Why We March: Announcing the Workers March On Washington

Beginning today, August 1, 2011,  we will begin the first of many posts about preparation for the national Workers March On Washington, June 30, 2012. As a proud member of the Assembly to End Poverty, MWRO is actively organizing thousands of workers and low-income people to speak out and demand an end to poverty!

For the next several months, we will keep you posted with regular reports, analyses and commentary on why we must march. While we gather momentum toward this great march, we know that the heart of this work lies in the stories, testimonials and experiences of poverty from every person in the U.S. that we meet along the way.

We know that the foundation on which society rests has changed forever. Science has advanced technology very fast, making workers more productive than ever before. Fewer human beings are needed to produce. In Michigan, we live in a State that’s been hit very hard by this new world order. Yet, political operatives have suggested that mothers on welfare with children be separated from their benefits and forced into the work market. The first 12,600 public assistance families will be eliminated effective Oct. 1^st, 2011. 

In the worst job market, in the worst housing market, with family violence spiraling out of control, the answer is to push women and children into deeper poverty? The State will save $64 million by eliminating payments to this group.  What is the worth of a human being?

The Assembly To End Poverty is calling for a Workers March On Washington, June 30, 2012. We march on D.C. because we want to eliminate poverty, and not the poor. We can and we will do this! 

Get involved, contact:  EndPoverty2012@gmail.com.  You have 335 days left.

Image courtesy of Creative Commons (Berd)

Bail Out The People — Not The Corporations

(reposted from the People's Tribune, March 2009)

Over the past year, more than 2.2 million homes have been lost to foreclosure, a record number. Some four million jobs have vanished, and jobs continue to be lost at the rate of about 650,000 a month. One American in three has suffered a job loss or a pay cut in their household. Those once stably employed are becoming destitute, and those who were already destitute are dying.

The question on everyone’s lips is, what is our government doing to stop the ongoing economic catastrophe that threatens us all? What should it do? Where do the interests of the people lie?

As this issue of the People’s Tribune goes to press, President Obama has signed an economic stimulus bill which, we’re told, will create or save a few million jobs and expand public assistance to the unemployed, among other things. The government is also pondering how best to bail out the banks, arguing that helping the banks will restart the flow of credit and help get the economy going again. And the administration announced a $75 billion foreclosure-prevention plan that it says could help up to nine million homeowners keep their homes.

We should be on guard. We should ask ourselves, what actually needs to be achieved? The end result of the government’s intervention should be to guarantee the necessities of life for anyone who is doing without them. If this isn’t happening, then we need to demand that the government do what is right.

The underlying cause of the crisis is that more and more production is carried on with less and less labor, because of the introduction of labor-replacing technology into the economy. This technology has wiped out jobs and driven down wages for those still working. Because people with low wages or no jobs buy less, the market for goods and services is being wiped out. As the market has been undermined, the economy was kept going with debt – the massive extension of credit to workers and businesses. Credit was also used to fuel a huge orgy of speculation in stocks, bonds, credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities and all sorts of exotic financial instruments that really had no value. On a temporary basis, this speculation brought huge profits to the financial sector.

This house of credit, debt and speculation has been standing on a “real” economy that has been hollowed out by labor-replacing technology. Eventually the debt-based bubble had to burst, and now that it has, the real economy is falling to its true level.
In the short term, what is needed is to nationalize large parts of the economy, such as the banking system, in the interest of the people, not the corporations. We should be nationalizing the assets of the corporations—not their risks—and putting those assets to work in such a way as to guarantee every person has access to housing, health care and the other necessities of life.

In the longer term, we are going to have to decide whether we’ll have a society that serves the majority of the people, or a society organized to serve only the wealthy few. Either the people are going to have to take the corporations over and run them in society’s interest, or the privately owned corporations will decide whether the rest of us live or die. This is the ultimate question we must answer.
(Image courtesy of the People's Tribune)

Election Comments from MWRO State Chair

By Maureen D. Taylor
State Chairperson, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization

When President-elect Obama first went to Iowa and won that primary, I thought it was an anomaly. When he won again in New Hampshire among a similar crowd of predominantly white college students and rural workers, I saw something. By the third victory, I understood that he was on to something, so I looked for the answer among those who were supporting his concept of "change."

Again, the use of technology was the trump card, and he and his campaign found that out. Technology has replaced the need for workers around the world, throwing millions out onto the streets with no income, no health care, and no hope. That paradigm shift has finally hit American workers, and the race to reconstruct society is on!

The misery index is on the rise while General Motors wants taxpayers to help them buy Chrysler, and then they will put another 35,000 workers out and on the unemployment line. Throwing $800B toward these banks has done nothing to help those millions who have already lost their homes, and talks of giving these banks even more money are being held.

What President-elect Obama was able to see was that technology was a tool that would put his campaign in contact with a totally new voting block...18 to 30 year olds who don't have landlines! They use cell phones and communicate through text-messages. Republicans didn't see that leap, and were shutout of that entire market. WOW!! No robo-calls reached that group, and the use of technology was one of the main instruments that ushered in this great international victory.

Imagine, using the tools that have replaced so many of us, to win this election. Workers should never again not see the entire picture relative to the importance that new innovations can be used to hurt, and also help us, when they remain in the hands of those capitalists who don't care if we eat, or live inside, or have healthcare, or anything else we need to merely survive. We must capture all means of production and institute an American system that maintains a level of survival regardless of if we are working or not.

Our's is a moral issue. It is wrong to deprive people of water, of food, of housing based on the whims of the marketplace. Stand up American workers, and get your "fight on." Take the country back and let's make her what she was meant to be. Like Obama says, "...it's not that America is perfect, it is that she can be perfect if we work block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and institute the concept of taking care of each other. We can fix this if we try!

Image courtesy of Flickr.