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----- Original Message -----
From: johnaimani
To: r...@lists.riseup.net ; rac-la_support...@yahoogroups.com ;
anarchistmarxisteconom...@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 1:04 PM
Subject: Class Struggles in Los Angeles 2010
Class
Struggles in Los Angeles 2010
May 5th, 2010
Today, before the HCED of the City Council of Los Angeles a motion made to
place a 1 year moratorium on rent increases by Councilman Alarcon and amended
by Councilman Herb Wesson of the 10th District to limit the moratorium to 4
months (and a possible 2 extra months) passed with a notable exception of Jan
Perry of the 9th District. The motion will now go before the full City Council.
On one side stood the landlords; the big and, especially, the small given their
space to speak and be cheered rather wildly by the crowd of supporters. They
explained what hardships such a moratorium would bring them. And in truth,
their inability to raise rents would mean, everything else being equal, their
inability to improve their property. In counter to this there is a law that
allows the landlords to pass on the costs of such improvements to the renter
(CITE?). In counter to that while it is true that the freeze would impair
such landlords who do pass on increases in rent into improvements in property,
the landlords would be vastly outnumbered by those who would be hurt if such a
suspension of rent increase were not put into place. In addition to that, Mr
Wesson advised that due to the crisis and the causing and resulting decline in
the 'value' of such residential property that the coming re-assessment (for
purpose of property taxes) that these landlords would be receiving a tax
decrease upon their properties.
This crisis is hurting almost all but it is inflicting greater wounds upon
those of us who have no property, those of us who have nothing but their
ability to work, those of us standing on the other side of the city council
chambers, facing up to the owners who seek to further increase their livelihood
at the expense of those of us who, in truth, have nothing more to give.
Here is the rub. The landlords bring with them two weapons which they are in
no way hesitant to use. They bring with them the ability to make political
contributions for or against elected officials who stand again for office.
Further, they bring an almost certainty of these very same people exercising
their personal franchise to cast a vote for or against this or that politician
or would-be-politician. And lastly, they are organized as they demonstrated
with strategically placed in the back of the room cheerleaders who began (and
clapped to the end) when one of them spoke. Arrayed against these are us. Who
are we? We are many. We are many more than them. What do we have? Nothing.
Nothing, that is, that we can fork over to the political cash-wagons of this or
that politician. Where is our power, in this arena? Many, though not all,
also have the right to vote but do so at a percentage far les than our
adversaries.
We must run comrades for political office who will stand up not only for those
who vote for them but also those who cannot vote for them. This last we
cannot, as yet, immediately do anything about. But we can do something about
those who could vote for our representative, but in the past have not exercised
their right to vote. These comrades know their interests which is nothing but
our interest but have not been inspired by any candidate to make the efforts to
not only vote but also to impress this urgency upon their friends, their
relatives and, most importantly, themselves.
Our candidate must be one of us. He/she must be directly responsible to us and
only us just as the candidates of wealth are answerable to those who fund their
campaigns. He/she ought take this position at a workingman's wage, say $40,000
which is approximately the yearly total of a 'union-waged' position paying
$20/hr with all above that allocated to a fund for either political or social
purposes aimed at improving the lives of the poor and workers receiving wages
up to that of a 'union wage'. This candidate ust also articulate, advocate and
advance the three necessaries: 1.) the right to a job for all wanting to work
at a 'union-wage': 2.) The right to housing and an end to involuntary
homelessness; 3.) the right to free and quality health-care; 4.) the right to
free education up to the person's ability; 5.) the right to participate in real
job-training so as to dramatically improve the skill levels of the unemployed,
the underemployed and, those who are for now, the unemployables; and, 6.) the
right of a worker to go to where he/she can best provide for themselves and
their families. Under NAFTA the labor-power of workers is the only commodity
upon which are placed restrictions, limitations and denial of entry at the
US/Mexico border.
There is a reason all of these things are necessary and there is a reason that
all of these things can be done. As to the first, this crisis is not about
housing, it is about the failure of an economic system in which one can be
denied work by those that own the means-of-work. Why are workers denied jobs?
Because the owners can no longer make money on them. Why can the bosses no
longer make money on the workers? There are two answers which amount to but
different sides of the same equation: 1.) The capitalists can produce the same
product at a different place with workers whose existing standard of living
requires a lesser wage and, therefore, these jobs are exported to low-wage
areas and the goods they make are sent back here to be purchased by workers who
no longer have the ability to purchase them save through debt; and, 2.) The
capitalists, even without the export of jobs to low-wage areas, find that the
productivity of even these slightly-relatively-better-paid workers is such
that, on a market-wide level, demand (i.e. need or want backed by the ability
to purchase (i.e. through sale of the ability to work is the workers only
source of 'effective demand')) is sated and swamped and workers find, first,
that their hours (and paychecks) are shrinking; and, secondly, that they or
their fellow workers are laid off and join the ranks of the unemployed,
capitalism's 'reserve army of labor' while the 'fortunate' ones who retain
their positions are put the strain on and abide without protest for fear of
also losing their jobs. A vicious circle ensues wherein because one is laid
off the product of the other that he/she would have purchased goes wanting and
the other find soon that his/her services are no longer required.
This is insane. All that the construction, repair, invention of anything takes
is 1.) laborers, of which there are many; 2.) resources, of which labor and the
land can provide; and, 3.) Sustenance which again can be produced by labor out
of the bounty that nature has provided us and which stands in jeopardy just so
because of an economic system that values profits over men and women, that
regards profits above even the land which the seekers of individual wealth are
day-by-day despoiling and destroying. For our own survival we must take charge
of our lives from those who value us only as long as they can make money on our
labor. Money, by the way, is a myth. It is a sleight-of-hand that disguises
where it is that real value is produced and has the potential to be produced.
This fact is proved by the fact that (at the direction of its chairman, Ben
Bernanke and Secretary of the Treasury, Paulson, and President George Bush) the
Federal Reserve produced $750 billion out of thin air to give to faltering
financial companies such as AIG, Goldman-Sachs, Merrill-Lynch, Bank of America,
etc. Money is nothing; labor is all.
While none of these things can be advanced and enacted solely at the city
council level, that does not mean that we ought not contest there. For there
real decisions, as this battle over rent increases, affecting real people are
made and made daily. This is a battle over the allegiance of the civil
authorities as to whether they support the landlords or the land-renters.
Should we not exercise the constitutional rights we have (for as long as we
have them) to change the Constitution and add amendments that will "provide for
the general welfare" of the residents of this geographical area, then the shame
will be on us for 'they got the guns, we got the numbers". They got the
power.but we got the votes. If we can get them. If we can find, support and
elect these pawn-pushers of power at this lower level it can provide the model
of the masses in motion for our own interests so as to contest at the state,
national and world-wide levels of power.
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