Driven by desperation, nearly 15,000 people gathered under a bridge connecting Del Rio in Texas with Ciudad Acuña in Mexico. Most were originally from Haiti, but Dominicans, Venezuelans and Cubans were also present. They were driven back across the border and the Biden Administration flew thousands to Haiti, even though many Haitians made their way to the border after spending years in Brazil and other South American countries after the 2010 earthquake. They were drawn to jobs created by the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Rather than an “immigration problem,” the plight of the Haitians represents a world-wide problem of the abandonment of the millions who are becoming homeless and unmoored from any economic stability. Whether being swept away from the border or from homeless encampments across the U.S., a new class is being created that is compelled to fight for a new future. This issue of Rally, Comrades! brings to light the situation we face, the struggles to address it, and a revolutionary perspective for the way forward.
The seesaw, eighteen-month campaign over the eviction moratorium has starkly exposed the conflict between human rights and the power of corporate property in American society today. The inhumanity of mass evictions is equaled only by the cruelty of the system toward unhoused people after they are evicted. “The Eviction Moratorium Battle” points out that revolutionaries must unite with every act of resistance and fight for unity of the housing movement.
“Pandemic Recovery Requires Shift in Consciousness,” shows that what we learn from this pandemic must not be limited to this pandemic. While the U.S. Department of Labor reports 36 million Americans lost their jobs during the pandemic, the progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies reports that “the $1.8 trillion increase in American billionaire wealth over the last 17 months could pay the entire 10-year cost of making healthcare more affordable for 9 million people more than 10 times over.” We face an urgent, practical need for a new system that works to benefit everyone and secures a future for our children.
As stated in “Covid-19: Our Children are Counting on Us,” treating Covid-19 as a political and ideological debate rather than a worldwide health crisis has imperiled the lives of millions of people. Unclear health guidelines from both the Trump and Biden Administrations, driven by corporate economic interests, have turned into the loss of our grandparents, spouses, siblings, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and children.
Within our present system, displaced workers cannot survive without taking their fights for housing, health care, and the environment into the very political arena that the ruling class is trying to drive them away from. Because its numbers are so rapidly growing, and because it has no stake in the status quo, this new class is compelled to fight for a new society. The resistance to fascism, “Defending Democracy” states, not only has to unite all who can be united, but also must specifically ground itself in this new class of discarded workers to lead the fight for true democracy and a new society.
There is a growing recognition that the U.S. government is developing into a fascist apparatus that more openly represents the interests of the corporations rather than the people of the country. The ruling class works to consolidate a new fascist society, aiming its fire at all who no longer add to their profit. “New Forms of Fascism,” explains that our new class has a leading role in transforming society. Today, there is the ability to have an abundance of food and housing, have quality education and health care, and to live a cultured life. We can fight forward with the understanding that robotic, digital production can be publicly owned, and the abundance it creates can be distributed to all without money.
“Jack Hirschman, Poet and Revolutionary, 1933-2021” dedicated his life to the revolutionary struggle and to poetry, its most intimate language. His words and life-long practice were pledged to love, vision, the end of division, and the positive fight for a life that would allow everyone their full humanity and creativity. Toward this end, he worked joyously and tirelessly to his last day, for this vision around the world and here in the U.S. RC
November.December 2021 Vol31.Ed6
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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