Letters of February 27

Capitalism is Hell for Mentally-ill People
As a worker diagnosed with a mental illness, I can tell you, my dear readers, that little has changed since the Dark Ages with regard to attitudes toward mentally ill people. We are horribly stigmatized and find it very difficult to find a job or enroll in a university. Capitalist society treats us in a hypocritical way.
On one hand they don’t give us jobs because of our health problems and on the other hand the bosses say that we don’t deserve disability benefits because we are not physically disabled and thus “are able to work”. Capitalist society treats us as disabled or as healthy people when it better fits their interests.
The mental health system, in Israel-Palestine (where I live) and elsewhere in the bosses’ world, is horribly underfunded and understaffed and the bosses love to cut back its budget. Psychiatric medication is expensive and it is almost impossible to get any other form of psychotherapy in the “public” (read: mostly privatized) system.  Private therapy is prohibitively expensive.
Occupational rehabilitation for all disabled people has been privatized to NGOs (non-profits) who exploit disabled people. The NGO officials earn high salaries while the disabled “clients” get almost nothing, sometimes 25 cents an hour. Because disabled people — be their disability physical or mental, find it hard to get a job, they are often forced to go through this “rehabilitation” and earn next to nothing.
Psychiatric wards are still terrible places, and patients are humiliated and abused. They still restrain patients to their beds, even now in the 21st century! A person in restraints, usually left in them for long hours, cannot go to the bathroom and has to lie in his or her own excrement. The same goes for the now-privatized “hostels.”
A person who attempts suicide — often due to unemployment or the other horrors of the class system — is forcibly hospitalized.  Officially this is to keep her from killing herself, but the system does nothing to give her a reason to live.  Many doctors do not tell their patients in advance about the side effects of the medications they prescribe and do not prescribe medications against these side effects. The drug companies are in constant touch with psychiatrists and make deals with them at the patients’ expense, all for money.
In many cases, mental illness is caused by conscription into the military and post-traumatic stress, all due to wars created by capitalism. The stress of capitalist competition causes many mental illnesses in the first place. If we lived in a more egalitarian and less repressive society, with less poverty and jobs for everyone, there would be much less mental illness.
A comrade

Koch: Here’s Egg in Your Racist Face
As the gaggle of ruling-class politicians and media fell all over themselves praising New York City’s former Mayor Ed Koch upon his death, I couldn’t help remembering the racist and anti-working class actions of this bosses’ flunky. I lived through all 12 years of his reign and recall his role in the 1980 transit strike which he tried to break.
Taking the bosses’ side, he would stand on the Brooklyn Bridge urging commuters to keep walking to work in the hope that this would outlast the workers’ efforts to win a decent contract, after they shut the transit system tighter than a drum.
The year before, he championed the closing of city hospitals — often the only ones workers could afford — which included Harlem’s Sydenham Hospital, the lone institution serving that black community. But Progressive Labor Party didn’t let him get off so easy in that one.
When he addressed the American Public Health Association at the New York Hilton, members and friends of PLP and the International Committee Against Racism led protestors in chanting, “Racist Koch, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!”
Immediately three members of PLP and InCAR stormed the stage and pelted him with eggs. He then ordered the cops to seize and arrest them.
When the working class takes power, we’ll be aiming more than just eggs at the bosses and their mayoral servants.
Old-timer who remembers French Legalize Mali Invasion
Changing “legalities” to suit bosses’ needs is a worldwide capitalist scam. The recent French imperialist invasion of Mali is the latest example.
A recent UN resolution precluded any military intervention in Mali. So in order to conform to a sort of international legality, French Socialist president François Hollande asked Mali’s president to send him a call for aid, in writing. On January 10, the latter’s letter arrived in which he called on Hollande for “help.” No sooner said than done. Five hours later — after a rapid meeting of France’s Defense Council — French troops were landing in Bamako, Mali.
All this followed Hollande’s pledge not to invade. On October 11, 2012, he said, “There will not be French troops engaged in Mali….We cannot intervene in place of the Africans.” Then Le Drian, the French Defense Minister, reiterated: “It’s up to the Africans to intervene, not the French” (La Croix newspaper, 12/24/2012).
When Hollande arrived in Mali for speechmaking, he made no mention of any UN resolutions. Obviously Mali’s uranium, gold and oil reserves were too big a bonanza for French bosses to ignore. (See CHALLENGE, 2/13)
When it comes to legality under capitalism, the overriding one is the law of maximum profits.
Brooklyn Comrade

‘If we’re breaking the law, then we’ll just change it…’
The Postal Service wants to discontinue Saturday delivery of mail AND cut health benefits for postal employees.  However,  according to the law,  the USPS is not allowed to make such a change unilaterally.
SOLUTION: Change the Law! Isn’t capitalism wonderful?  While the capitalists love to tell us that “we are a country of laws,” this only applies to the working class obeying laws that benefit the bosses.
When the bosses make a mistake and find that THEIR laws aren’t helping them, they either change the law or simply ignore it.
Here is the relevant quote from the Post Master General (PMG) as reported in the Washington Post on Feb 7, 2013:
“Reading the law . . . we think that we are on firm ground,” Donahoe [the PMG] said during an interview. Not everyone on Capitol Hill agrees. “Even if we aren’t,” he added, “I would say to Congress, ‘Hey, let’s take the opportunity in the next couple of weeks to amend [that is, unilaterally change] the law and just get this behind us and get on our way.’ ”
Red Reader

Comment on Lincoln Movie Review
The last issue of CHALLENGE (2/13) had a review of Lincoln in the letters section. It’s true; Lincoln himself was a terribly complex character, plagued by clinical depression. In recent years there has been a load of projective analysis, such as that of the late Gore Vidal, into the seamier side of Lincoln’s personal life.   But, this top-award film steers clear of extraneous or inexpert interpretation. Thank goodness for little favors.
The review refutes something we know as bourgeois individualism, saying, “The movie inspires more talk about Lincoln’s personality than the fight against slavery.” The writing, though a bit verbose, is on the mark. It is instructive to learn about the series of anti-racist events proving the theme being from a  “top-down” view.
But there are several such series, or lists, of references, some lengthy for a movie review. An insertion about corrupt politicos is in parentheses and more such humorous asides may be useful in the interest of showing a liking for the readership. Film criticism could almost be seen as having a style of its own, unburdened, even sardonic, for mass appeal. Certainly less chalkboard.
Ruby

More Attacks on Sandy Victims
The newest hardship Sandy victims face in Manhattan hotels is eviction into homeless shelters. The agency the city has contracted to case-manage victims is BRC, the group that usually picks up chronically homeless people from the streets and puts them in shelters.
They have actually offered no help to Sandy survivors; they probably don’t even know anything about low-income stable housing for stable people. They have been treating people extremely rudely and threateningly.
Now they’re systematically telling people they have to leave their hotel (before their previously given check-out dates) and go to shelters, one by one. No one knows for sure if they, the hotels or the city are initiating this tactic.
So far three families have been removed. This leaves the families in yet another borough where their children have to change schools once again; where they are treated like prisoners; and where the environment is often unsafe. Others are planning to resist removal.
A campaign to notify politicians and the press is underway, although that is probably useless given their previous unresponsiveness. We are also planning a demonstration of families and supporters this Friday, February 15, 3:30 PM, at BRC headquarters.
Red Doctor