There has never been a more pressing time for building networks of mutual aid. We need to support each other and use that community of support to organize for our essential needs in the coming months - housing, food and medical care. With so many temporary and permanent layoffs and an increasing lack of availability of work how many of us can afford rent in April? May? June? If severe measures are still needed months from now will you be able to afford months of back rent after god knows how long of dangerous, inconsistent or absent work opportunities? Thatâs why eviction moratoriums arenât enough.
Letâs be perfectly clear - weâre only at the beginning of a national and global crisis. There are shortages in beds, machinery and equipment for hospitals as is. The economy has nearly come to a halt and thatâs even with the trillions of dollars in stimulus packages being wasted on the failing stock market. I donât know how itâs been in other U.S. cities but weâve had clear signs of a recession way before the coronovirus was ever first detected in China. Major, local franchises have gone bankrupt leaving many in the restaurant and service industry to unemployment. Our homeless population has ballooned in size. But now the stock market is crashing and many people have been forced out of work. The pandemic will strengthen these pre-existing trends and lead to a global depression. Even more people will be out of work and increasingly there will be less opportunities for work. People are eventually going to be evicted from their homes. Unless a major intervention happens before this pandemic peaks the only functioning aspect of capital left will be the security state and if the present indications suggest anything itâs that the government is planning on pushing through new emergency powers including the ability to indefinitely detain without trial.
The working class has to be prepared. Capitalism will use this crisis to further impoverish millions with debt and evictions, to further consolidate its monopolies and power, to further strengthen its counterinsurgency and repressive capabilities, and to further lure people into fascism as a solution. Decades of neoliberal austerity has stripped capitalism to its barest essentials as a militarized police state defending the hegemony of global poverty, and revealed the fascist in every progressive businessman. Build mutual aid, organize your neighbors and stay sharp. We havenât seen nothing yet and we donât need to be caught any more flat footed than we already will be. Stay safe friends but most importantly stay organized.
Here is a national directory of mutual aid networks.
