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Disaster Capitalism Keeps Puerto Rico Suffering

By Marie Torres

When we read mainstream bourgeois media, it is easy to feel that there is heartache after heartache. What we see are the patterns in the way that the rich ruling class moves through the world — how the rich profit off of the suffering of the working class, and how the rich profit off of disasters. Borinquen (Puerto Rico) after hurricane Maria is looking a lot like New Orleans after Katrina. Thousands are left without necessities and are dying while wealthy corporations are vultures waiting to feast. A little over 6 months since the storm, people on the island are still without electricity or proper roofing, The U.S.-imposed government is closing schools and has begun privatization (charter schools). Jobs are few.

The island is a U.S. colony that pays U.S. taxes, follows U.S. law, and every Boricua is technically a U.S. citizen. Between 1990 and 2009, when it went into severe economic crisis, the island paid $73 billion in taxes– more than several U.S. states. Additionally, Congress passed the Promesa Act under the Obama Administration that aims to force Boricuas to pay an illegitimate debt of $74 billion. As you can see, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are equally responsible for this mess. Boricuas can’t vote for the president and have no congressional representation, but they can die fighting in U.S. wars.

The history of the U.S. government’s treatment of Boricuas is not pretty. Like in New Orleans, the richest get tax breaks and are free to conduct their business for massive profit by exploiting workers. Wealthy (white) stateside businesses treat the island like a corporate playground, leaving scraps for the natives.

Hurricane Maria hit on September 20 2017, and it was the worst storm in over 100 years. The storm passed through the entirety of the island and left utter destruction behind. Maria caused the second-worst blackout recorded in world history. Many were left without clean water, food, medicine or gasoline. Government negligence has killed over 1,000 Boricuas not far off from the devastating number of 1,800 in New Orleans from Katrina. Since Maria, there have been extreme increases in deaths from diseases such as sepsis, pneumonia, emphysema and diabetes. Many of these deaths were preventable if food, clean water, electricity and medicine were available and if hospitals were fully functioning.

Like during Katrina, the government increased military occupation of the island and brokered deals for private corporations to profit off of disaster. The president visited only to bring up how the island’s debt was screwing up the U.S. budget. The government gave a Montana electricity company, WhiteFish Energy Holdings, a company that had only one truck, a $300 million contract. On April 18th, the island went into another complete blackout. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been as disappointing as it was from Katrina.– a hideously delayed response, FEMA employees are seen partying in San Juan casinos while Boricuas die in the mountains, and large shipments of supplies are not distributed to those who need it most. All the while, ads call for white tourists to swarm the island’s beaches and buy up real estate from right under poor Boricuas.

The impact on the Boricua’s mind and spirit has been heartbreaking. A forgotten people abandoned by the white supremacist U.S. government during their highest time of need, Boricuas are suffering from the daily struggle of living in 90-degree temperatures without electricity, clean water, enough food and with death all around. The suicide rate has spiked 30% since the storm. Since January, there have been over 3,000 calls of suicide attempts to the Puerto Rican crisis hotline, a 246% increase from last year. This is a tragedy that those who survived Katrina know well: following the 2005 storm, mental illness rates more than doubled, with disease rates increasing as well. However, to the rich ruling class, depression of poor and working-class people is of no concern.

Huge waves of Boricuas were forced to leave their homeland since 2009, and again after the storm, with those left behind facing a blow to the children. The government has proposed shutting 283 schools. The plan of the rich is to impose charter schools and private school vouchers and we know what that means–issues of transportation, special needs students, and limited access to quality education for working class and poor families.

However, Boricuas are fighting back. The Puerto Rico Teachers Association (Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico) composed of 30,000 teachers, has filed a lawsuit against a bill to implement a charter schools program and offer private school vouchers to 3 percent of students starting in 2019-2020. Teachers, students and parents throughout the island are demonstrating, calling for public education funds to be used for children, not to profit private companies!

On May Day, Boricuas took to the streets in mass to protest austerity measures. They were met with heavily militarized police (U.S. trained), were tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets and arrested without warrants. We must stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Borinquen. This attack on Latinxs’ poor and working-class people is unacceptable, and we cannot take it sitting down. The time for the people to unite to fight back against the rich ruling class is long overdue. As many Boricuas say, “Pa’lante por siempre!” (Always forward!)

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Peoples’ Assembly Continues Fight Against Mass Incarceration City Budget

By Sanashihla

Elected officials who have control over public tax dollars compromise with white supremacists and owners of major corporations who operate with capitalistic greed and a desire to maintain a white power structure.

After $7.5 billion dollars in wealth was generated for the year by tourism, the city of New Orleans should not have the extreme levels of poverty and disparities that exist here. Yet poverty is pervasive, even though many of the people living in poverty are folk who get up and GO TO WORK every single day.

The newly elected mayor, LaToya Cantrell, who is Black and the first woman to be mayor in the 300-year history of a colonized New Orleans, said “New Orleans is a city with two truths — the first is one filled with promise, while the second is one filled with crime.” Let’s take a moment to get clear what these crimes are.

New Orleans has a $647 million dollar budget, and 63% of it goes towards cops and jails that have shown NO evidence of making our city any safer. This demonstrates that the city’s primary existence is to feed mass incarceration, to exploit the labor of prisoners, fill the pockets of privatized prison owners and build the wealth of the rich ruling class on the backs of “free” working class people. Yet how free are working class people really?

Nearly 50% of children live in poverty, and only 3% of the New Orleans city budget is dedicated to children and families. This right here is a crime. A 3% investment is NOT the way to ensure New Orleans children have a fair start in life. Therefore, if such a LOW amount of money is invested into the lives of families and children, then clearly in a predominantly Black city, made up of predominantly Black families with predominately Black children the elected officials of New Orleans do not care about the overall well-being of Black families or Black children.

In New Orleans, nearly 50% of Black males are unemployed. So, to invest only 1% of the entire city budget on job development is also criminal. Investment in job development through a public jobs program that pays a living wage and provides quality “on the job” paid training would be a way to ensure residents are working and able to care for themselves and their families, in healthy, proactive, productive ways.

The city cries poor, saying that the $647 million-dollar budget is not enough to do all that is needed in the city. But does not redirect the 63% of the budget that is invested into cops and jails.

The city GIVES at least $140 million tax-dollars dollars directly to the biggest tourism corporations each year, bypassing the city budget. Rather than invest this money into the needs of the people, the city of New Orleans rings every tax dollar out of working class people and does not invest that money back into the working class. The city also refuses to pass/push/or demand an ordinance for a living wage for the same working-class people of New Orleans who keep the city running. The city should take back the $140 million into the city budget to serve the people who serve this city best. For New Orleans to make the kind of progress that it needs (symbolically & systemically), there must be:

  • no more compromises with white supremacy!
  • no more compromises with oppression!
  • no more compromises with economic exploitation!
  • We must DEMAND that elected officials stop using OUR money and OUR resources to keep the white power structure in place. 
  • We must DEMAND that our tax dollars be used to invest in children, families and job development. 
  • EVERY time the city allocates resources, we must remember, those resources are ours. 
  • Wherever there is oppression, there will be resistance!
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Does It Have To Be This Way? Bank Fees Pile Debt Upon Workers

By Gregory Williams

We live in a capitalist society, that is, a dictatorship of the rich. As we look around us, it’s obvious that the game is rigged against everyone except the billionaires. We’re so used to the B.S. that we start to believe it has to be this way. But does it?

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. banks made over $30 billion in overdraft fees in 2016. Most of us who live from paycheck to paycheck have experienced this. You pay the rent, for instance, and your account goes into the negative. You’re already broke; then you get hit with a fee.

The banks are intentionally preying on the poorest among us. Often, they rearrange the order of a day’s transactions so as to slam you with multiple fees. Your landlord might cash your rent check a week after you write it. On the day it’s cashed (which you have no control over) you make several small purchases; the bank processes these after the whopping rent check is cashed, and there you are!

Like most other things in capitalist society, this is a racket. Banks are cashing in on struggling people, laughing all the way to…the bank. And yet, when the banks themselves were struggling during the last financial crash, their lackeys in Washington gladly bailed them out giving them $1.2 trillion of our money. The rich and powerful do what they can get away with. If workers organize, fight back, and say “No more!” it would not have to be this way.

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Cuban Doctors to Help Patients in South Side Chicago

Cuba’s infant mortality rate is lower than the U.S. according to the World Health Organization. A partnership signed between the University of Illinois Cancer Center and the Cuban Ministry of Public Health has teamed up three Cuban doctors and a nurse with their U.S. counterparts during home visits to 50 women of reproductive age in Englewood, according to Kaiser Health News.

In exchange for a US $50 stipend, the women responded to a questionnaire that includes questions such as: “In the last 12 months, have you had any problems with any bug infestations, rodents or mold?” or “Have you ever had teeth removed or crowned because of a cavity?” The questions cover a range of topics, including emotional well being and condition of one’s residence.

Cuba’s Minister of Public Health, Roberto Morales, explained Cuba’s success. “The entire health care system in the country is about lives saved, quality of life, happiness and satisfaction for our people,”.

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NSA Collected More Than 530 Million US Phone Call Records in 2017

The National Security Agency collected more than 530 million US phone call records in 2017. This is more than three times the 151 million collected in 2016. The new statistics were first reported by Reuters. The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is mandated by the USA Freedom Act passed by Congress in 2015 that aimed to restrict and boost oversight of the NSA’s surveillance program. Guess its not restricting, it’s certainly not freedom

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Raise Wages, Outlaw Predator Interest on Payday Loans

By Anthony Mangano

As prices continue to rise while wages remain stagnant, it’s no wonder that workers are more and more often running short of money at weeks or months end, causing a terrifying debate between keeping the electricity on or feeding their children. Not satisfied with driving workers to the edge of starvation or homelessness, greedy capitalists have created a new system to rob the workers -the “payday loan”. Touted as an “emergency stopgap measure”, the interest on these short-term loans is so usurious as to force borrowers into permanent debt, a modern day version of debt peonage or sharecropping.

While big banks and corporations can borrow OUR money at 1-2% from the Federal Reserve Bank, payday loan interest rates can be almost 400% plus hidden fees, entrapping workers in an unending cycle of poverty and misery. Nationally, 83% of payday loans are paid to borrowers already stuck in several other loans. In Louisiana, which sucks $240 million yearly from workers, 79% of payday loans are lent to borrowers on the same day as they pay back a previous loan. In fact, 87% of borrowers are forced to seek new loans within two weeks of paying off an old loan. As the economic crisis worsens, more and more workers find themselves in desperate circumstances. In response, payday lenders flood TV and radio with ads offering workers a “magic solution”. Of course, more than two times as many offices are located in Black and LatinX communities. The 12 million workers who use payday loans every year are most commonly characterized by being separated or divorced renters who do not have a four-year college degree and earn less than $40,000. A majority are African-American.

While payday loan and auto title companies don’t break workers legs (yet) for falling short on their payments like organized crime syndicate loans of TV legend, the results are often no less devastating including homelessness, job loss, family breakup and depression. Payday loan vultures give millions of dollars to politicians for laws making these practices “legal”.

The Workers Voice demands that the Louisiana Legislature outlaw all predatory loans as part of our overall fight to improve the economic conditions of the workers. However, we also know only socialist revolution will end this criminal exploitation of the workers.

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Two Cantrell Appointees No Good for New Orleans Workers

Norman White has been appointed by Mayor Cantrell to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO )for the City. This is a position most of us have never even heard of or thought about. But it is a powerful job, advising on our tax dollars and all spending matters. (Despite many phone calls to city agencies, his salary remains undisclosed).

White comes to us as the twice former CFO of Detroit, under two discredited Mayor’s. He was also the former head of the Detroit Department of Transportation who was sued over illegal or excessive parking tickets and fines. Oops, watch out!

According to the lawsuit, the city of Detroit has issued about 300,000 parking tickets annually over the last three years, during which the city implemented a high-tech, $3.5 million meter system that accepts cash, credit cards and smartphone payments. The new system generated $13 million in 2015 alone, 30% more than the year before — but the lawsuit says this money is being made illegally.

At his appointment, Mayor Cantrell said of Norman White, “He helped right the ship there during a challenging time.” This is disturbing. Recently, Detroit has cut off thousands of people’s water, and this is not the first time. Tens of thousands have lost their homes and schools were closed. Why? Detroit, during White’s tenure, was under state control, depriving the people of the city from any say in their budget and policies. The state authorized the city receiving millions in loans from the big banks. In exchange, the banks demanded austerity and cuts to all social services. It was a dictatorship of the banks. Norman White’s job was to ensure that these cuts went through and the banks got their tax-free interest payments. Millions are suffering. Norman White may be good for the bankers and developers but not the working class.

CRIMINAL “INJUSTICE” COMMISIONER
Another disturbing appointment is Tenisha Stevens as Criminal Justice Commissioner. She was the deputy chief of investigations for Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro who has shown himself an arrogant, law breaking racist who is responsible for continuing mass incarceration. Recently, his office issued phony subpoenas and arrested domestic violence victims to force them to testify. We need someone who is working to keep people out of jail, not put them in. Stevens, as Cannizzaro’s Deputy Chief, is not the one we need.

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Only One Place for Trump: A Jail Cell

By Gavrielle Gemma

Forget all that claptrap about the Russia investigation. That ignores what by law and decency Trump and his cabinet of war crazy generals, billionaire bankers and capitalists should be indicted for.

He has a deep hatred of the working class, Black, white, Latinx and Asian. He is a danger to humanity and is destroying the planet. His conduct towards women and his policies affecting women are criminal. They’re meant to push us down to domestic servitude. Trump wants to immerse the world in war, possibly nuclear. He is disrupting the peace in Korea, preparing war against Iran by tearing up a treaty the rest of the world wants, and giving a trilliondollar payout to war profiteering corporations. He is most happy when his non-stop racism results in a record number of hate crimes across the U.S.

His main job is to try to infest white workers with racism using vile anti-immigrant rants, and portraying other countries in the most demeaning of terms. But just like the Confederate slaveholders detested poor white southern farmers, so do today’s capitalists detest white workers. They put on a hard hat as they laugh all the way to the bank when the working class is divided.

Trump’s policies are tax cuts for the already filthy rich, to increase their accumulation of wealth to even more obscene levels. For us, the workers, employed and underemployed, of all ages and nationalities, Trump’s goal is to destroy our standard of living to make us desperate. He is aided by his clones in the Louisiana legislature who are cutting every program that we the people have already paid for. That is what fascists do, and they count on people blaming scapegoats rather than them, the cause of all our problems. Every time Trump opens his mouth he lies and spews racist filth and every day as he becomes more unpopular, his anti-working class policies revealed, he escalates his rhetoric.

Trump can be found seated on his gold toilet or almost daily on his golf course. He should be arrested and jailed for crimes against humanity

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Labor Briefs for June 2018

GEORGIA BUS DRIVERS STRIKE

After months of meeting with school board officials and being ignored, bus drivers and monitors in DeKalb County, GA went on strike. The workers are currently not unionized. On April 17, driver representatives presented the district superintendent with 50 demands; these included pay raises, fair pay for sick leave days, and reclassification as full-time employees. On April 19, 400 drivers and monitors called in sick. The school board retaliated by firing 7 drivers. The fight for better conditions, and the reinstatement of the fired drivers, is not over. Drivers, parents and supportive organizations held a press conference condemning the school board’s actions. Drivers are also consulting with lawyers about further action in regard to the firings. Whatever happens, the April strike was historic, being the first work stoppage carried out by Atlanta bus drivers since 1980.

DISNEY WORLD WORKERS ORGANIZE

Disney World is not the happiest place on Earth for workers. Many employees of Disney’s parks and resorts can barely afford housing. Long-time Tomorrow Land worker, Mike Beaver, told Shadowproof.com that he has “lived in a motel for two years and nine months,” sharing the room with another staff member. Workers are fighting back, however. A collection of unions represents 38,000 Disney Workers in Florida. A major demand is that the company raise its minimum Florida pay rate from $10 an hour to $15 an hour. Management has offered a 50 cent annual pay bump, which 93% of union members rejected in a December 2017 vote. Disney withheld bonuses up to $1,000 from 41,000 union employees in Florida and California in an attempt to make them cave. In response, the unions filed a federal charge with the Department of Labor against Disney over these tactics. Workers themselves have taken their grievances to the streets. On March 23, hundreds (including hospitality workers, cast members, and custodians) marched to the entrance of Disney Springs in Florida. Demonstrators carried signs chanting, “We work, we sweat, put a raise on our check!”

25,000 to 50,000 Las Vegas Casino Workers Vote to Strike at 34 Resorts

“I’m here to show the younger generations that this is the way we fight to maintain our jobs, job secuirity, health benefits and to gain a pay raise.” – Louis W Thomas, Utility Porter at Tropicana Casino Hotel

South Carolina Short-haul Truck  Drivers Vote to Join Teamster Union

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Tens of Thousands in South Korea Demonstrate for Peace

The overwhelming majority of Koreans in both North and South Korea are longing for peace and, eventually, a reunification of the Korean nation. Because of US occupation of Korea by troops and nuclear weapons, the people of both countries live with the constant anxiety of another devastating war on their soil. They are demanding peace and their leaders are beginning to meet that demand. A poll in early May showed that 75% of South Koreans said that they trust Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile the US war machine insist upon their “maximum pressure” strategy on North Korea and has continued to hold massive military exercises which simulate an invasion of North Korea. While Koreans organize for peace, the US recklessly continues to sabotage their efforts. For a real lasting peace in Korea, the US must withdraw its military forces and warships from the Korean Peninsula.