Editorials

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2001 Editions - Oct 27, 2001


 

The class divide widens


While the horrors of Sept. 11 brought humanity together in its universal condemnation and horror, the reality of a class-divided society - a society based on the law that private profit trumps everything, including people's lives, livelihood and quality of life - keeps coming through.

The deaths by anthrax of U.S. postal workers are the most recent example of the inhuman reality for workers in a capitalist society. While the government moved to protect media and public officials, the health needs of those that do the work, in this case, handling and delivering the mail, were maliciously ignored.

The airline corporations get $15 billion, but the thousands of laid-off airline workers got bupkis.

The Bush administration wants to give huge tax giveaways to the corporations and wealthy but refuses to increase the minimum wage. Unions and workers forced out on strike are labeled unpatriotic in their fight for economic security and justice on the job.

Because of the inextricable link of racism to economic and class issues, the class divide has a racial component that needs special redress. Undocumented workers who died in the terrorist attacks, mainly Latino workers and their families, who contributed to the economy of New York City, will not receive benefits for fear of deportation.

Racial profiling and anti-immigrant attacks continue with a sharp focus on Americans of Middle Eastern descent, Southeast Asians, Muslims and Latinos, especially Mexican Americans.

The broad coalition of labor, religious, farmers, environmental, civil and women's rights groups that oppose Fast Track and the Free Trade Area of the Americas has also been demonized by the ultraright and corporations as assisting terrorism.

Civil liberties and rights have been undermined with legislation such as the anti-terrorism bill. These ideological, political and anti-democratic attacks are also part of the class divide.

It will take unity and struggle, multiracial working-class leadership and an all-people's coalition to change the priorities in favor of peace, economic and social justice, democracy and equality. The answers are within our grasp.



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Love in the time of anthrax


The country is dealing with the effects of terrorism, war and anthrax, creating an atmosphere of gloom, fear and suspicion. At the same time, young people from New York City and Cuba bring forward a sense of hope, beauty and confidence.

Cuban hip-hop artists are in the U.S. for a month-long cultural exchange sponsored by International Hip-Hop Exchange, a group of community organizers, journalists and artists. This exchange between American and Cuban youth is a mind-expanding experience. To use a phrase from Gabriel Garcia Marquez: it's love in the time of cholera.

The Cuban artists emphasize a tried and true socialist pillar: message over money. That resonates for American youth who are turned off by the monopoly corporate record labels corrupting the social and politically conscious roots of rap with violence, gangsterism, sex and greed.

Pable Herrara, a Cuban hip-hop music organizer, said, "Cuba is a country with 42 years of revolution and all the young people were born under the influence of socialism. Our badge has been positive, conscious rap. In Havana now, if the rapper doesn't talk about something to improve something, the public doesn't respond to it."

Americans at these exchanges greeted such philosophy. Yako Prodis, an assistant teacher, said, "Art here [in the U.S.] is a reflection of what the record labels want. That's why you see these negative stereotypes of mostly minorities in hip hop."

Such deep philosophical and cultural exchanges help create a world of hope, cooperation and peace. They provide an arena where everyday people can think, talk and act on the profound issues of life in a class-divided world. It is indeed love in the time of cholera.