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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2009
Marchers outraged at bankers and capitalism
Chicago--Outrage filled the air at the "Showdown in Chicago," three days of protests coinciding with the American Bankers Association meeting. It was capped by the Oct. 27 march and rally of 5,000 people from around the country. Many speakers and more signs spoke of the real crises affecting working-class people's lives: evictions, layoffs, long lines of applicants for a few jobs. A day care operator told of having to accept food instead of money from some unemployed parents. A young worker and father told of the difficulty of paying back student loans while trying to keep his family fed and housed. A roll was called of several Chicago neighborhoods, calling out how many foreclosures have displaced families in each since 2007, with the numbers climbing and climbing up to 2,215 in Austin. Every 13 seconds there is another foreclosure filing in the country, said Denise Dixon of National People's Action.
Equal to the outrage was the determination to fight, not only against the injustices that were so clearly seen by the 5,000 present, but also to create a society where working people are not exploited by a class of bloodsuckers, of which bankers have become a symbol. Armando Robles received hearty cheers when he told of the occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory, where Robles had worked and led the union local, and even louder cheers when he encouraged other workers to do the same.
It was like being in a totally different world from the talking heads on TV announcing the end of the recession. Oh, sure, they'll acknowledge that unemployment is higher than it should be. But in that fantasy world you don't get a sense of how hard people have been hit, how many are living on the edge now, the depth of the outrage and the stirrings of revolt.
At the same time you could see top union bureaucrats like Rich Trumka, new president of the AFL-CIO, and Anna Burger, chair of Change to Win, try to contain that passion and limit workers to reforms within the capitalist system. Trumka talked about how the bankers have a job to do, and didn't do it correctly. He and other speakers painted a picture of society thrown into crisis by the bad actions of some greedy financial corporations, with not a word about capitalism itself, even though capitalism is the word on everyone's lips from many of the protesters to some economists and pundits who had always been its prizefighters. Capitalism has failed! You hear it everywhere. Now listen to the voices from below calling for a new society.
--F.D.
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