Vol. 75/No. 22      June 6, 2011

This is explained well in “The Stewardship of Nature Also Falls to the Working Class: In Defense of Land and Labor,” a statement drafted by Jack Barnes, Steve Clark, and Mary-Alice Waters, published in issue 14 of New International, a magazine of Marxist politics.

“Human hardship from natural occurrences, including calamitous ‘acts of god,’ falls in starkly different ways on different social classes under capitalism,” the statement explains.

Capitalist property relations dictate that those forced to live in the areas most vulnerable to disasters are working people, the statement says. “So long as the extraction of surplus value in warlike competition for profits dictates the production and distribution of wealth,” it says, “land will remain private property and rental housing for the toiling majority will be built where the propertied classes don’t want to live. It will be constructed where workers can ‘afford’ the rent, including often on flood plains.”

This is “part of the price toilers continue to pay for the inevitably increasing world disorder of imperialism, marked by social breakdowns, financial crises, unrelenting inflation, contractions in the employment of land and labor, reduction of the social wage, spreading wars, constriction of democratic rights, and the growth of Bonapartist rightist and fascist forces.”

“Only the leadership of a workers and farmers government, conquered in revolutionary struggle, can lead working people to even face confronting the vast worldwide pathologies of capitalism, let alone bring to bear their creativity, energies, discipline, and solidarity to cure them.”

Below are accounts from recent Militant Army teams to Alabama and Louisiana.
 

BY JACOB PERASSO  
HUEYTOWN, Alabama—“The government doesn’t care about the working man. They line their pockets with our money,” said Larry Eskins, who makes a living here building motor homes.

An April 27 tornado ripped through this largely working-class community. Eskins pointed out that those whose property was destroyed and who lack insurance are largely on their own.

When President Barack Obama visited Alabama in the aftermath of the tornadoes, he went to Tuscaloosa, Eskins noted. “Obama didn’t come to our side. We are country folks. He went to where the big university is.”

“Until working people take political power, these kinds of disasters are inevitable,” said Alyson Kennedy, a Militant Army volunteer. “The government’s indifference to what we face is inherent in the capitalist system. They put profits first.” Kennedy said that what is needed to address immediate needs of working people is an emergency, federally funded public works program to build housing, provide aid, and create tens of thousands of jobs in the stricken areas.

The government only listens to people if they make more than a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, Eskins said. He bought a Militant subscription and said he wanted to help spread the word about the paper. “The world needs this,” he said. Eskins had several suggestions of other people Militant Army volunteers could talk to and took an extra subscription form to show others who might be interested.

More than 70,000 Alabama residents have registered for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The most a tornado victim can receive is $30,200, which includes any temporary housing FEMA provides. Those grants will not be enough for many people to repair or rebuild their homes. FEMA urged residents to apply for loans from the Small Business Administration—a cynical suggestion to many who will not qualify for such loans based on credit scores and ability to pay.

Christopher Jones, a steelworker at the nearby U.S. Steel mill, said that 80 coworkers had been hit by the tornado, adding, “The union hall served as a drop-off place for donations.”

Jones said the Republicans are the problem and that the Democrats have been supportive of the unions. He listened carefully as Militant Army volunteer Sam Manuel said the attacks on the working class, not just on the unions, have been carried out by both Democrats and Republicans.

“The course of the trade union officials of turning the unions into vote-catching machines for the Democrats turns off many workers and weakens the unions,” Manuel said. He showed Jones The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions, which is being offered at a special discount along with a subscription. Jones purchased the book and subscription and also picked up a copy of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.
 

BY MIKE FITZSIMMONS
AND JACQUIE HENDERSON  
CATAHOULA, Louisiana, May 21—Thousands of workers and farmers in and around the Atchafalaya Basin in southern Louisiana face the possibility of devastating floods since the Army Corps of Engineers opened up the Morganza floodway May 14.

“Sugarcane, rice, crawfish, and other farmers risk losing a whole season’s harvest,” said Leopold Calais, 22, who works at a gas station. “People are already stressed by the high gas prices.” He took a couple of copies of the Militant to show coworkers and friends.

“They keep the water level up so high all year to help the million dollar shipping and oil companies. They don’t want to let it out here for the fishermen when they need it,” said Alvin Laviolette, who is disabled from a rig accident.

“They should have been opening the Morganza gates a little bit all through the year, so those people up north wouldn’t be flooded,” said Cynthia Clawson, who lives less than a mile from the levee that protects Catahoula from the rising Atchafalaya River.

Floyd Robicheaux, 73, and his daughter Christine Vicnair, 49, also of Catahoula, took time out after a day of hauling crawfish traps to talk as they got a subscription to the Militant. “I can tell you this is the time of year that we should be making money,” Robicheaux said. “But I make little more than expenses now. Either you don’t have enough water, or like now, they wash us out with the bad water.”

When we raised that the Democratic and Republican parties in Washington and Baton Rouge only act on behalf of the capitalist class, Christine jumped in: “Yes, you can see that here.”

In Cuba, workers are in power and organize to defend the interests of all working people, we pointed out. “I’d like to know more about that,” Christine responded. She said one of the first articles she would like to read in the Militant was one headlined “We build a movement in the U.S. to emulate Cuba’s example,” by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party.  
 
 
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