By Steve Halpern
The other day I attended a demonstration in South Philadelphia demanding that no one be evicted from their homes. Yes, that’s right, in the midst of a world-wide pandemic and depression, landlords are organizing to evict millions of people from their homes. This would mean that evicted families might be sitting on curbs looking at their former homes that would then be vacant. Why in the world would this happen?
Today we live on a planet dominated by the political economic system known as capitalism. In this world, nearly all corporations are in debt to banks. Most of the assets of banks are in its loans to corporations, landlords, and workers.
Because about 50 million workers are now unemployed, many workers don’t have the money to pay their rents. This means that landlords aren’t paying the banks, and those banks are pressuring landlords for money. While the government favors the banks and the landlords, working people are not their primary concern. This explains the madness behind the evictions.
Then, the judges get involved and rule that tenants are in violation of the law because they are not paying rent. Once this happens, the judge orders sheriffs or the police to evict working people from our homes.
We might consider that as soon as the pandemic hit, employers laid off tens of millions of workers. The government rewarded corporations for those actions with trillions of dollars in bailout money. That money wasn’t used to reimburse workers for our lost wages, but for massive investments in the stock market. We might consider that about 80% of the stock market is owned by about 10% of the population.
So, the money withheld from our paychecks in taxes, was used by the government to enrich the affluent, while millions of workers are unemployed, and hospitals have been in desperate need of medical supplies. These are some of the reasons why I attended the demonstration protesting evictions.
However, there is another point I feel it is useful to consider with respect to evictions. This is the decision by judges to evict residents. Those judges argue that those residents are in violation of the law for not paying rent. So, I believe it is useful to look at the history of the laws in this country that have and have not been enforced by the government. While judges argue that “justice is blind” and that they are merely enforcing the law, history gives us a different story.
Native Americans
The people who lived in the Philadelphia area before European contact called themselves the Leni Lenape. As with many Native American nations, the Europeans changed their name. In the case of the Leni Lenape this was to honor a Dutch lord known as Ware. So, these Native Americans, and well as the primary river in this area was called de la Ware, or Delaware.
The Leni Lenape were one of over 500 Native American nations who lived in what is now the United States. Because the United States found it difficult to militarily defeat these nations, the government signed hundreds of treaties with the original inhabitants of this land.
In one of those treaties, the government agreed to give the Black Hills to the Lakota people. Today, Mount Rushmore is located in the Black Hills that were supposed to be the property of the Lakota “forever.”
A judge recognized that the U.S. government had violated their treaty and offered the Lakota about $100 million for the land. The Lakota refused the offer, and quoted the Oglala leader Crazy Horse who argued: “You don’t sell land the people walk on.”
This is the same Mount Rushmore where President Trump gave a recent speech where he said:
“My fellow Americans, it is time to speak up loudly and strongly and powerfully and defend the integrity of our country.”
So, the President is proud of the fact that the land he was standing on at Mount Rushmore was stolen from Native Americans. President Trump is acknowledging that he believes the way to “make America great” is to steal wealth.
In all, the United States government has acknowledged that it violated over 400 treaties with Native American nations. When a nation violates a treaty, this is an act of war and a statement to the world that this nation can not be trusted.
The Declaration of Independence
Every year on July 4 there is a national holiday. This holiday commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This document is a list of grievances colonists in the thirteen colonies had against the British, and explained why they would be carrying out of political revolution. These are some of the words of the Declaration of Independence:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
When I read this statement, I’m thinking of the idea of millions of workers being evicted from their homes, so some of the most affluent people in the world can maximize their profits. Is this not “despotism”? If this is despotism, do we need “new guards” to provide for our security?
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution & the Civil Rights Act
About 350,000 Union soldiers died in the Civil War to free this country of the horrors of chattel slavery. After the Civil War, the government adopted the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The 13th and 15th Amendments outlawed slavery and gave everyone who had not committed treason the right to vote. The government viewed soldiers in the Confederate Army as traitors and they were bared from voting. The 14th Amendment argued that everyone had the right to, “equal protection under the laws.”
Black people briefly had equal rights until the reconstruction governments were militarily defeated by racists around the year 1877. Then, the Supreme Court made it’s Plessey v Ferguson decision that allowed Jim Crow segregation to be the law. This decision, and others, were flagrant violations of the 14th Amendment. As a result, Black people effectively lost citizenship rights in this country.
Then, in the 1950s and 1960s the civil rights movement erupted and Black people demanded the rights that they were supposed to have with the 14th Amendment. The government then passed the Civil Rights Acts that was basically a restatement of the 14th Amendment. However, now Jim Crow segregation was against the law.
Then Michelle Alexander wrote her book The New Jim Crow – Mass incarceration in the age of color blindness. In her book Alexander documented how Black people are grossly over-represented in the dungeons of this country. We can also say that the United States has more prisoners than any other country in the world.
We can also state that there continues to be systematic and routine discrimination with respect to education, health care, housing, and employment. These are clear and unequivocal examples of how there is no “equal protection under the laws.”
Before I attended the demonstration protesting evictions, I attended another demonstration in solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico. There have been over 4,000 deaths during or after recent hurricanes. The island had to wait months before electrical power was restored. Many roofs in Puerto Rico consist of blue plastic tarp. Yet, when President Trump visited the island, he threw paper towels at those gathered for his photo op.
Today, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States, but the island is nothing more than a colony of the U.S. government. The aftermath of the recent hurricanes gives us another clear example of how the Puerto Rica people have been denied “equal protection under the laws.” This is one of many reasons why more and more Puerto Ricans are demanding independence from the United States.
Conclusion
On May 1, 2019 I was in Havana, Cuba where I witnessed over one million Cubans enthusiastically marching in support of their government. The Cuban government has proven that it deserves that support with by way it has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuban health care workers have visited literally everyone on the island to determine if they have COVID-19 symptoms. Cuba can do this because they have about three times more doctors per capita as the United States. They also have a government that makes a priority of human life over profits.
Many of those who have tested positive are given the Cuban developed drug Alpha 2B, that has been shown to be effective in preventing infected patients from getting pneumonia. Alpha 2B is being used by nations all over the world, but not in the United States because of the trade embargo against Cuba.
As a result, Cuba has limited the number of pandemic related deaths to 87. Pennsylvania has a similar population as Cuba and the number of pandemic related deaths is over 7,000. However, the Cuban population is 100% Latino and about 40% Black. Cuba is also sending its doctors and health care workers to nations all over the world to assist in fighting the pandemic.
A few weeks after my return to the states, I attended another demonstration of about 500 people. This was to protest the closing of Hahnemann Hospital, and the layoffs of 2,500 health care workers.
Then, the pandemic came to the city and the government asked Joel Freedman, the owner of the former Hahnemann Hospital, if the building could be used for COVID-19 patients. Freedman demanded that the city pay him about $900,000 per month for usage of the hospital.
The contrast between Cuba and the United States couldn’t be more striking. This gives us a glimmer of what is possible if we had a worker’s government in this country.
Today the capitalist system is falling apart. We are not only talking about workers being evicted from their homes. When banks are not getting payments on their loans, their assets vaporize. We might consider this when we think about the fact that all of our paychecks are drawn from banks. Saying this, we can only imagine what will happen when the banks collapse.
So, today as we see the world-wide capitalist system falling apart, perhaps we might think about the words in the Declaration of Independence. When injustices become an outright tyranny, we have the right and duty to throw off that government and establish new guards for our security.
However, the future revolution will not be like the ones in the past. This time there will be no dominant class that will oppress the majority of the population. This time the majority will put in place a genuinely representative government that will do everything in its power to liberate the human race.
