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As news spread of the Nov. 10 right-wing coup against President Evo Morales, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and Indigenous communities of Bolivia, anti-imperialists and progressive forces worldwide prepared to take action. In the U.S., Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party immediately issued a call for emergency actions to “Defend the Life of Evo Morales and Stop the U.S.-Fascist Coup” from Nov. 11-17.

Baltimore

On Nov. 11, the Socialist Unity Party in Baltimore called an emergency demonstration to condemn the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia and to defend the life and freedom of Evo Morales. A small crowd gathered at the foot of the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon Place to rally behind a banner that read, “No coup in Bolivia — Defend Evo Morales.”

Representatives of the organizations present, including the People’s Power Assembly, Youth Against War and Racism, the Black Alliance for Peace, the Answer Coalition, the Malaya Movement Baltimore, Friends of Latin America and the Baltimore Green Party, addressed the crowd. Speakers made connections between imperialist war and U.S. interventions abroad, and racist and sexist oppression at home. 

Everyone agreed: solidarity and unity among anti-imperialists is necessary now to put a stop to the terror being wrought by the U.S. and the war profiteers.

https://www.facebook.com/yawrbaltimore/videos/569077760590918/

Los Angeles

An emergency demonstration was held Nov. 11 at the Bolivian Consulate in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles. Well over 100 activists formed a loud and militant picket line with chants demanding an end to the U.S.-backed coup and pledging solidarity to Evo Morales and all the Indigenous people of Bolivia forced to endure this racist attack against their self-determination. 

The action was initiated by Unión del Barrio, the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice and the Socialist Unity Party/Partido por el Socialismo Unido, and joined by other organizations, including Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales, the American Indian Movement SoCal, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) and MEChA de UCLA. Maria Flores of UdB and Jefferson Azevedo of SUP/PSU chaired the rally. 

A much smaller crowd of pro-U.S. imperialism, anti-Morales right-wingers tried to shut down the action, but were met with a wall of sound and bodies refusing their encroachment into the demonstration, forcing them to eventually leave. 

Corporate media outlets were also present covering the demonstration. The event was live-streamed and photos were constantly being posted to social media. Reflecting on the success of the action, Unión del Barrio later noted on the Facebook event page: “It was beautiful to see so many leftist and indigenous organizations in LA unite to stand in solidarity with Evo Morales and the people of Bolivia!”

https://www.facebook.com/udblosangeles/videos/3355964501110732/

New York

Groups affiliated with the Venezuela Rapid Response Network held an emergency protest against the coup in Bolivia during the evening rush hour on Nov. 11. Hundreds turned out at the Bolivarian Mission to the United Nations in Midtown Manhattan and filled an entire city block between 42nd and 43rd streets with a noisy sidewalk picket line. 

Protesters chanting “USA! CIA! Hands off Bolivia!” carried Wiphala flags symbolizing the role of Indigenous Bolivians in the government of Evo Morales, and held signs and banners alerting passersby to the threats against the life of Bolivia’s legitimate president. As protesters gathered, the news was just breaking that Morales and Vice President Álvaro García had accepted an offer of political asylum from the government of Mexico because, as the MAS reported, there was an active assassination plot against them by the Bolivian police.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who praised the racist, anti-people coup as a triumph of “democracy,” was in New York for a Veterans Day event. Protesters decided to take their message directly to Trump Tower, where they made clear that the White House and U.S. Congress would be held responsible for the threat to Bolivia’s sovereignty and Evo’s life.

Fiery talks were given near Trump’s Tower of Greed by Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement, Lucy Pagoada-Quesada of the Libre Party of Honduras and Nikki Gulay of BAYAN USA. Representatives of Brazil’s Lula Livre movement, the Answer Coalition, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and others offered words of solidarity and fightback. 

Speaking for Struggle-La Lucha, protest organizer Bill Dores said, “On Nov. 10, 1898, in Wilmington, N.C., the Ku Klux Klan overthrew the last of the elected Black Reconstruction governments that fought for the workers and poor, Black and white and Native. And yesterday, Nov. 10, 2019, the Indigenous-led government of Evo Morales in Bolivia was overthrown, because it also fought for the poor. They want to unleash the same kind of terror that was unleashed in the South against Black people. 

“We stand with Evo Morales, the Movement Toward Socialism and the Indigenous-led struggle in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, because they are fighting for all of the working class and the poor. It’s one struggle all over the world.”

Organizations from the Rapid Response group are planning another action for Saturday, Nov. 16, beginning at 1 p.m. at 10 Columbus Circle, the New York headquarters of CNN and the Time Warner media monopoly. 

https://www.facebook.com/strugglelalucha/videos/1534003430073747/

Demonstrations have been held in many other cities, including Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. More protests are planned. For updates, visit the events page at Struggle-La-Lucha.org.

Bayani, John Parker and Greg Butterfield contributed to this report.

SLL photos: Emma Rose, Maggie Vascassenno, Greg Butterfield

The center of La Paz has been transformed into a scenario of barricades, queues to purchase in the few businesses that are open, transportation halted, neighbours stationed on corners crossed by barbed wires and zinc sheets. Near Plaza Murillo, the center of political power, groups pass by wearing helmets, shields, gas masks, Bolivian flags, police contingents betting on each other and asking for reinforcement from the National Armed Force (FAB).

It is Monday night and there is fear: that the city of El Alto will be brought down. The scenes seen during the afternoon reminded many in central and southern La Paz that half of the country that voted for Evo Morales exists and will not stand idly by.

What was thought to happen in El Alto happened, and thousands of residents, mostly from the Aymara nation, took to the streets to face the coup d’état, to defend the process of change, and something very profound: the Whipala flag, which during the hours of the coup offensive was removed from institutions and burned in the street by right-wing demonstrators.

What happened was not part of the plan of those who lead the coup d’état which, at this time, has more elements of confusion and violence than of a planned project. One element is clear: the main objective was to overthrow Evo Morales and persecute him, as he denounced when he made public that an officer of the Bolivian National Police (PNB) has an illegal arrest warrant against him, and that he is in an unknown location.

Morales’ situation was uncertain last night. Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, announced that the former president was on a plane that would take him to that country.

His personal safety is a matter of great concern in a context where his house was attacked by violent groups and where there is no public authority among those who carried out the coup. The rule of law has been broken and that has opened the doors to absolute impunity for those who exercise power.

During the day, Morales sent messages from his Twitter account to denounce the repression in El Alto that claimed several lives, including that of a girl, and to ask people not to fall into confrontations “between brothers”. At night, before boarding the plane, he tweeted: “Sisters and brothers, I am leaving for Mexico, grateful for the detachment of the government of that brother people who gave us asylum to take care of our lives. It hurts me to leave the country for political reasons, but I will always be attentive. Soon I will return with more strength and energy”. The proposal for asylum in Mexico will be a possible way out for the overthrown and endangered president.

No government

In Bolivia, the coup bloc has not yet been able to form a government. After the resignation of Evo Morales, Vice President Alvaro García Linera, the President of the Senate, the Vice President, should assume the third front, Jeanine Añez, who landed in Bolivia. However, she should assume the presidency with the agreement of the legislative power, where in both chambers the Movement Towards Socialism, the party that was forcibly displaced, has a majority.

So there is no interim coup government visible after more than 24 hours of consummated coup d’état. On the other hand, there are powers that are deployed in repressive and persecutorial actions, with the announcements in social networks of Fernando Camacho, visible face of the civil wing of the coup, the actions of the PNB and the FAB.

The latter issued a communiqué on Monday night under the reading of Commander General Williams Kaliman: the FAB will deploy actions in the streets to accompany the PNB. There is no formal government, but there is the power of arms.

The scenario is not the one foreseen by those who led the coup d’etat. The question is really: did they have an organized scenario that was beyond simply overthrowing and persecuting Morales and the leaders of the process of change?

The coup bloc is heterogeneous; it contains civil, business, police, military, religious and international sectors. This last dimension was expressed in the complicity of the Organization of American States (OAS), which did not qualify what happened as a coup d’état, and in the declarations of the United States, which described the overthrow as a return to democracy.

The conjunction of forces that achieved the coup seems to have a clear objective: to decapitate the process of change, from its officials to the political leaders. That has translated into persecution, as evidenced by asylum applications in embassies, particularly in Mexico.

There is instability within those who led the offensive, as well as a mobilization reaction, not only in El Alto – with a strong level of radicalism – but in various parts of the country.

Thus, for example, the Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (Csutcb) announced blockades throughout Bolivia on main roads, “general resistance to the coup d’état throughout the country,” as well as the expulsion of leaders who became part of the overthrow.

The situation is more unstable than the promise sold by Camacho and those who celebrated on Sunday afternoon and night. There is a country that they denied, despised, despite their efforts to be democratic and inclusive, and that country began to mobilize, to challenge, to confront the conservative restoration seeking revenge.

For the moment, there is no visible direction of the resistance processes. What is clear is that the decision of those conducting the coup will be to respond with repression on every possible level. By Monday night you could see the tanks in the streets of La Paz and the people who celebrated the overthrow and burning of Whipalas now applaud the militarization.

Source Internationalist 360º

November 12, 2019

Faced with a media siege that confronts the truth in our country, the Movement Towards Socialism sends this communiqué to the Bolivian people and the international community that since November 10, 2019, a plan of assassination by the Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas (UMOPAR) and the Bolivian Police was activated in the hard phase of the coup d’état against our leaders Evo Morales and Álvaro García, which is why the Mexican government’s offer of asylum was accepted.

During the entire day of November 11, the coup plotters put the lives of our leaders Evo and Álvaro at serious risk, first with public threats from police to proceed with operations to stop them and then with the closure of our air space, through administrative obstacles of the Bolivian Air Force, preventing the entry of the Mexican airplane that came to pick them up.

The Bolivian people are living terrible moments, with policemen and motorcyclists creating panic in the streets and with the military high command deciding to attack the people in the name of pacification, even preventing personalities, church and politicians from finding constitutional and democratic solutions to the crisis we are facing.

The Military is in the streets, shooting from helicopters in Cochabamba, mobilizing tanks, troops and weapons in La Paz to annihilate our people just for resisting the injustice and outrage, racism, violence and the infamous strategy of preventing our leaders from continuing to lead the country.

The coup d’état was a construction of several steps, first installing the idea of electoral fraud to generate questions in the streets, denying our victory, and using the OAS audit report, distorting its content, when it categorically speaks of irregularities and not fraud; then asking for the nullification of the elections, then the resignation of our leaders, and to finally concretize their strategy with the police mutiny, articulating the anti-democratic plan, installing a regime of terror, with threats and persecution.

They are forcing the patience of our people, the resignation of our Brothers President and Vice President was not enough for them, but they are even trying to force a government out of the constitutional succession, by pretending that the 2nd Vice President of the Senate leads the coup d’état by becoming president of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly and automatically President of the State, when in strictly constitutional terms it is the President of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra, who is responsible for assuming that transition.

In this line of irregular actions, the armed forces have materialized the betrayal of the Bolivian people, economically supported by the civilian Camacho, who, colluding with the aforementioned opponents, closed the circuit of the coup d’état.

Compatriots, not even the vileness and rage against our brothers Evo and Alvaro will achieve a look of sadness, repentance or sorrow, this new sacrifice of our leaders is to keep us united, strong and fighting for the people as we have always done…

Let us denounce the coup d’état, let us show the world that hatred the hatred we are witnessing is only because with great dignity we empowered the Bolivian people.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau

New York, Nov. 6 — Housing activists gathered on the steps of City Hall today and said no to the privatization of the largest public housing system in the U.S. Developers want to kick out working-class families in order to build more luxury housing.

Five hundred thousand people live in New York City’s public housing. They’re fed up with mold and roaches in their apartments. 

Elevators are often broken, a nightmare for disabled and elderly residents.  Many tenants at the Queensbridge Houses didn’t have heat last winter.

Saundrea Coleman, co-founder of the Holmes-Isaacs Coalition, chaired the conference. La Keesha Taylor, also from the coalition, demanded action, as did Jose Guevara, who’s also from the Holmes-Isaacs Coalition. Chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” filled the front of City Hall.

The capitalist government has let public housing rot for years. Just to repair the Fulton Houses will cost $168 million.

Around $32 billion is needed to fix the backlog of repairs in the entire system. That’s about what the so-called U.S. Department of Energy spends every year to develop new nuclear weapons.

Louis Flores from Fight for NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) demanded that elected officials get public housing fixed, or they will be voted out. Kei Pritsker from the Justice Center en El Barrio denounced the vertical patrols conducted by New York police in housing projects.

Pritsker pointed out that the unarmed Akai Gurley was killed in Brooklyn’s Pink Houses by a cop who discharged his weapon down a dark stairwell. If the elevators had not broken down and the stairway had been lighted, Akai Gurley might be alive today.

Kei Pritsker also told listeners that there are no homeless people in socialist Cuba and that Venezuela has built 2.8 million homes for poor people. What a contrast to the capital of capitalism—New York City—where 100,000 students will be homeless for at least part of the year.

Dannelly Rodriguez spoke from Justice for All, a dynamic grassroots group from the Astoria, Woodside and Sunnyside communities in western Queens. He denounced plans to build luxury housing over the Sunnyside railroad yards.

Rodriguez asked that if Mayor Bill de Blasio can find $11 billion to build new jails, why can’t they find the money to fix public housing?

People will have to fight to get it.

Defend the life of Evo Morales! 

Stop the U.S.-fascist coup in Bolivia

Call for week of emergency actions Nov. 11-17

On Nov. 10, President Evo Morales of Bolivia was forced to resign during a military coup supported by the U.S. government. Fascist terror has swept over the country in recent weeks since President Morales won re-election, including the racist, sexist attack on Mayor Patricia Arce of Vinto, who was terrorized and dragged through the streets.

Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Partido por el Socialismo Unido/Socialist Unity Party call on the workers and the progressive movement to take immediate emergency actions to defend the life of Evo Morales, the Indigenous community and the progressive social movements of Bolivia. We hold President Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress responsible for their safety. We join the call of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez: “We call for a worldwide mobilization for the life and freedom of Evo.”

We remember how the attempted 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was derailed by the intervention of the masses and international solidarity. We must do everything in our power to prevent a repeat of the fascist terror that swept Chile after the Sept. 11, 1973, Pinochet coup organized by Washington. 

Evo Morales is the first Indigenous president, representing the Bolivian majority, in the country’s 200-year history. Morales has been a global leader in the struggle to defend the planet from capitalist-driven climate change. The same capitalist interests trying to destroy the Amazon forest are behind the coup in Bolivia.

Since Morales took office representing the Movement Towards Socialism, extreme poverty dropped from 38 percent in 2006 to 17 percent in 2018; the national minimum wage increased by roughly 104 percent; and over $1 billion was allocated for construction of over 5,000 medical clinics, schools and gymnasiums in poor areas.

The struggle in Bolivia is far from over. Today the class struggle is raging across the South American continent between forces representing U.S. imperialism, colonialism, racism and austerity, and the people’s movements that refuse to be ground down under the boot heel of the rich and powerful.

Workers, anti-war and anti-imperialist activists in the U.S. have a special responsibility to show solidarity with the oppressed fighting around the world against the domination of Wall Street and Washington. It is our responsibility to do all we can to push back the U.S. political, economic and military attacks on Bolivia and all of Latin America.

Take action

• Hold emergency actions in your area during the week of Nov. 11 – 17. Post information on your local action on the Facebook event page. Download protest signs and other material from this page.
• Post photos holding signs that say Defend Evo Morales, Stop Coup in Bolivia on social media with hashtags #ElMundoConEvo #EvoNoEstasSolo #DefendEvoMorales 
• Inform your co-workers, friends and family members, and help them get involved!

From USA, Women in Struggle condemns the criminal fascist coup orchestrated from the White House in Washington. All our solidarity with President Evo Morales, his Vice President Álvaro García Linera and all the Bolivian people represented by MAS.

#ElMundoConEvo

New York, Oct. 29 — Hundreds of people jammed a union meeting hall tonight at the AFSCME District 37 headquarters in lower Manhattan to demand a halt to evictions. The People’s Tribunal on Evictions heard testimony from dozens of people speaking in Spanish, Haitian Creole, French and English.

People’s judges heard testimony from tenants whose apartments were infested by rats, roaches and mice while their landlords did nothing. Some spoke about how landlords used the Major Capital Improvements scam to jack-up rents.

One speaker recalled how Joy Noel, an 85-year old grandmother was evicted from her Brooklyn apartment by Carnegie Management.  Labeled as “worst evictors” were Steven Finkelstein, who sued 889 families, and Daniel Benedict, who sued 446.

Last year there were 18,018 evictions in New York City. Landlords threw tens of thousands of people and their belongings into the street.

That’s one reason why 100,000 students in New York City’s schools are homeless during at at least part of the year. Meanwhile in socialist Cuba, despite the U.S. blockade, not a single child is homeless.

Making NYC eviction free

This impressive and moving tribunal was organized by the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition. It took this coalition three years of fighting until winning in 2017 the right for tenants facing eviction in housing court to have a lawyer.

Housing and community groups endorsing this new coalition include the Crown Heights Tenants Union, Flatbush Tenant Coalition and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. Volunteers worked during the tribunal to provide food, childcare and interpretation.

Twelve demands are being made of the city to stop evictions. Among them is a moratorium on evictions during the winter, from Oct 1 to May 30. Another is to recognize housing as a human right. Expanding the right to legal counsel is the first demand.

An “eviction defense network orientation” will be held on Nov. 21 from 6 to 9 pm at 121 6th Avenue on the sixth floor. RSVP to: info@righttocounsel.org.

For more information:  https://www.righttocounselnyc.org/  

Los Angeles — Poor maintenance by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has caused wildfires in California in recent years that resulted in well over 100 deaths and billions of dollars in property damage. The privately owned PG&E has declared bankruptcy to avoid paying settlements to its victims and is rejecting a federal judge’s orders to come up with safer ways to deliver gas and electricity to millions of Californians.

The 2017-2018 fires aren’t the first time that PG&E’s greed has turned deadly. Investigations of a 2010 natural gas explosion in San Bruno that killed 8 people and burned an entire city block revealed that a pipe replacement project was called off prematurely to save money and should have included San Bruno. PG&E employees had voiced concerns and were ignored.

Experts point to the fact that PG&E has neglected tree-trimming near its power lines to save money. David Walters, a retired member of the Electrical Workers union (IBEW) and former PG&E worker, said about the 2017-2018 fires: “This was totally the fault of PG&E, my former employer. PG&E admits it has only accomplished 31 percent of the required PUC [Public Utilities Commission] mandated tree trimming. 

“This story is an old one going back to the mid-1980s, when the company started scaling back tree trimming operations. … Tree trimming is mandated by state regulations. … PG&E has failed to do this. We have had higher wind situations 20 and 30 years ago which did not cause any fires whatsoever.”

Politicians, courts and watchdog agencies are supposed to police the corporations. But unlike the cops that terrorize communities of color throughout the U.S., these cops wear velvet gloves. 

Every state has a Public Utilities Commission. But PublicIntegrity.org conducted a survey of the entire U.S. and found that most commissioners have direct financial interests in the industries they are supposed to be “watchdogging.” The supposed independence of the watchdog agencies from utility corporations is a hoax.

‘Watchdogs’ for profit

On Sept. 16, 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that William Peevey, then chief of California’s PUC, actually held a discussion with PG&E executives about ways of getting litigation against the utility moved in front of friendly judges following the San Bruno explosion. They were “judge shopping” over lunch. Peevey was forced out in late 2014, but is still bandied about as an expert in the area of power generation and regulations.

After the fires of 2017, the California Legislature passed a law so that PG&E could force its customers to pay for the liabilities from the 22 deaths and thousands of structures destroyed. But that law only covered the 2017 fires, and when the Camp fire and others happened in November 2018, the political risk of covering for PG&E again was too great. This time, 85 people lost their lives in a terrifying fire — the worst in California history. The fire tore through the entire town of Paradise. The property damage from that fire alone was in the billions of dollars, and without cover from its bought-and-paid-for politicians, PG&E declared bankruptcy.

Legislators, courts and watchdog agencies are supposed to keep corporations clean: reign in corporate excess, issue penalties for corporate abuses, prevent price-fixing, enforce safety regulations, etc., etc. But the legal and political structures developed by capitalism allow banks and corporations to exploit social needs, rake in billions and grant corporations de facto immunity when catastrophic events happen. The balance of power is the opposite of how it is explained in high school social studies classes.

Experts have voiced the opinion that a rigorous operation of trimming tree branches and clearing vegetation away from electrical lines and towers would have prevented the 2017-2018 fires. Others point to the possibility of burying power lines as is done in many other countries. 

But PG&E spokespeople ridicule the idea of tree-trimming or burying power lines because of the expense. Instead, they unilaterally decided to shut down power in times of high-risk for fires. 

This plan was implemented when winds kicked up on Oct. 8 with little advance warning. PG&E shut off power to nearly a million customers when high winds threatened to down power lines. There was barely any warning and the shutdown lasted more than 72 hours in some cases. 

Refrigerators didn’t run, food spoiled, communications were hindered, medicines that needed refrigeration went bad. The power shut-offs were a cheap, Band-Aid solution to a problem of PG&E’s own making.

PG&E investors would put their capital elsewhere if investments in infrastructure lowered profits relative to other investment opportunities. As Karl Marx put it, “Capital flows to the highest rate of profit.” That’s the way it works under capitalism. 

Socialism means power to the people

It also raises a question that every social and economic justice activist should be thinking about: How is it that countries trying to build socialism avoid this debacle and are able to move mountains when it comes to massive projects for the people? 

As PG&E was declaring bankruptcy in January 2019 to get out of paying settlements for its negligence, hundreds of construction workers in Beijing were busy burying powerlines in two districts where there are traditional alleys — hutongs — dense with electrical cables. 

Meanwhile, according to Venezuelanalysis, Bolivarian Venezuela, under U.S. attack on multiple fronts, was proudly passing the halfway mark in “Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission” (GMVV) with a goal of 5 million new homes by 2025. Granma reported that Cuba was continuing work on the largest water diversion in its history, adding power generation plants and increasing agricultural capacity in some areas by 15 times.

In an earlier example, at the Eighth All Russian Congress of Soviets in 1920, V.I. Lenin pushed for a plan to electrify the USSR. He said: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country. … In my opinion it is the second program of our party.” 

The plan was adopted, the funds and resources were directed toward the project, and even as the isolated workers’ state fought the aggression of 18 imperialist armies, including Britain and the U.S., the Soviet people electrified and pulled their country out from the deep poverty they inherited from Czarist times.

Under socialism, there is surplus value in the revenue taken in by enterprises that are owned collectively. But none of it is turned into profit for a tiny handful of rich people. It goes into a fund held by the state. It may be the national government or it may be a provincial administration, but the surplus from the revenue is set aside for the greater good of society. If a multibillion-dollar project is needed for electricity generation, mass transit or mass communication, the decision gets made and the project is undertaken. 

Capitalism is still the dominant mode of production in the world, and that fact has made it difficult for countries trying to build socialism to attain the full potential of a planned economy. The advanced economic power of China yields the greatest examples, but U.S. aggression hasn’t stopped Cuba and Venezuela from making great gains for their population.  

Safe, clean Power to the People!

New York — Hundreds of people filled the auditorium of Manhattan’s Washington Irving campus near Union Square on Oct. 16 to fight for housing for all.

After years of skyrocketing rents, the New York state Legislature finally passed several bills in June to strengthen rent control. These bills eliminated some of the loopholes that landlords use to jack up rents and evict tenants. Rent control was made permanent — no longer would tenants have to travel to the state capital of Albany to beg politicians to re-enact it.

None of this would have happened without years of struggle. Now, the fight is to get decent housing for all. New York City landlords and developers keep nearly a quarter-million apartments empty instead of making the rent affordable.

Housing activists are demanding a “New York Homes Guarantee.” This includes universal rent control; fully funded and resident-controlled public housing; 600,000 units of affordable “social” housing; ending homelessness; and eliminating toxins like lead and mold from all housing. 

Solving the housing crisis will take at least $10 billion more annually in New York state’s housing budget. Taxing the billionaires and developers can pay for it.

‘That ain’t right!’

Speakers at the rally spoke in Spanish, Chinese and English. They spoke in front of a banner attacking New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s housing crisis. Andy’s daddy—former Gov. Mario Cuomo—stole $8 billion that was supposed to be used for affordable housing and built prisons with it instead.

Seventy-three-year-old Nathylin Flowers Adesegun spoke of being homeless after the rent on her Brooklyn apartment was tripled by a greedy landlord. When she confronted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last year at his gym about the housing crisis, DeBlasio replied: “I’m in the middle of doing my workout. Sorry, you can’t do this now.”

People in the audience yelled out, “That ain’t right!” Other speakers told their own bitter stories. 

A moment of silence was held for the four homeless men who were beaten to death recently in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

A speaker from the Queensbridge Houses spoke in Chinese about how ovens would have to be turned on in order to heat apartments in the winter. An estimated $31 billion is needed to repair public housing for 500,000 people in the Big Apple.

The main organizer of the impressive rally was the Metropolitan Council on Housing, which has been fighting for tenants for 60 years. Many other community-based organizations helped to build it as well and taped their colorful banners to the auditorium’s balcony. They included Churches United for Fair Housing; CAAAV, originally called the Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence; the Court Square Committee; Make the Road While Walking; the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition; and Woodside on the Move. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America came and worked to make the event a success. 

New York — Hundreds of people gathered in Corona Plaza in the Borough of Queens on Oct. 13 to demand that Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno, resign. Ecuadorian immigrants and their supporters hailed the mass uprising in the South American country. People stayed on the elevated platform of the No. 7 train to watch.  

Ecuador’s president betrayed his election promises and instituted wholesale cutbacks. The last straw was an increase in the price of fuel, which was demanded by the International Monetary Fund.

Chevron has pillaged the country for decades and has left vast ecological damage.

Indigenous peoples have been the most hard hit. They’ve taken the lead in the struggle. Five hundred years ago, before the genocide committed by the Spanish crown, the country’s capital Quito had been part of the Inca Empire.

Among the signs in Spanish that demonstrators carried were the messages that “We support our Indigenous siblings” and “Moreno out.”

SLL photos: Stephen Millies