5) Friendly Fire
by wwnews
6) Wefare Cuts+Job Losses=Poverty Crisis
by wwnews
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (wwnews)
Date: torstai 6. joulukuu 2001 07:05
Subject: [WW] Friendly Fire
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: FRIENDLY FIRE
You mustn't even whisper it. You don't love this war? Then
keep your mouth shut. Bush Inc. has spoken. There will be no
opposition. No, not even shouting at the television set.
But it is so hard not to. The Pentagon news hour is on
again. The screen looks like a crude video game. Crosshairs
move over the target--a fuzzy rectangle of some kind. The
object explodes and the flyboys cheer. It's all a game. No
one has been hurt. Our team won and theirs lost.
Those who find news from non-U.S. sources read about
hundreds of innocent villagers killed by U.S. bombers.
Afghani and Pakistani hospitals full of injured people who
weep as they tell of whole families being wiped out. But the
images of suffering have been cleansed from the media here.
But what is this? Suddenly we find out that these bombs
kill. One dropped accidentally on "our" troops and blew them
to bits. Three Special Forces soldiers killed plus five
Northern Alliance Afghans. Thirty more injured. But even
this is played as a heroic fantasy, clean and dreamy. They
died from "friendly fire," you know. One imagines passing
through the Heavenly Gates in a warm glow as angels strum
their harps and Saint Peter gently waves the Star-Spangled
Banner.
Wake up. This war is down and dirty. "Operation Infinite
Freedom" is infinitely horrible, a war against the oppressed
peoples of the world--yes, Bush promises to make it that
broad and long--that won't bring freedom there or here.
Meanwhile, a killer is stalking the mean streets and country
lanes back home. Unfortunately, the Office of Homeland
Security is too busy rounding up Arab men to notice that
millions are losing their source of income and are staring
into an abyss of poverty.
National security. Safety. These are the catchwords used to
grease the war machine. They roll easily from the lips of
Rumsfeld, Stufflebeam, Ashcroft and the rest of the crew, as
easily as they write the checks to Boeing, Raytheon and
General Dynamics. So they take young men and women away
from
their families and send them to kill and be killed on the
other side of the world. And they further enrage and torture
billions of human beings whose combined wealth doesn't add
up to what 440 billionaires and millionaires have salted
away.
How can we keep quiet? How can we not fight to change the
world?
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
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From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (wwnews)
Date: torstai 6. joulukuu 2001 07:05
Subject: [WW] Wefare Cuts+Job Losses=Poverty Crisis
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WELFARE CUTS + JOB LOSSES = POVERTY CRISIS
By Heather Cottin
New York
There's another front to the U.S. war. It's right here in
this country. The casualties are mounting by the tens of
thousands as people are being cut off welfare just as the
recession destroys millions of jobs. A huge number of those
on welfare have been working people who earned so little
they couldn't afford food and shelter without public
assistance.
As the rich get richer, with the kindly assistance of
Congress and the president who are pushing through a $70-
billion corporate tax "incentive," the Bush administration
is going ahead with the plan to "end welfare as we know it."
This bipartisan plan of, by, and for the wealthy, was signed
into law by Bill Clinton in 1996 to end federal assistance
to the poorest people in the United States.
Entitled the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Act," this law stated that on Nov. 30, 2001, anyone
receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children who had
exhausted the five-year lifetime limit mandated by the new
law would be withdrawn from "welfare dependency" and forced
to go it alone.
The policy wonks who came up with the title of the law
implied that poor people who needed welfare were
irresponsible. They put the blame for poverty on the poor,
rather than the capitalist system that impoverishes millions
as "collateral damage" while a wealthy minority enriches
itself.
Under this law, the federal government has been forcing
recipients into what came to be called "workfare." This
means taking jobs--often below minimum wage--to qualify for
assistance. Conservatives called it "opportunity." Many
people on welfare, however, are disabled or have small
children to care for and haven't been able to take workfare
jobs.
Welfare was always insufficient to meet the needs of the
poor. An Oct. 12 article in New York Newsday explained,
"Public assistance leaves families deep in poverty. The cash
grant for a family of three is only $577 per month and has
not been raised in more than 10 years. While many families
also receive food stamps, assistance levels are still way
below that needed to move a family out of crushing poverty."
But even this meager support has now come to an end for tens
of thousands of families. The largest group yet to face the
cutoff of federal funds, they are also among the first to do
so in a full-blown recession.
FREEFALL CRISIS
The Nov. 30 New York Times reported that stringent rules and
a good economy had already cut the number of people
receiving welfare in that city by half, to 387,000
recipients. Now, as the five-year limit expires for many,
they won't be able to pay the December rent or buy enough
food to feed their families.
The New York State Constitution mandates a Safety Net
program for those who cannot care for themselves, but for
many of the 38,000 families in the state cut off from
federal welfare after Nov. 30, this state net is not
working. And there will be more. "An additional 13,700 city
families," the Times added, "are expected to hit their
federal time limit over the next three months."
The New York City economic crisis has proved a disaster for
the poor here. But Robert Doar, executive deputy
commissioner of the State Office of Temporary and Disability
Assistance, won't admit it. He told the Times, "Most people
can get virtually the same benefits as before. ... We do
think it's gone very smoothly."
The Times reporter disputed this: "But a very different
picture emerges from visits to several welfare offices,
interviews with welfare lawyers, social service
organizations, and recipients themselves. Some have received
letters just in the last few days denying them state aid,
apparently in error. Others, in offices bristling with
ominous posters about time running out, tried to apply for
benefits but caseworkers told them--within a reporter's
earshot--that it was too late."
"They are closing cases in error, and clients are being
denied the right to transfer to Safety Net assistance," said
Mark Cohen of the Welfare Law Center, a national advocacy
group based in New York.
Almost 65 percent of the welfare recipients had jobs, but
they did not, according to the Times, make enough for their
families' survival.
The Times noted that many of the thousands who were about to
lose welfare assistance were also losing their access to
other programs that helped them survive. This is because of
federal cutbacks of Medicaid, food stamps and rent-
assistance programs. The Nov. 18 Times reported that the
federal government is terminating the Section 8 program that
provides aid to low-income and poor people who need help
paying their rent.
An October alert from the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities--a Washington, D.C., advocacy group--warned that
the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program that has
provided nutritional help for women and infants will
terminate aid in early 2002 to 345,000 women, children and
infants whose needs will become even greater as the economy
nosedives.
Numerous studies have shown that WIC improves the health of
participants, especially babies. But the government's
priorities are the corporate elite, the Wall Street bankers
and wealthy corporate stockholders, not impoverished
children and women.
INDICTMENT OF CAPITALISM
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported in
October that the weakening economy has produced a rash of
budget cuts throughout the country.
Because fewer people are working, and because corporations
are paying fewer state taxes, most states are collecting
fewer taxes.
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and
Rhode Island face severe budget crises.
But tax breaks for the wealthy proliferate in those states
as well.
Budget cuts are being considered or have been implemented in
at least 27 states. The CBPP notes that other states are
expected to cut programs that workers rely on: medical care,
welfare, education, libraries and parks.
NEW YORK STATE HIT HARD
The World Trade Center disaster hit New York State hard. In
addition to the toll in human lives, it resulted in the loss
of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the metropolitan area.
According to Gov. George Pataki, "never in the history of
the state had there been revenue losses of this magnitude."
In Buffalo, according to the Dec. 2 Newsday, officials have
ordered massive municipal worker layoffs. "Municipal
governments are spiraling into fiscal distress," said New
York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall. The state's counties
are in similar shape.
When capitalism goes into a tailspin, many workers look to
the federal and state governments for relief. Isn't that why
taxes are deducted every week from our paychecks? But while
owners of corporations are laying off workers, the bought-
and-paid-for government officials are showing concern only
for the continuation of corporate profits.
In his classic work "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,"
Frederick Engels demonstrated that capitalist competition
and the drive to expand production for profit will
inevitably lead to periodic crises of overproduction.
Paradoxically, this means that workers are impoverished
because of super-abundance--a condition that exists only
under capitalism. Engels concluded, "The contradiction has
grown into an absurdity."
Nothing could be more absurd than the state of the U.S.
economy at the present moment. While government hands
billions in welfare to the capitalists, tiny babies and
pregnant women are denied nutrition. Workers produce food
and clothing and housing in great abundance yet they cannot
afford to buy them. People are mired in poverty and workers
are laid off, while the capitalist government turns its back
on them.
Nothing indicates the criminal failure and inanity of the
capitalist system more than the contradictions the workers
now face.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
