By Sergio García
“This is not the time to do politics,” certain journalist repeats each day in a mass medium. This is everyone’s problem, “solutions must be found without politics,” he insists. With similar words and the same objective, other media mouthpieces spread their messages. Some media figures resort to a supposedly apolitical approach that combines backwardness and irrationality in dealing with the constant spread of the pandemic. In the 21st century we remind them that inviting people to not participate in politics is a harmful political action.
The pandemic generates a logical fear in millions of working class families that is used by the system, saturating the mass media with messages of a supposed national unity. This proclaimed unity does not distinguish between social classes or political ideas: “Let´s work together and pull in the same direction. Let’s row together.” But reality slips through the pores of capitalist society. We are not all pulling in the same direction, and we are definitely not all rowing.
Those Who are Pulling Their Weight and Those Who are Not
The pandemic´s advance shows the prevailing system´s true face. The pulling and rowing is only done by one side, that of working people. On the side of politicians and big business there is well presented hypocrisy for TV and a life of luxury that does not decline in times of pandemic.
Capitalist society is divided by class and its inequality becomes even more evident in this crisis. There are very different quarantines; or is social isolation the same in Puerto Madero as in Villa Fiorito? The system´s hypocrisy seeks to represent people of different classes as equals. But reality emerges when we see corporate bosses act with impunity, while the police savagely represses young people from the neighborhoods who leave their houses for a while; houses in which, far than isolated, they live with a dozen relatives in a couple of unsafe rooms, and the impossibility of maintaining the preventive distance of one and a half meters.
Or how about the workers on the front lines with no supplies in their hospitals to take care of their own lives in order to better care for others. Or workers in the food industry, forced to work in poor conditions while their employers hoards stock sell when prices best suit them. Between the reality that workers face and the one that judges, politicians and Church hierarchy experience, there is a difference of at least $ 150,000 to $ 300,000 per month. And with the corporate bosses, the distance is counted in millions. We all row? We all pull in the same direction? What cynicism!
The traditional parties and the state are not impartial, they represent social classes. Not all of them, but those at the top of the system, the big financial, industrial, extractivist and media bosses. Those classes are represented by Macri, Bulrrich and other unpresentable former ministers who, after having ruined the country during four years of austerity and submission to the IMF, now reappear giving advice, or proposing that politicians help or donate some things. It is cynicism raised to maximum degree. They governed, destroyed the country and plunged 40% into poverty, and now, in the opposition, they pose as the movie´s good guys.
The government, for its part, seeks to show itself active by generating news about aiding those who have the least, but it is far from sufficient. We see Fernández’s media presentations and then, in reality, the initiatives provide much less than seen on TV. We saw an announcement of $ 30,000 for health workers, but there will only be $ 5,000. They tell us that they are making progress in guaranteeing thousands of beds and new respirators, but they will never suffice, so long as they refuse to touch private, class segregated health care providers. And they continue to pay external debt paymemts to bondholders. Their class priorities can be seen in these unjustifiable payments and in its neglect of public health care.
The quarantine exposes the capitalist´s repugnant essence. In order to make more profits, layoffs and suspensions began at Techint and many other companies. In others, wages are being paid only partially. Meanwhile, employers in sectors that are enabled to work do not guarantee basic safety standards to avoid contagions. It is capitalism in its purest form, true capitalism. Those employers have old friends in the union bureaucracy who announced through Daer of the CGT, that they are open to wages cuts in order to safeguard jobs. They work as representatives of the bosses, giving up workers´ rights while they, of course, enjoy the best of lives with their members´ dues.
Do Politics
In normal times, and even more so in exceptional moments, more rights are needed, not less. And one of them is the complete freedom to do politics, to express opinions, participate, propose, denounce, demand. We are in quarantine in defense of our lives, knowing that this measure in itself is insufficient. It is necessary to take from those who have the most through heavy taxes, declare the non-payment of the debt, and destine those millions to public health.
We reject calls to avoid politics, to remain silence, to remain still. From your house, you can make yourself heard, write, participate, make noise, bang pots and pans, exchange with your neighbors and coworkers. If you work in an essential sector you can demand decent conditions, meet with co-workers, film, report, show everything that is wrong and fight to modify it. No silence, no stillness. No losing rights. It is your life, our lives, that are at stake. Capitalists do not row, they enjoy the ride. They do not take care of your life, they prioritize their profits. While the government pretends to scold them, without taking significant measures to prevent them from putting your life at risk. We cannot get out of a crisis of this magnitude without the participation of the working people, without mobilizing and expressing ourselves in whatever way possible. We demand: everything that is necessary to be invested in public health; the prohibition of layoffs and wage cuts; as the left has held for years, for every public official to earn the same as a school principal and be recallable; that their privileges and those of the judges be done away with; that the Church be separated from the state and those funds be destined to healthcare. These are our politics in times of pandemic and we propose them more than ever. We fight against a system that, in its decline, shows us the necessity to overcome it with another model of society: a socialist model in which workers rule. The MST and the FIT Unidad fights for no less.