Billionaires, Not Migrants, are the Source of Our Problems
Listening to the Presidential debate, you would think we are at war and the country is facing an invasion that is overwhelming the people of the Untied States. Although the Democrats and Republicans may use different language about immigration, their policies are overwhelmingly the same. It is true to say there is a crisis at the border, but it’s a humanitarian crisis.
For the past three years, there has been a significant increase in the number of people trying to cross the U.S. southern border from Mexico. Those who have made it into the U.S. face wait times of years to decades for their immigration status decision, and hundreds of thousands are now left in limbo in horrific conditions. This is in part because of Biden’s new executive order effectively shutting down the border.
The hysteria kicked up by the politicians and their news media has been at a fever pitch. Trump proposes wild solutions like Mexico paying for a U.S. border wall, while Democrats running New York City kick newly arrived migrants out of shelters onto the streets. These are the same people who always promise to address our needs, and who fail to do so, and then blame migrants for social problems like crime, violence, and unemployment.
Currently, a majority of people trying to cross the southern border into the U.S. are from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Many are escaping countries ravaged by political instability, gang or state violence, unemployment, and/or global heating. These crises are happening because of decades of U.S. imperialist foreign policy and capitalist pillaging, which has installed authoritarian dictators, and stripped workers of rights and decent pay. Often the military and police used violence to keep rebelling workers in line when they didn’t want to be subjected to poverty-level pay, unemployment, and abusive working conditions. The imperialists are responsible for the ongoing theft of resources like timber, agricultural lands, and minerals. They continue to lead the burning of fossil fuels which has made countries in Central and South America among the worst affected by the climate catastrophe. All of this was done to line the pockets of the rich and powerful here in the U.S., like Chase Bank, Exxon Mobil, and the Chiquita banana company.
Massive numbers of people, including whole families, will continue to be forced to escape these conditions in their homelands. The rich and powerful have shown us their solutions. They will continue to build the wall and militarize the border, keep people in migrant camps, build more detention centers, and mass-deport asylum seekers. They will justify these actions by building up anti-immigrant hatred with claims that migrants are somehow responsible for the troubles that working-class people in the U.S. face. But it’s the rich and powerful who are at the root of the problem. Their big banks charge obscene credit card rates, their giant oil companies drive up prices of almost everything, not just oil and gas, and their huge corporations drive our wages down.
These are not our solutions. The migrants’ struggle is our struggle; we have the same enemy. The capitalists, backed by their politicians, are the ones who are constantly looking to make more profit off of our labor. They don’t care if they have to overwork and underpay someone born in the U.S. or an immigrant born somewhere else. They will do it. And they will use borders to convince us that we have more in common with the billionaires who rule over us than migrant workers. That way they can continue to divide and exploit us.
Anyone, regardless of where they are from, should have access to a good-paying job, good food, clean water, healthcare, a home, safety, and the ability to freely travel wherever they need or want to. Workers of all countries deserve decent lives. We have more in common with others who work to live than with the billionaires who live off of our work! The attacks on immigrants are an attack on the working class and oppressed people, and only serve to keep us divided. So, the next time these millionaire and billionaire politicians make these attacks, let’s remember who our real enemies are.
Record Weather is Killing Us
Extreme heat and massive storms continue to break records. Last year, 2023, was the hottest year ever recorded and 2024 is on track to become the new hottest year.
Ocean temperatures have soared above average. Hotter oceans are fuel for stronger and more destructive hurricanes. Hurricane Beryl broke records as the earliest Category 5 storm ever. It wiped out 90% of homes on islands in the Grenadines and has devastated other parts of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast.
This is not to mention other recent extreme weather events such as record-breaking floods and fires around the world, including in the U.S.
Working people suffer most, as we have to work in these extreme conditions. It’s working and poor people who are least likely to have the resources to survive extreme weather events like these, like places to stay cool and safe.
We have to take care of each other in the extreme heat, by checking in on co-workers and neighbors. We can organize on the job for more breaks, fans, and water. But these events are linked to global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. These extremes will only get worse unless we put a stop to the system causing climate disruption.
A Frightening Debate
The debate last week was awful. Trump lied wildly, and made racist, xenophobic, and climate-denying comments. Biden stared into space and fumbled his words. They competed for who could be more anti-migrant, and more supportive of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians. Trump called the January 6 insurrection an orderly assembly, and his role one of urging restraint. All of it was frightening!
Trump is a billionaire and Biden a millionaire. Both speak for parties funded by billionaires. How did we get here? The U.S. political system is designed to guarantee the rule of the rich through campaign funding, inequalities in the voting system, and rules restricting third parties. We don’t need more evidence of this undemocratic system. Neither party has a solution for working people’s problems.
Working people need our own party that opposes wars and genocide. These atrocities do not benefit us in any way and are crimes against humanity. We need a party that doesn’t put the billionaires first, that supports good wages, health care, education, and housing for all, that fights against racism, sexism, and xenophobia. We need a party of struggle in workplaces and working-class neighborhoods, and not just active in elections. It’s time to fight for replacing this system with one run by and for the working class.
