

Why can't they just go get a job?
The difference between the capitalist system and its predecessors is this: We starve amid plenty; we lack shelter as structures become dilapidated as they remain unoccupied; we are denied health care because we can’t pay for it. We become impoverished amid abundance.

US capitalism is more threatening in decline than in its ascendance.  It is armed to the teeth. It supplies more arms to humanity than the rest of the world combined. Its corporations dominate the world and own the rights to everything from corn seed to water. It is a truly dangerous animal in its demise.  As we used to say, even a match glows bright moments before it is extinguished and US capitalism will become more ruthless as its global influence wanes and its dominance threatened.

US workers are yet to see the worst, the likes of New York’s Mayor Bloomberg, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, the gnomes of Wall Street and the owners of industry are not finished with us; they will defend their system and it will be done on our backs.

The US working class will not take this lightly forever, fill shelters, complain without action, withdraw form the struggle. This country will explode at some point and we will see what we have seen in Europe if not at a greater level; our history is a revolutionary one.

Workers will be forced to draw the conclusion that there is a far greater threat to our well being than al Qaeda, and its domestic. They will look forward for alternatives as they struggle to defend what we have. Capitalism will be challenged.

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Posted in capitalism, homelessness, poverty, wealth | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Amtrak: Washington DC to Huntington, West Virginia
    A Poem by Kevin Higgins   At Union Station hope is a t-shirt on sale at seventy per cent off. Yesterday, all the bow-tied barristers gather...
  • The NSA, Snowden, spying on Americans, Brazilians and everyone else
    We reprint this article by Glenn Greenwald which includes the video . It is from the Guardian UK via Reader Supported News . The Charlie R...
  • Austerity USA Begins March 1st:
    We reprint this article for the interest of our readers. Facts For Working People is not affiliated with Workers' Action. To read more f...
  • Starvation, poverty and disease are market driven.
    by Richard Mellor Afscme Local 444, retired What a tragedy. A beautiful little boy who should be experiencing all the pleasures that a heal...
  • Kaiser cancelled from AFL-CIO convention
    A short CNA clip from Kaiser nurses.  The AFL-CIO convention was apparently ready to applaud kaiser as the model health care provider.  The ...
  • A poem on the 74th Anniversary of Trotsky's murder
                                                                                  You Are The Old Man In The Blue House                        ...
  • Remembering 911
  • Buffet and Lemann: two peas in pod
    Jorge Lemann: won't eat what he produces by Richard Mellor GED Afscme local 444, retired In a previous piece I commen...
  • Cambodians clash with cops over land grabs
    Like China, there are repeated clashes between authorities and the population over the government's seizure of land for developers. Ther...
  • Austerity hits troops as rations are cut
    The organizers of this blog have explained that US capitalism cannot afford to keep its massive military machine working at its present leve...

Categories

  • Afghanistan (4)
  • Africa (8)
  • Afscme 444 (1)
  • anti-war movement (1)
  • art (6)
  • asia (15)
  • austerity (29)
  • Australia (4)
  • auto industry (3)
  • bailout (10)
  • bangladesh (9)
  • banks (11)
  • BART (13)
  • body image (4)
  • bradley Manning (17)
  • Britain (22)
  • California (17)
  • california public sector (18)
  • Canada (6)
  • capitalism (44)
  • catholic church (10)
  • child abuse. (1)
  • China (2)
  • consciousness (3)
  • debt (3)
  • Democrats (4)
  • domestic violence (7)
  • drug industry (6)
  • economics (43)
  • education (9)
  • Egypt (5)
  • energy (7)
  • environment (12)
  • EU (18)
  • family (1)
  • financialization (1)
  • food production (7)
  • gay rights (2)
  • globalization (17)
  • greece (3)
  • gun rights (4)
  • health care (13)
  • homelessness (4)
  • housing (3)
  • hugo chavez (4)
  • human nature (6)
  • humor (4)
  • immigration (2)
  • imperialism (14)
  • india (4)
  • indigenous movement (4)
  • Internet (1)
  • iran (4)
  • Iraq (4)
  • ireland (22)
  • Israel/Palestine (13)
  • Italy (3)
  • Japan (7)
  • justice system (11)
  • labor (15)
  • Latin America (17)
  • marxism (52)
  • mass media (4)
  • mass transit (1)
  • Mexico (4)
  • middle east (24)
  • minimum wage (4)
  • movie reviews (1)
  • music (2)
  • nationalism (2)
  • NEA (1)
  • Nigeria (1)
  • non-union (11)
  • nuclear (3)
  • Oakland (5)
  • Obama (14)
  • occupy oakland (2)
  • occupy wall street (1)
  • oil industry (2)
  • OUSD (1)
  • Pakistan (3)
  • Pensions (2)
  • police brutality (6)
  • politicians (6)
  • politics (22)
  • pollution (11)
  • poverty (7)
  • prisons (8)
  • privatization (6)
  • profits (21)
  • protectionism (2)
  • public education (9)
  • public sector (15)
  • public workers (6)
  • racism (18)
  • rape (2)
  • Religion (10)
  • Russia (1)
  • San Leandro (2)
  • sexism (21)
  • sexual violence (2)
  • Snowden (7)
  • socialism (22)
  • soldiers (1)
  • solidarity (1)
  • South Africa (15)
  • Spain (2)
  • speculation (1)
  • sport (2)
  • strikes (35)
  • students (3)
  • surveillance (1)
  • Syria (9)
  • tax the rich (4)
  • taxes (1)
  • Teachers (6)
  • Team Concept (4)
  • terrorism (22)
  • the right (2)
  • Trayvon Martin (3)
  • turkey (3)
  • UAW (3)
  • unemployment (1)
  • union-busting (3)
  • unions (51)
  • US economy (22)
  • us elections (6)
  • US foreign policy (41)
  • US military (26)
  • veterans (1)
  • wall street criminals (13)
  • War (15)
  • wealth (9)
  • wikileaks (12)
  • women (26)
  • worker's party (2)
  • worker's struggle (65)
  • workers (44)
  • Workers International Network (1)
  • world economy (28)
  • youth (5)
  • Zionism (13)

Blog Archive

  • ▼  2013 (410)
    • ►  September (21)
    • ►  August (54)
    • ►  July (55)
    • ►  June (43)
    • ►  May (41)
    • ►  April (49)
    • ▼  March (56)
      • It’s still a bear market
      • Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Being Force Fed
      • Ireland: Working class history, Derry uprising 1969
      • South Africa -- Marikana, New Wave of Struggles --...
      • Profitability, the euro crisis and Icelandic myths
      • The 1% fleeing to tax havens with our money
      • The IDF: The "Most Moral Army in the World".
      • Working class history: The Derry Uprising 1969
      • Marx's ideas will not die
      • Zainab Al-Khawaja:Letter From A Bahraini Prison
      • European Union: Cyprus: sold!
      • South Africa: Cape Town Farmworkers' march
      • Zionists arresting Palestinian children
      • Politicians bought and paid for. Make them wear th...
      • Teachers are not to blame for education crisis; th...
      • Iraq War: A good investment for some
      • Rios Montt trial: Just one of the small fry.
      • South Africa: Miners Struggles---no job losses
      • Life is what we make it. Is that so?
      • Cambodians clash with cops over land grabs
      • Labor hierarchy abandons macho defense for shared ...
      • EuroZone: Cypriot bank heist
      • "Saint" Patricks so called day. An Irish Day.
      • Workers, punks and the euro crisis
      • CCSF rally against the cuts. Tim Paulson, Labor C...
      • Audio recording of Bradley Manning’s statement leaked
      • Break the lockout of ILWU by bosses in Vancouver WA
      • Pope. Last one and this one, viciously pro capital...
      • With Chavez gone, the vultures want back in.
      • It's easier to sign up for combat duty than for he...
      • Investment not consumption; profitability not demand
      • WIN Statement on Crisis in British SWP
      • Crisis in British SWP continues with resignations
      • Socialists and the Labor Bureacracy
      • South Africa: DLF on the legacy of Hugo Chavez
      • Ireland: Trade Union meeting in Dublin
      • The arrogance of Wall Street. From the Horses' Mouth
      • Pepsico wants Eastern Europeans to eat healthy snacks
      • Hugo Chavez funeral. Think about it this way.
      • Venezuela: Greg Palast on Hugo Chavez
      • Global Economy: World growth update
      • Chrysler attack on dissident is about who controls...
      • The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Chavez, the ...
      • The end of Chavismo?
      • A moment with some relatives
      • War on Iran, War on Terror: No war on homelessness
      • Belgian MP slams War on Terror and Mali intervention
      • Students mired in a sea of debt
      • You can’t make a horse drink
      • Catholic Church. Do not be conned by the theatre a...
      • Chrysler attacks union dissident: UAW leadership d...
      • Wealth inequality in America
      • Palestinians living in an Apartheid state called I...
      • US prisons: Torture chambers
      • More crisis on the horizon as capitalism prepares ...
      • The other Mario and the other Marx
    • ►  February (46)
    • ►  January (45)
  • ►  2012 (90)
    • ►  December (43)
    • ►  November (47)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile