FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
Posted on 01/16/2003 9:10:58 PM PST by kristinn
Tony Murphy, Workers’ World Party 15-05-2002
Sisters and Brothers:
In any political forum anywhere in the world, the question more and more is: What about the United States? What is the economic and political trend?
After September 11, the question weighs heavily, with so much war and destruction againt the world's people, emanating from the Pentagon and Wall Street: What is going on in the United States? Are the people really supporting the war? Are they going to finally act against their government's wars?
Many statistics abound on the state of the U.S. economy, on numbers of unemployed, the cost of productivity, wages of workers, etc., etc. They are very important and give an essential understanding, especially when compared from year to year.
But aside from cold statistics on paper, what is the actual existence for the American people?
Official inflation, which has been low for years, does not reflect the real trend in the standard of living for workers in the United States. Missing from the statistics are the struggle to maintain the most basic needs.
Take housing costs for example. Housing is by far the greatest expense for the population. What was once considered a common ratio of housing costs to wages, about 20 to 25 years ago, was approximately one week's wages per month to pay for a small apartment for a worker.
Today, in growing numbers of cities and states, many workers struggle to pay their housing with at least two weeks wages per month. In San Francisco Bay Area, or Boston, or New York, that cost can often rise to three weeks per month.
Yet, that statistic, of soaring housing costs, is not taken into effect when economic statistics are counted.
In San Francisco, a national study showed that only 10% of San Franciscans can afford to buy a house. For a new family of three to move into San Francisco, it now requires $92,000 a year in wages. For a family already living there, it requires $56,000, and that is without healthcare coverage. $56,000 is out of reach for most people in San Francisco.
Also, the social safety net, of Housing Subsidies to poor people, Welfare, Food Stamps, have been almost entirely eliminated. In Ronald Reagan's first budget as president, he eliminated 80% of all housing subsidies for the country's poor people. Before 1980, the word HOMELESS did not exist. There was no such word. Now of course it is a worldwide phenomenon.
Of the crises now experienced by the U.S. working class, the crisis of homelessness is one of the most dramatic. Figures show now that on any given night in the United States, 798,000 people are homeless. For the whole country, the rate of homelessness jumped by 13% last year. And in major cities, that rate is almost doubled or tripled: 20% in San Francisco; 22% in Chicago; 30% in New York; and in Washington D.C. the nation’s capital, the number is 32%.
A vast number of American workers are finding it necessary to work at least two jobs to keep up. This is especially true ever since the 1980s, when millions of manufacturing and industrial jobs were lost through the massive restructuring in U.S. industry was underway.
In the richest country by far in the world, in the country with one of the highest productivity rates, over 45 million people have no health coverage. For millions more, they only have coverage as long as their job lasts – and last year saw a record number of layoffs.
The other major development is that the effect of Bill Clinton’s cancellation of welfare is beginning to hit. As part of the U.S. government's pro-corporate policies, in 1996 Clinton signed a law that eliminated millions of poor mothers from the social welfare rolls.
This law mandated that no more benefits would be available to anyone after five years. That means that in December 2001, homeless shelters began to fill up with thousands of new residents, including working families who despite having employment could not afford housing.
Clinton claimed that forcing poor people off welfare would encourage them to find jobs. More than two million women lost their benefits. The reality tells another story. According to a study this month, most of those mothers and their children are still in poverty. The national study focused on San Francisco and San Jose, another large city nearby. One in six families still relies on food banks, 20% of the women live in substandard housing and has to ration their families' meals. 40% of these poor mothers have frequent periods of disabling depression. Most of the women earn only about $12, 000 a year, the study found. About half of those with jobs have no health-care benefits.
Compare the $12,000 per year salary with the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco today. $1,800 per month for one month. That's $21,600 per year! How do the women live? By sharing apartments or being homeless.
While the government eliminated government spending, it lowered the corporation's tax obligation to almost nothing. That means that workers' taxes are increasing, and hidden, indirect taxes are eating more and more of workers' wages. Almost every state in the U.S. now has a lottery that takes billions in each state from workers' wages, to pay for public education. That means the corporations don't have to pay their share of taxes for education.
While the Clinton administration's policies were a continuation and intensification of George Bush before him and Ronald Reagan before him, that is, of privatization and social service cutbacks and military increases, the Bush engineered victory signalled the intent of the U.S. ruling class to proceed with no brakes on their maximization of profits. This is why we say that the agenda of Bush’s phony "war on terrorism" used September 11 as an excuse to implement an agenda that existed on September 10.
This year, the U.S. military budget assures that every workers' training program will be eliminated. Bush has proposed an increase, an increase of $48 billion over last year.
So the question is: are workers in the U.S. opposing this?
We can confidently report the decisive beginnings of a new anti-war movement, which we think can be the key to the U.S. working class ultimately fighting on its own behalf. Despite a concerted effort by the government to silence the Muslim-American community through mass arrests and intimidation tactics, the resistance of the Palestinians has compelled Arabs and South Asians in in the U.S. to come out against the Bush/Sharon offensive – phase 2 of the "war on terrorism" – in massive numbers.
On April 5, 10,000 people demonstrated for the Palestinians in New York in a demonstration called by the ANSWER coalition. On April 12, mosques and Islamic centers in New York brought out 20,000. On April 20, well over 100,000 people marched in Washington DC and 35,000 in San Francisco in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history.
This last demonstration has elevated the anti-war movement in the U.S. to become a force that can provide workers with an alternative explanation to world events, an antidote to CNN. It’s not that the anti-war movement was silent until now. Only 2 weeks after September 11, 20,000 people marched in both Washington DC and San Francisco to oppose the war in Afghanistan before the bombing started.
But what made the recent demonstration more than a respectable turnout from the movement but a powerful mass mobilization was the participation by tens of thousands of workers from the Arab and Muslim community. This has surprised and shocked the U.S. ruling class, who thought that through the usual anti-immigrant racism and the post-September 11 campaign of demonization, they could silence opposition from oppressed nationalities in the U.S.
This strategy worked for a very short time. But Bush didn’t anticipate the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people, which is supported by millions throughout the Middle East and beyond and is the key barricade in the fight against the U.S. imperialist war drive.
The multinational character of the U.S. working class has already fueled a dynamic new movement against Bush’s so-called "war on terrorism" and will continue to play a decisive role. As homelessness mounts within the U.S., more will see that it is U.S.-supplied bulldozers and tanks that crush Palestinian homes, and our party will mobilize and join with those who want to build homes, schools and hospitals, not destroy them.
Commie puke Tony Murphy, spokesman for the communist front group IAC-ANSWER will be taking questions online with the Washington Post this Friday, the 17th at 3 p.m.
Questions can be submitted here."
Please note that The Post does not identify Murphy as a communist who is working with the global communist movement to undermine and eventually topple the U.S. government.
You know, somehow I don't remember Communism being very good to the Black African workers in Angola and Zimbabwe. If he really cared about workers instead of his own self-promotion and advancement, he'd fight Communism instead of supporting it...
Comrade Murphy, unmentioned in The Post's description of you is that you are a communist--an ideology every bit as evil as Nazism. You and ANSWER's other frontman, Brian Becker, support communist regimes like North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, China and communist revolutions worldwide.
These regimes and movements torture, starve and murder their political opposition. Their victims number in the tens of millions of human beings murdered, while more than a billion souls currently live under its tyranny.
How can you say with a straight face that you are against war when you are part of a movement that wages horrific war on all of humanity?
Well, I managed to read through the entire thing, before I barfed.
Know you enemy, indeed.
Today, in growing numbers of cities and states, many workers struggle to pay their housing with at least two weeks wages per month. In San Francisco Bay Area, or Boston, or New York, that cost can often rise to three weeks per month.
Of course since home ownership has been rising steadily, more of this housing cost goes to equity, increasing the permanent wealth of Americans. Putting more wealth in the hands of individuals, giving them more personal security and more effective means to determine the course of their lives, is of course anathema to communists like Tony.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.