Workers target Wall Street for April 3-4 actions
By
Jaimeson Champion
Published Mar 22, 2009 11:10 PM
On March 16, 2008, Bear Stearns, the fifth largest investment bank in the U.S
and a decades-old fixture on Wall Street, collapsed under a mountain of souring
mortgage-backed securities and other bad debts, marking for many people the
start of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In the year since, workers and oppressed people have borne witness to one of
the largest upward transfers of wealth in human history, as the U.S.
government’s response to the crisis has been to give the wealthiest
members of society unfettered access to trillions of dollars of tax monies in
the U.S. Treasury, in the supposed hope that it will get banks to “start
lending again.” Meanwhile, the working class continues to suffer through
record-breaking numbers of foreclosures and evictions, mass layoffs, and
draconian cuts to vital social services.
For millions of workers and oppressed people, there is no time to wait for a
stimulus plan to “trickle down” through the economy. For them,
survival is hanging in the balance. In cities and towns across the country, the
multinational working class is becoming painfully aware of the fact that there
is no band-aid solution to this gaping economic wound.
That is why workers and activists from across the country are preparing to
converge on Wall Street, the nerve center of finance capital, on April 3 in
order to directly confront the billionaire bankers and financiers.
Demonstrators will demand an immediate moratorium on all foreclosures and
evictions, and money for jobs, health care and education, not bank bailouts and
war.
Buses for the April 3-4 protests on Wall Street will be leaving from a number
of U.S. cities. Frank Neisser, an organizer from the Boston branch of the Bail
Out the People Movement, BOPM, reported that sign-up sheets for transportation
to the protest were filling up quickly. “The bankers on Wall Street are
getting billions of dollars in bailout money because the workers are not being
heard from. They are going to hear us on April 3!” he said.
Sharon Black, a BOPM organizer in Baltimore, said phone lines at the regional
organizing center there were abuzz with inquires about the demonstration.
“We are getting calls and mail everyday. There are growing numbers of
people who want to fight back on issues like foreclosure and layoffs, which are
having such a devastating impact on their lives and communities.”
Groundswell of outrage
Across the U.S there is a groundswell of popular outrage over the numerous
attacks being perpetrated against workers and the oppressed by the very same
banks and corporations that are raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in
bailout money.
Larry Holmes, a BOPM organizer in New York, said, “People are angry at
the banks that are forcing families from their homes, angry at the bosses that
are stripping workers of their livelihoods, and angry at the government that is
handing out trillions of dollars to financial institutions. People are angry
and they are looking to take united action.
“The BOPM was founded with the goal of helping to build a progressive
movement capable of winning tangible gains for poor and working-class people
who are suffering. The BOPM was founded to combat against the phony populism
and right-wing demagogy of the ruling-class politicians and blowhards like Lou
Dobbs, who want to obscure the real cause of this crisis and want to divide the
working-class movement with racist scapegoating,” said Holmes.
Indeed, the announcement that the insurance company AIG, which has received
more than $170 billion in bailout money, has paid out more than $165 million in
bonus payments to executives, has aroused much hostility. Not only are workers
angry over this giveaway, it has also drawn a chorus of faux populist invective
from a host of pro-capitalist politicians and pundits.
Lawrence Summers, former chief economist at the World Bank and current chief
economic advisor to President Obama, feigned indignation, calling the AIG
bonuses “outrageous.” (ABC News, March 15) Federal Reserve Chairman
Bernanke recently stated that the unabashed greed he has seen at AIG over the
past year has caused him to slam the telephone down in anger a number of times.
(CBS News, March 15)
There is certainly no shortage of greed at financial institutions like AIG. And
it is certainly possible that Bernanke slammed a phone or two. But the put-on
indignation and phony populism being spouted by the ruling-class politicians
and pundits is used in service of their larger goal of obscuring the true cause
of this crisis.
By trying to convince workers that the economic meltdown resulted from the
unchecked greed of a few “bad apples” at companies like AIG, they
are also advancing the idea that this type of crisis can be avoided in the
future with better regulation in the financial markets and a move into some
sort of mythic “post-bubble” capitalism.
But the reality is that the kind of economic crisis that workers around the
world are currently suffering through is inherent to the capitalist system.
There is no such thing as capitalism without crisis. Crisis is written into the
very DNA of capitalism. Because of the economic laws of capitalism, whereby
each individual capitalist is compelled by competition with other capitalists
to continuously expand production irrespective of the workers’ ability to
pay for the commodities that they produce, crises of overproduction are
inevitable. As long as capitalism exists, these destructive crises will
persist.
The only way for workers to escape this vicious cycle of glutted markets, job
loss, bankruptcy, poverty and misery, which have afflicted poor and working
people since the advent of capitalism, is to demolish the capitalist system and
replace it with planned production. With the growth of working-class
consciousness, internationalism, unity and solidarity, this tall task becomes
more achievable by the day.
The March 16, 2008, collapse of Bear Stearns is remembered by many as the
beginning of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Workers and
activists across the country intend to ensure that April 3, 2009, marks the
beginning of a new chapter in the mass struggle that will help put an end to
economic injustice and crisis, once and for all
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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