By Steve Halpern
This past Saturday I attended the No Kings demonstration in Philadelphia. An estimated 100,000 people participated in Philly and about five million throughout the country. While the primary issue of these demonstrations was many of the dictatorial decisions of Donald Trump, there were many protesters who had a specific focus. These included opposition to the mass deportations, opposition to aid for the Israeli organized genocide, as well as Israel’s current war against Iran.
I believe there was fundamental agreement that there are serious problems in this country. The Democratic Party isn’t offering any responsible opposition. As a result, about five-million people felt the need to come out in the streets.
After the demonstration, I attended two meetings where I got a feel for what people are thinking. The first was an educational organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation that focused on the Juneteenth national holiday. The other was organized by local Philadelphia politicians to discuss issues people are concerned about. Those politicians also attended the No Kings demonstration.
Juneteenth Educational
About thirty people attended the Juneteenth educational organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Most of the people were young and I appeared to be the old head at 72 years of age. Several speakers spoke about the significance of Juneteenth, the background, the aftermath, and how this holiday is relevant for us today.
I didn’t expect to agree with all of the arguments, but that wasn’t the point. All of the speakers were well informed and the audience clearly appreciated their efforts. The presentations started with the history before the Greek and Roman Empires. This is when humanity lived in difficult times, but there was genuine equality. We were introduced to little known highly developed African civilizations. Those empires influenced the Greek and Roman Empires we learned about in school.
Then we learned about how the Civil War was, in reality, the Second American Revolution. While capitalists in the north profited from slavery, they also developed interests that would eventually cause them to go to war against the slave owners.
Then, a speaker introduced us to W.E.B. DuBois book Black Reconstruction in America. This book gives us a feel for the transforming effect of the reconstruction governments after the Civil War. It also argued that the participation of former slaves was necessary for the Union victory. Hundreds of thousands of former slaves left the plantations and this meant the confederate army had extreme difficulty in finding food. The Black soldiers also played a pivotal role. The Union army needed soldiers because of deaths, injuries, and desertions.
Then, for a time, there was a genuine effort to bring equality to the former slave states in the reconstruction era. This attitude, no doubt, gave Black people who lived in Galveston, Texas reason to celebrate Juneteenth when they learned of the abolition of slavery. Black people went from being slaves to sitting in government positions. The educational system was transformed. Many Blacks and whites began attending school for the first time.
However, as with all revolutions, there was a backlash. Many former abolitionists adopted themselves to the new reality where the terrorist Ku Klux Klan organized to strip Black people of their citizenship rights. After the Union Army withdrew from the former slave states terrorists organized to go to war against those who defended reconstruction.
The defeat of reconstruction laid the foundation for the Jim Crow laws that flagrantly violated the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The government adopted those Amendments after the Civil War. While the Supreme Court isn’t supposed to have the power to violate the Constitution, that is exactly what they did in several decisions in support of Jim Crow segregation.
So, when we think of the repressive policies of the Administration of Donald Trump this is nothing new. However, both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement give us evidence of how masses of working people organized to force the government to change its policies. The people who attended this educational were engaged with these issues and most participated in the discussion.
The meeting of the politicians
Tarik Kahn and Vincent Hughes were two of the politicians who organized this meeting held at the Roxborough Memorial Hospital. They are both members of the Democratic Party. I believe they both attended the No Kings demonstration. About 100 people might have attended this meeting and they were of all ages.
We all received copies of the summary of the budget the Democratic Party supports in Pennsylvania. The politicians all spoke about the enormous cuts proposed by the federal government. These would affect the public transportation system known as SEPTA. Many people in the Delaware Valley depend of SEPTA to go to work. It is extremely challenging to commute to and from center city Philadelphia without public transportation.
Other proposed cuts are of Medicaid. Today there is an opioid epidemic throughout the country and the cuts in Medicaid would adversely affect this horror. Two of the participants in this meeting had sons who died as a result of this epidemic. Vincent Hughes reported that there are many rural hospitals in Pennsylvania that would close because of the proposed cutbacks in Medicaid.
Then, these politicians suggested that people contact the two Senators from Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick and John Fetterman. The idea is that if enough people call these senators, they will be motivated to oppose the proposed cutbacks of the federal government.
For about a full hour people in the audience were allowed to raise their concerns. I had the impression that most people feel we are confronting profound problems. However, it appeared that most people also supported the efforts of this politicians to deal with these problems.
Then someone spoke about the lack of air-conditioning at Roxborough High School. This person appeared to feel a genuine concern for the students who had to sit in sweltering classrooms trying to learn something.
Then I was allowed to speak and attempted to argue for a different perspective. I started by giving an answer to the question as to why there is no air-conditioning in Roxborough High. The reason is that the state and federal governments are in flagrant violation of the law. Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer wrote a 780-page decision arguing that the inequality in funding for education in Pennsylvania violates the Constitution.
On the Philadelphia side of City Line Avenue, per student funding for education is about $10,000. When we walk across the street on City Line Avenue, we enter the Lower Merion School district. There per student funding for education is $26,000. I’m sure that students in the Lower Merion School district aren’t sweltering in classes with no air-conditioning. This is the gross disparity in funding that Judge Jubelirer argued is unconstitutional.
One of the reasons given for this gross disparity in funding is the difference in real estate taxes. However, Philadelphia has several billion-dollar buildings and many that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Lower Merion doesn’t have real estate with those values. However, the most expensive buildings in Philly are commercial and that is the rub.
While Judge Jubelirer’s decision was not binding, the New Jersey Supreme Court made a decision in the 1981 Abbott v. Burke case that was binding. The court ordered Governor Florio to come up with $700 million for underfunded schools in the state.
The governor could have at least made an effort to get that money from the most affluent people who lived in the state. However, Governor Florio and the New Jersey state government chose not to take that road. Instead, New Jersey residents pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation. Yet, in spite of massive funding, inner-city schools continue to be underfunded in New Jersey.
Then there is the issue of funding for health care. While many Pennsylvania hospitals are being threatened with closure, 700 hospitals have already closed throughout the country. This is in spite of the fact that the United States pays more for health care, per person, than any other nation in the world. Yet, there are about 45 nations that have higher life expectancy than the United States.
While 700 hospitals have closed, Jefferson University and the University of Pennsylvania Hospitals invested billions of dollars in new construction in Philadelphia. Apparently, these investments are about maximizing the profits taken from health care.
For instance, Jefferson University finished their billion-dollar Honickman Center last year. This expensive building has no beds, no maternity care, no pediatrics, no mental health, and no primary care. Yet we might speculate that the banks who invested in the Honickman Center expect payments on their investment every month. Those payments include interest, much of which goes to some of the most affluent people in the world.
Then there is the idea of calling the Pennsylvania senators and asking them to oppose the cuts in federal aid to Pennsylvania. Senators McCormick and Fetterman are both ardent supporters of the Israeli organized genocide against the Palestinian people. I asked the question as to why would we expect anything from these senators when they gave a standing ovation to Benjamin Netanyahu, who, in effect ordered the mass murder and starvation of babies?
So, if the strategy of the politicians isn’t going to be effective, then what would be an effective strategy? I spoke about how the driving force for change in the country has always been the participation of masses of people in struggle. This started with the American Revolution, then there was the Civil War, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and the women’s movement. I mentioned that today women feel comfortable in wearing pants and not dresses. This was a conquest of the women’s movement during the 1970’s
All this means that we need a mass movement that has realistic goals. Instead of thinking about how much money will be allocated for programs, I believe we need to talk about political rights that we all need. These would be lifetime rights to food, clothing, a place to live, education, and health care.
I received an ovation for my remarks. The politicians had nothing to say in response. My opinion is that people liked the fact that I expressed an anger at what is happening today. On a certain level, they share that anger. However, after the meeting, only a few people approached me thanking me for my remarks.
Conclusion
In the Juneteenth meeting, I gave my opinion as to why racist discrimination has been so persistent in the history of this country. The capitalist system needs to grow continually. We see this in the obsession by politicians and the news media to support growth of the stock market. The question is, where does the money come from to finance this growth?
This comes from a reality that every worker is aware of. This is the obsession of the owners of corporations to continually cut costs. When employers can pay Black workers less than white workers, this is one way they can minimize their expenses. So, while Judge Jubelirer rules that inequality in funding for education is illegal in Pennsylvania, the state government feels free to essentially ignore that decision.
However, things are changing in the world today. The power brokers in the United States no longer dominate the world as they did in the past. There is nothing democratic or republican politicians can do about that. Their inability to make meaningful change has made this country even more repressive than it was in the past. ICE agents now are illegally arresting and deporting people who lived and worked here for decades. Even Senator Alex Padilla was assaulted, pushed to the floor, and handcuffed, for merely asking a question to Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem.
However, while the government makes this a more repressive place to live, working people will continue to find ways to resist and overcome the recent madness we are being exposed to.
