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Coronavirus Fight Requires International Solidarity

By Ashlee Pintos

The current conditions for workers in the United States leave us extremely vulnerable to sickness and disease. With the lack of comprehensive, if any, healthcare, no guarantee of paid sick days, and demanding daily responsibilities on top of low wages, it is no wonder the majority of us are terrified of contracting an illness as unknown as the new coronavirus. While we have real, valid reasons to be concerned about the spread of any life-threatening virus, we should not allow our vulnerability to be weaponized into racism or paranoia.

The truth is that the United States government will use anything that they can to divide us. The latest coronavirus (COVID-19) is no exception. COVID-19 starts with flu-like symptoms such as fever, dry cough and in more extreme cases, shortness of breath. COVID-19 is a mutation of one of many existing coronaviruses. The majority of the population has already experienced a different strain of coronavirus which usually produces symptoms similar to the common cold.

Since the virus first appeared in China, it has spread to over 60 countries and killed over 3,000 people. While this number is seemingly high, context matters. Just this season alone, the flu has killed 10,000 people in the United States. While the capitalist owned media run to fan the flames of anti-Chinese sentiment, they have done very little to provide U.S. residents with scientific information and tools to prevent the common flu, which has killed as many as 60,000 people in recent seasons.

While China built a hospital in 10 days to address the threat that the coronavirus poses to its residents, Trump initially claimed that the outbreak was a “hoax.” Meanwhile Trump is pushing for massive cuts to Medicaid which will leave millions more without health insurance. Because the Chinese government has undertaken extraordinary steps to contain the spread of the virus within their country, the number of new cases outside of China now exceeds the number of new cases within, which are on the decline, according to the World Health Organization. This means that it is now the duty of other governments to cooperate in order to prevent a large-scale global outbreak. Socialist Cuba shows the way forward: while the U.S. did not offer China assistance, Cuban medical teams traveled to China. Cuba has produced antivirals that were used to treat people infected with the coronavirus and they are actively working to develop a vaccine.

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Jail Expansion Vote is Not a Win, Fight for Justice Continues!

By Ashlee Pintos

The vote on the jail expansion, which took place on December 5, was painted as a victory by some, as every city council member voted “Yes” on the sheriff’s proposal. The Temporary Detention Center (TDC) that was supposed to be closed in 2017 and has been illegally operating ever since with more prisoners than the proposed bed cap of 1,100, has been approved by the city to remain open. They intend to use the TDC to warehouse mentally ill people who have been incarcerated. This vote does nothing to challenge the unjust criminalization of the mentally ill or the lack of public, accessible mental health services. City Councilmembers Banks and Palmer worked out a last-minute concession to those opposing the proposal: instead of the proposed bed-cap of 1,438 (bed caps determine the maximum amount of people that fill them), there is now a person cap of 1,250.

While we understand that we cannot abolish prisons overnight (without revolution), we must also be clear that this is far from enough. As long our community members’ lives are sold into prison slave labor, all of us working people are under attack. In this society, the overwhelming majority of “crime” that leads to incarceration stems from poverty. When people’s backs are pushed against a wall with low wages and high taxes, rent, and food costs, a situation is created where people must act to survive. If the New Orleans city government (or the US government at large) actually wanted to put an end to crime, the proactive solution would be to fund quality jobs, healthcare, childcare, and education. The interests of the majority would be served by a living wage and social programs that build communities. But when we look at the city budget, it is clear they have allocated OUR money where THEIR interests lie. Over 60% of the city budget goes to cops, jails, and reactive measures.

By filling prison beds with thousands of predominantly black folk, there are millions to be made in profit. Over 50,000 people fill Louisiana’s jails and prisons, and there are over 8,000 undocumented people in detention centers.

Over $1 million of tax payer money is paid out to Louisiana’s prison economy every day.

Not only are we the ones being incarcerated en masse; we’re also the ones who are paying for it! While the minimum wage has not gone up in over 20 years, Louisiana remains one of the highest incarcerated places on the planet.

With nearly 60,000 of our community members in cages, the rich can further their profits by forcing incarcerated people to work for as little as 86 cents per day. As previously mentioned, the lack of funding for quality jobs ensures that unemployed and underemployed people will be chained and caged. This keeps all of our wages down. By incarcerating poor and working class people, the rich keep a boot on our necks by restricting our access to political engagement and community life. By filling jails with predominantly black and brown folk, the state can continue to vilify us, using racism to justify their violence.

How can we truly fight back against this war on our bodies? Only a united front of working people can put an end to the prisons and jails of the capitalist U.S. We say, “lift the wages, down with cages!”

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Defend Socialist Cuba, End the Blockade!

By Ashlee Pintos

Those of us organizing and fighting for revolutionary socialism need to be constantly aware of the lies of the rich ruling class. We need to solidly defend all people fighting for their right to self-determination and tell the truth about all the gains that people have made in their struggle to build socialism in the face of constant imperialist attacks.

The people of Cuba have maintained a revolutionary culture which has made strides for humanity over the last 60+ years despite violent attacks and embargoes by U.S. imperialism. Recently the Trump administration tightened the sanctions and embargo placed on the Cuban people as imperialist punishment for having a peoples’ government and providing free health care and education.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba was isolated, and the United States and other imperialists renewed a vicious attempt to suffocate the country. This led Cuba to enter what is known as the “Special Period,” where Cubans were faced with extreme economic hardship with no help from the outside world (limited access to imports, the global market, oil, etc.). They lost 80% of their imports as well as exports. The Cuban people were faced with the immense task of building up production from within, using all that they had on their small island in the Caribbean to feed, house, educate all human life.

The capitalists’ goal and ideal outcome would have been (and still is) the starvation, suffering and death of the Cuban people. They have bombed rice fields, blocked shipments of food and medicine, and made travel or trade with Cuba illegal. What was the result?

The result has only been validation that socialism does work. Despite the violence against Cuba, they have achieved a near 100% literacy rate, 85% homeownership (compared to 65% in the US) with no homelessness, and they have built a healthcare system that puts countries like the United States to shame. They have developed a vaccine for lung cancer, virtually eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and have some of the most progressive policies for queer and trans people in the world.

While the U.S. has reallocated over $270 Million from FEMA to Border Patrol in the middle of hurricane season, Cuba holds the torch for the best hurricane preparedness in the world. They have offered hurricane relief to the U.S. (including New Orleans after Katrina) which has consistently been turned away by the U.S. government.

The Trump administration has tightened the blockade heightening a fuel crisis for Cuba as well as terrorizing Venezuela. The democratic presidential candidates are no better: Bernie Sanders bashed socialism in Latin America, calling Venezuela’s President Maduro a “vicious tyrant”. These types of comments are not accidental nor are they a failing of Sanders’ political development: they are distinctly anti-communist, anti-worker, and set the stage for imperialist intervention in Cuba and Venezuela.

Is Cuba perfect? Of course not. We must understand the damage that hundreds of years of colonial terror and capitalist exploitation leaves behind and celebrate all that the Cuban people have accomplished despite the odds. The forward movement of the revolution is how revolutionaries acknowledge issues and empower the masses to find solutions collectively. Cuba’s president has said that the people will not enter another Special Period. Cuba’s response to these attacks is more revolution to maintain and renew the revolutionary culture that has inspired the Cuban people throughout the years. Solidarity with the Cuban People!

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Resistance to ICE is Growing. Stop the War on Migrants!

Protesters block ICE headquarters in Philadelphia, PA.

By Ashlee Pintos and Adam Pedescleaux

In an act of resistance against the racist, capitalist state, a Nashville community came together to protect an immigrant father when two plainclothes ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle came to arrest him. The neighborhood of Black and white workers formed a human chain surrounding the car and ensured the father and son had food and water during the whole ordeal. After four hours, the agents finally left having terrorized the immigrant father and child. Without community support, the father and son would have been separated and thrown into one of the government’s concentration camps.

Protests against anti-migrant terrorism have been taking place all over the country. Over 1,000 activists in Washington, DC, blocked the entrances and exits to the national ICE offices. Led by Jewish activists, this action blocked traffic and ended only when 11 protesters were arrested. At an earlier protest in DC, the activists staged a sit-in at the same offices. In Phoenix, AZ, 16 people were arrested in a similar protest. In Colorado, protesters replaced the U.S. flag at the ICE offices with one of Mexico in act of symbolic solidarity.

They also destroyed a racist Blue Lives Matter flag. And in Rhode Island, a protest outside a concentration camp was attacked by an ICE employee when he drove his truck into the crowd, injuring several people.

In acts of solidarity across California, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, hospital staff are being trained how to use their bodies to stop ICE agents from entering hospitals.

In recent months, there have been multiple incidents where sea captains were arrested for saving migrants’ lives in the Mediterranean Sea. Pia Klemp, a German sea captain with an organization called Sea Watch International, faces 20 years in prison for rescuing people fleeing from Libya, a country which was destroyed by U.S. bombings and a right-wing coup a decade ago. While she and her crew are being investigated by Italian authorities, the French city of Paris offered her a medal for her bravery. She declined, denouncing the hypocrisy of the Parisian city government who order their police to oppress migrant workers daily. In June, the German ship captain Carola Rackete brought migrants she had rescued into port in defiance of the Italian police. She now faces charges similar to Klemp’s.

Every act of resistance against ICE and other anti-migrant forces in capitalist countries is a victory for the working class. We must all stand together against the Gestapo-like tactics of these agencies. As attacks on workers worldwide are increasingly violent, it is easy to feel defeated. However, all throughout the world, there are countless acts of resistance that are demonstrating workers’ power.

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Tell the City Council: Make New Orleans an Abortion Sanctuary City Now!

By Ashlee Pintos

On June 6, 2019, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously on a resolution that states their opposition to the recent abortion ban bill that Governor John Edwards signed May 30. The bill that has been passed is another assault on working people’s reproductive healthcare as it bans abortions in the state of Louisiana after the 6 week mark of pregnancy. This bill has no exceptions for rape or incest and in conjunction with the already existing Hyde Amendment, which blocks Medicaid funding for abortion, access to choice for working/poor people is increasingly impossible.

At the council meeting, members of the New Orleans Workers Group demanded that City Council take the necessary steps to declare New Orleans an abortion sanctuary city and that they decline to prosecute anyone seeking an abortion or providing one within Orleans Parish.

Resolutions look nice for the careers of politicians who want a reputation for being “on the right side of history,” but what does that do for us workers who are most affected? Nothing! We need to demand more of city council members and law enforcement. We demand action!

History has already shown us the terrible consequences for poor people when abortion access is restricted. The results of this ban are death, forced generational poverty, and further oppression of child-bearing people. This is just what the capitalists want, and without a mass movement to engage in struggle over our human rights, this is just what they will get.

Here in New Orleans, local politicians rave about being a “progressive city” with Democrats in office and a handful of liberal policies that contrast the rest of the Republican State. However, this has historically meant very little as Baton Rouge continuously denies New Orleans home rule.

Think making New Orleans an abortion sanctuary city is too bold? Just last week, an all-white-male city council in Waskom, TX, declared their city a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” Waskom, TX, conservatives wanted to prevent the opening of an abortion facility after the one in Shreveport, LA, just 20 miles east of their town, was threatened with closure following Louisiana’s abortion ban. If the right-wing can so easily declare sanctuary cities to their liking, why can’t New Orleans do so for its people? It is long overdue that New Orleans take up the struggle against Baton Rouge.

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We Deserve 100% of Hotel Taxes, That’s a “Fair Share!”

By Ashlee Pintos

Mayor Cantrell’s office is claiming a victory for “Fair Share” New Orleans on the issue of what we call the Stolen Tax dollars. This ridiculous months-long negotiation between the Mayor’s office and the Convention Center has resulted in huge benefits for big business with a marginal benefit for the city. While $180 Million is stolen from New Orleans yearly, Cantrell has only asked for a fraction of the money (a one-time $48 Million with an additional $27 Million over the next 5 years). While the remaining yearly $153 Million is forgotten about for a perceived victory for the Cantrell administration, the convention center has been promised $300 Million for a new hotel and a portion of (more) Airbnb taxes among other concessions. How is this a fair share for the workers?

For over two years, the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance and the Peoples’ Assembly have been bringing this issue to light. It was not until this past year that Mayor Cantrell started to acknowledge the $180 Million in tourism taxes (such as the hotel tax) that are collected yearly. NONE of this money touches the city’s general budget: it currently goes to private, non-elected boards composed of big business/corporation owners and politicians who use these millions to further fatten their wallets. $180 Million is a quarter of the city’s general budget. We could use this yearly money to fund healthcare, childcare centers, paid vacation and sick leave, quality transportation, AND fix streets.

Tax money is supposed to be collected to use for goods and services for the benefit of the people. How can it be that politicians are nicely asking for the return of tax money from rich capitalists? This is robbery of the people on behalf of big business. Cantrell is complicit and as Mayor, she should be held accountable. Why does she want to give the people’s money to the same rich capitalists who oppress us workers?

Without hospitality workers who hold up the tourism industry, none of the profits or the tourism taxes would flow into the city. Meanwhile who pays high rents, high property taxes, and high sales taxes, all with a constant boot on our neck? Us workers! Who gets huge tax breaks and also makes away with millions in tourism tax money? The Convention Center! In New Orleans workers would need a quadruple raise to make a living wage as we currently make a base of $7.25 an hour and even less as tipped workers at $2.13.

If someone had been taking a quarter of your already-too-small paycheck, every single month, for years and you found out about it; would you kindly ask them to pay you back? Would you only ask for a fraction of it? Would you negotiate? Absolutely not!

We as workers have consistently maintained our demand that ALL of the money be given back to the people. All tax money should go into the general budget for city council discussion and public input. It is not up to the Mayor to unilaterally decide to give this money to the Sewage and Water Board to pay the extremely high salaries of their administrators. These funds will not be used to lower our rates. In fact, the Mayor has said she supports raising taxes for drainage. This scheme does not insure a properly functioning system. It’s because of a lack of public oversight of the board that millions were stolen from the budget before.

We need all of us workers to come together to continue the struggle, and we must be ready to fight for what is ours in the first place.

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Cancel Puerto Rico’s Bank Debt

By Ashlee Pintos

The United States has had its imperialist boot on the neck of Puerto Rico for well over 100 years. Both on the island and throughout the diaspora, all Puerto Ricans have been treated as second class citizens under colonial rule. As we look through the windows of the past, we see clearly how the is-land and the blood of Puerto Ricans have meant nothing but a dollar sign to U.S. Capitalists (both Democrats and Republicans).

Donald Trump’s recent racist comments on Puerto Rico’s “debt” crisis is nothing out of character for a U.S. capitalist. The U.S. Congress passed the Promesa Act under the Obama Administration which aims to force Boricuas to pay an illegitimate debt (accrued by massive tax breaks and corpo-rate ventures) of $74 billion. Since the U.S. illegally invaded and seized the island as a colony in 1898, the island’s veins have been open to the bloodthirsty U.S. capitalists. This illegitimate debt is a disas-ter that the U.S. created to keep air out of Puerto Rico’s lungs.

Let us not forget that in the early 1900s Puerto Rico suffered a hurricane similar to Maria. Then as now the US response was horrific: they deemed the Puerto Rican peso to be worth 60% of a US dollar. In the blink of an eye every Puerto Rican’s holdings dropped 40% in value.

Moreover, Puerto Rico is restricted in its ability to trade with any country other than the US while simultaneously being forced to pay one of the highest sales taxes (20%).

We know that the U.S. government is a government by and for the Wall Street banks. So—by no choice of the Puerto Rican people—it’s Wall Street banks that Boricuas are beholden to (with ever increasing interest) to cover basic expenses. To top it all off, the U.S. has made it illegal for Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy.

Now, almost two years since hurricane Maria killed over 4,000 and left thousands without elec-tricity or basic necessities for months, Trump and U.S. officials are demanding that the island pay its debt. This seemingly hopeless situation is exactly how U.S. capitalists want it. They would prefer that Puerto Ricans cease to exist so that they can continue to build their corporate tourist play-ground. Both the debt and the United States rule are illegitimate.
Despite all that Puerto Ricans have been subjected to, we have never stopped resisting and fighting for our liberation. Most recently, many university students have been organizing against austerity measures put in place by Obama’s PROMESA board. Since Maria, there have been massive demonstrations in San Juan and other regions of the island to militantly protest austerity measures such as a 50% hike in tuition prices, privatization of the electrical grid and schools, and job and pen-sion cuts. Militant pro-independence groups such as the Ejército Popular Boricua (EPB-Macheteros) have been calling all Boricuas out into the streets to demand justice. Through hundreds of years of colonial rule Boricuas know one thing to be true: La Vida es Lucha Toda (all life is struggle).

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Free the Children, Free All Immigrants, Workers of All Countries Unite!

by Ashlee Pintos

Last June people gathered by the thousands to take action against the internment camps set up by ICE that were holding children in cages and separating families. While Trump signed an executive order claiming to stop the separation of children and families, nothing has put a stop to the violence or terror. The situation of our migrant community clearly shows the importance of all workers demanding to Abolish ICE.

Countless cases have been shared detailing abuse of migrants of all ages at the hands of ICE agents. The most recent case to hit the news is the murder of a 7-year-old Guatemalan child, Jakelin Caal Maquin. As of December 8, 2018 Jakelin, would never again see a world outside of Federal custody. This child spent the last of her limited days under incarceration, denied water, and neglected as she got deathly ill. Jakelin and her father were two of over 160 migrants who were apprehended by ICE on December 6. They were taken to an area at the Border Patrol’s Bound Operating Base in a remote part of New Mexico. These areas where hundreds were detained only had a couple port-a-potties; no running water or access to bathing— and lacked necessities to sustain life.

Jakelin started to become increasingly ill as the migrants were forced on a 90-minute bus to Lordsburg. Only once the child was near death, was she flown to a hospital in El Paso. Following her passing, border patrol agents exploited her father’s grief by forcing him to sign documents in English while his native language is Q’eqchi (a Mayan Dialect).

In the name of Amerikkka, ICE is going about “business as usual” as Jakelin’s murder is one of many who have died in ICE prisons, at the hand of border patrol agents, or when agents dump water in the desert meant for migrant travelers. This child’s death is one among many. The capitalist class can cross borders to carry out business and make profit. Artificial borders and discriminatory immigration laws are enforced only upon our working-class sisters and brothers who only want a better life.