Storms don’t know skin color or class, but capitalism is built on inequalities rooted in both. An event like Hurricane Sandy that seems to affect “everyone” the same turns out to strike hardest at those who have the fewest resources, the fewest choices, the fewest places to go.
Like Katrina in 2005, or the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 this system’s response to disaster shows that what is natural under capitalism is RACISM. Footage of ruined yachts and vacation homes dominated the early images of the bosses’ media coverage. More recently news coverage has centered around devastated white communities of the region to the exclusion of areas like Red Hook, the Lower East Side, Coney Island and Canarsie. But there is nothing “natural” about who pays the highest price in these disasters. Meanwhile the ruling class gets to practice fascist police state tactics of population transfer, curfew, military direction of civilian affairs under the name of “emergency management.”
Yet workers all over New York have worked collectively to help each other out. While Obama and Bloomberg cruise around in helicopters giving orders, it will be workers who rebuild the homes, roads, rails, ports and more destroyed in this storm. Some put their lives on the line to rescue people stuck on roofs of their homes, others have turned their front yards into collection centers for food, water and clothes that they then hand out to their neighbors. Still others have pooled what little resources they have to help the elderly, disabled and children get meals. This is human nature! The bosses push the idea that everyone is “naturally” greedy and selfish, but in real times of need, those lies are uncovered.
There is nothing natural about this disaster. And as a global system capitalism had doomed countless millions to conditions like those we endure in Sandy-ravaged areas and much worse. Sandy gathered strength over an ocean five degrees warmer than normal and hit a New York harbor where water levels have already risen a foot due to climate change. As the Arctic Ocean melts oil companies race to drill the floor of the sea for more oil. The wasteful nature of the profit system is driving our biosphere off a cliff.
Under communism, natural disasters will continue to occur, but a global communist planned economy is the only hope for reversing human-induced climate change. Under communism society will be organized with the needs of people in mind, not profit like under capitalism. The infrastructure to make our neighborhoods safe will be built. People will be sent to safe evacuation centers without the worry that their belongings will get stolen, since everyone will have what they need.
Obama’s victory will not change what drives the attacks on our class. Both candidates served this racist system of inequality that drops bombs on innocent children in Pakistan and at the same time allows hurricane victims to go hungry and cold. Elections only build loyalty to this broken social order. People’s response to this latest disaster shows that our class, the working class, has the need and the desire to help each other in times of need. Let’s build on those actions and fight for a world built on equality for all, a communist world!