The Mayor’s New Clothes
January 13, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
New York City has a new mayor—a new face at the helm of a city that serves as a headquarters for a global empire of plunder and oppression.
Bill de Blasio has a mixed-race family, a leftist background, and a populist style. At a moment of profound disillusionment among vast sections of people in this country, his election is being touted nationwide as a beacon of hope and change. De Blasio declared, “There’s a progressive movement in this country that’s having a real effect.” And “the inequalities we’re facing are becoming just fundamentally unacceptable.”
Bill de Blasio came from the “back of the pack” in the Democratic primary election. His denunciations of gross disparities in wealth and opportunity in New York City became a channel for very broad and deep discontent. A campaign ad featuring his Black teenage son saying his dad would “end an era of stop-and-frisk that unfairly targets people of color" became a sensation. De Blasio scored an overwhelming victory in the final election (he got 73% of the vote).
At de Blasio’s inauguration, actor, musician and activist Harry Belafonte called the U.S. justice system “deeply Dickensian”—a reference to laws in England in the times of author Charles Dickens that overtly criminalized and locked people up simply for poverty and debt. The Reverend Fred A. Lucas Jr., who has been active in protesting police brutality, called New York City a “plantation.” When controversy erupted over these statements, de Blasio said he was “very comfortable” with what was said. And de Blasio has proposed a series of reforms ranging from free pre-kindergarten to legal IDs for undocumented immigrants. He promises to make changes to the hated stop-and-frisk policies.
But in a world of horrors, is that the acme of what people can hope for?
Nearly half of all New York City residents live near or below the poverty level as officially defined—struggling to eat, find healthcare, stay warm, and avoid having their lives crushed by the clutches of mass incarceration. They scramble to survive in the shadows of obscene wealth, office towers, and luxury shops.
If they are Black or brown, they have been subjected to apartheid-style stop-and-frisk that is humiliating and degrading at best, fatal at worst. Over four million times in the last 10 years someone—overwhelmingly a young Black or brown person—has been jacked up, insulted, threatened or worse by the NYPD. NYC is a city where a woman might be able to get access to an abortion, but is constantly bombarded with degradation and abuse from the haute couture fashion displays to hip-hop culture.
Over the past several years, New York City has seen important struggle against police brutality and stop-and-frisk. And the growing inequality clashes sharply with the sensibilities and values of large sections of the enlightened middle class there, who have staked their lot in living in a city that—as they see it—celebrates diversity. The Occupy Wall Street movement was born in New York City, with thousands occupying Zucotti Park for months until they were driven out.
Diverting Discontent into the Quicksand of Reform
New York City is both the financial center and key to the stability and functioning of the United States as the head of a global empire. That empire lives off the lives of billions, subjected to the most vicious impact of global climate change, epidemics of rape around the world, and a mad race by capital to find ever more exploitative conditions in which to make fashions to stock the shelves of Walmart and the Gap, and provide new generations of iGadgets.
All this is the product of a system where a small class—the capitalists—control and monopolize the means for producing the necessities of life. The production of those necessities can only go on so long and to the extent that it serves accumulating profit for capitalists. On the other side of this, billions worldwide and including many millions in the U.S. who do not own or control those means are at the mercy of those who do, either to be exploited or cast aside. And in this world, there is a large middle class who must play by the rules of capitalism, and whose lives are also very uncertain.
It is THIS CAPITALIST SYSTEM which produces these outrages. Unless and until that class structure, and the economic relations on which it rests, is uprooted… this system will continue to crush lives and ravage the planet.
Stabilizing New York City, and bringing sections of people “back into the fold” and under the wing of the system, is essential to those who rule over all this. And de Blasio’s election serves that purpose.
Will Bill de Blasio make some changes? He’ll try. Will long-suppressed voices be allowed into the halls of power? Yes. Will he call on people to hold his feet to the fire and make him live up to the promises he’s made? Yes.
But those promises don’t begin to touch the reality of the world where—pre-k or not—there is no future for millions and millions of youth. This is capitalism in the era of “lean and mean” globalization. Capital rushes from continent to continent, competing with other capitals to exploit and pillage, leaving broken lives and spirits and a ruined environment. Whatever reforms and changes in style de Blasio brings to Gracie Mansion (the official mayor’s residence), they won’t TOUCH these horrors in any serious way.
And here’s the most essential point: what de Blasio represents is a package. You take part of it, you take it all. As part of the deal, the hopes, the energy, the money, and yes the dreams of those who want REAL change are diverted into a package that reinforces the whole setup. Your expectations and demands become lowered to “what’s realistic,” meaning you adapt your demands and your morality to only what is acceptable to the very CAPITALIST SYSTEM that is the PROBLEM in the first place.
That’s not positive. It’s not progressive. It’s not harmless. It’s deadly.
REAL Change
Inequalities and injustices define life in New York City, in the U.S.A., and in the world. The fact that these inequalities and injustices are so extreme, and generating such deep outrage that so many feel compelled to speak to them, speaks volumes as to the reality of capitalism.
But the idea that we can change this with anything short of a profound revolution is a false solution, diverting and damaging; we need the real solution.
The workings of the capitalist system constantly pose the need for a radically different world. And there is a REAL solution, and a way to get to that different world. The Revolutionary Communist Party is building a movement for revolution with the Party at the core. If you are someone who really does want to get to the root of things, who is not willing to be played in ways that simply tighten the noose around our necks, then you need to check this out and get with it.
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