Statement from Unión del Barrio
The coronavirus (COVID-19) health emergency is unfolding on a scale that has impacted all of us as a species. This moment represents a new global consciousness that is spreading across the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with people quickly coming to the realization that only as a species can we hope to deal with this crisis. Within the U.S. this pandemic has unmasked the moral and institutional bankruptcy of the most advanced for-profit healthcare system in the world as one that is designed primarily to maximize profit, while proving largely useless for addressing the foreseeable COVID-19 health emergency.
Parasitic U.S. private insurers and the healthcare industrial complex shamelessly double dip to grow their already overblown profit margins. Nearly $4 trillion was spent on healthcare in 2019, making the U.S. model the most expensive, and least effective healthcare system in the capitalist world. Corporate executives and investors argue that this incredible sum of money was never intended to provide a viable health safety net for the entire U.S. population – much less so in a time of crisis. As the for-profit healthcare system is now faced with a national healthcare crisis, private medical interests once again turn to the public to pay the bill, and happily accept $8.3 billion of public funds allocated by the federal government (March 6, 2020 H.R.6074 – Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020). Furthermore, private medical companies and HMOs are ready to access another $50 billion in public funds with the March 13, 2020 national emergency declaration.
This has been a publically enacted and politically sanctioned act of national insurance fraud. This fraud is being perpetrated and celebrated by Donald Trump and his minions, who convene press conferences and applaud the corporate C.E.O.s and the “public-private partnerships” that will save us from the coronavirus. Away from the cameras, central bankers have flooded private industries with “free” money to the tune of $1.5 trillion dollars in order to prop up the collapsed stock market. Very soon the U.S. federal government will announce massive bailouts of private airlines, oil companies, and the cruise industry. These aggressive economic interventions need to be understood as focused entirely on the health of the capitalist system only – equivalent to the toilet paper hoarding and destructive individualism currently being displayed by so many regular people in our society, and none of it is intended to support the urgent healthcare needs of this society.
Indeed, when we take a minute to look past the buffoonish trumpian boasting and incompetence, the true nature of the capitalist system becomes apparent in times of crisis. The rotten core of individualist consumer culture is exposed and in the end the only thing we can be sure of is that this grotesque system of monetized chaos and social inequity will likely condemn many of our communities to elevated levels of viral exposure.
We have no doubt that as this health crisis escalates, there will not be a sufficient level of political nor moral discipline demonstrated by elected officials to advocate for brown and black communities within the U.S. We must also recognize the lack of institutional motivation and organizational capacity needed to provide the necessary medical services to our barrios. Long before trumpista fascism took hold of this country, our communities have historically been denied institutional support and resources in times of crisis (during massive fires, earthquakes, and previous epidemics). We have no other option than to assume that trumpista fascism, especially when it is operating under a scarcity of healthcare resources, will intentionally deny institutional support to many of our communities during this healthcare emergency.
Therefore, the primary task for Unión del Barrio in the coming weeks and months is to implement as robust a set of emergency procedures we can muster. We must prepare ourselves to provide active solidarity to our members, our extended families, our political allies, and the neighborhoods where we have an on-the-ground organizational presence. To the degree that we can be disciplined in maximizing solidarity among those closest to us, will be the measure of how we can challenge the hysteria and neoliberal individualism promoted by the mainstream capitalist media. All of our organizational capacity must be channeled towards building community-based hubs of social solidarity. Unión del Barrio must do our part to advocate for the health and security of our barrios.
Unión del Barrio calls on our members, comrades, and allies to immediately implement this plan until further notice. We must demonstrate the best attributes of a people’s revolutionary organization to protect the health of our members, allies, and our working-class communities. We are guided by the fundamental principles of human solidarity and active rejection of bourgeois tendencies of hoarding, selfishness, and neoliberal individualism.
Email all questions, updates, or pertinent information to <uniondelbarriocc@gmail.com>.
UdB national phone number is 619/398-6648.
The primary UdB COVID-19 webpage for updates is: <http://uniondelbarrio.org/main/?page_id=4368>.
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