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FOCUS ON... THE RICHEST NATION ON EARTH

The following article from the California based United Anarchist
 Front will probably bring feelings of d‚j… vu to readers in the UK. 
Looking at the richest nation of Earth (of course only rich for some
 - see This is no American Dream on this page) perhaps gives us a taste 
of what is to come... or is it what is already here...

 If there is symbol of American violence in the last ten years, it is
 without doubt the spreading in all our major cities of soup kitchens
 and doss houses. Traditionally, soup kitchens appear as a sign of 
rising poverty in the most underprivileged social classes particularly 
those living on welfare. This new poverty has increased and is more 
and more visible. If we accept the figures in the latest census, the 
number of those living in acute poverty has gone from 25 million in 
1980 to 37 million in 1992. In the 1970s the minimum wage in dollars,
 taking inflation into account, diminished by 22%. A report from the
 New York council, published in 1992 specified that nearly 1% of the 
population had spent at least one night in a doss house over the
 previous 12 months. Similar statistics come from the city of 
Philadelphia giving us an idea of the considerable number of homeless
 and economically marginalised people living in the centres of our 
modern cities. In response to this situation the American authorities 
have heightened repression against those who are begging on the streets 
and have authorised the setting up of private police units (often in 
collaboration with big industrial and commercial concerns), police
 forces which are financed by special taxes whose main role is to 
uphold 'law and order' in the urban centres (where commercial and 
finance institutions are situated) and to repress the homeless. In
 effect, after the 1960s, a record number of poor people flooded on
 to the welfare register, but this enormous growth in claimants has
 been hidden by the media and other sources of information. The main 
result has been that those seeking to fight against this situation 
had only a partial view of the situation and were acting individually
 without the possibility of specific organisations being set up with 
one notable exception: Welfare Right. Protest struggles and forms of
 agitation, even the most spectacular, in this situation were therefore
 marginalised and had little impact. The considerable rise in the number
 of welfare claimants led to the bankruptcy of municipal administrations
 (and also contributed to the US fiscal crisis), particularly in major 
cities like New York. In the more recent past, the last 20 years or so,
 the social services were dealt a number of heavy blows as were the
 thousands who were kicked off the welfare register. Some states in
 order to achieve this objective cut back welfare rights to bachelors 
and introduced severe restrictions on the means to get a hold of it. 
Charitable institutions took the place of the state, so much so that
 today they are overwhelmed by calls well beyond their limitations. 
The desire of the state to transfer as much social spending as possible
 into civil society and the community ironically dates back to the 
1960s. Recuperate and decentralise have become the slogans of the
 day as far as state social policies are concerned (politically 
speaking the state wished to liberate the public from the impersonal
 and bureaucratic obligations of the public sector) ironic, once again,
 because this transfer to the community has taken place when the latter
 has been reduced to near disappearance, reeling after two decades of
 economic reconstruction. The mythical communities to whom would be
transferred responsibilities and services no longer exist. Local
 groups which, in the 1960s, served as the interface between the 
state and the locality, are fast disappearing. Nobody attends meetings
 and nobody seems interested in these very questions. Today, and this 
is particularly true of the ghettos, individuals refuse to give 
themselves over completely to something of a social nature. The 
soup kitchens and doss houses have simply become the tip of the 
iceberg, which highlight the worsening of conditions for the most 
vulnerable of the American workforce and the long term unemployed. 
So the welfare services have lost all legitimate power over the last 
20 years, the spectre of the starving in the richest nation on Earth 
still shakes public opinion. During the most recent end of year 
celebrations for example, the media was flooded with calls for charity 
for the poor and demands were made for them to support those charitable 
institutions that have replaced the state.
 Another aspect of this spectacular increase in the number of soup
 kitchens is the disappearance of the feelings of shame to be seen 
in them and of the stigma attached to them 20 years ago. Many now attend 
them regularly as a means to increase their social gains, which are more
 and more diminished, and in this way to get a hold of those things they
 have less and less opportunity to acquire. There are now many, who with
 the money they save by going to the soup kitchens, buy other goods 
and/or alcohol or drugs. In the queues at the soup kitchens there is
 almost a party atmosphere having become another way of meeting people
 and socialising. It is above all another means of consuming in a
 personal fashion but it is also another approach which is very
 different to that handed out by the more traditional charitable
 institutions. Those who go to the kitchens are all too well aware
 of this. For the people living in the most poverty stricken sectors
 of the ghetto, going to the kitchens has become a means of collective
 organisation a means of survival outside and in opposition to the
 establishment. They teach begging the only way to obtain those goods
 other wise denied to them.


ACTION NOTE COLLECTIVE
BALTIMORE
LE MONDE LIBERTAIRE 28/9/94

THIS IS NO AMERICAN DREAM...
THIS IS THE AMERICAN.... NIGHTMARE

The USA is of course the 'richest nation on Earth' with the biggest
 GDP in the world. But how well is that wealth shared out? How rich 
is this nation culturally and at what expense to the environment is
 this achieved? Here are the facts...

	The US budgetary deficit stands at $450,000,000,000.

	In New York 67,000 people 'live' on the streets.

	More than 24,000,000 receive food aid in the US.

	1,959,000 Amerindians live on reservations in the US.

	Average daily consumption of red meat per person is 300 grams
 per day.

	Every 11 minutes someone dies in a road accident in the US.

	69% of the US population is a member of a religious congregation.

	The USA has the highest divorce rate in the world (1,000,000
 in 1991).

	More than 2,500 prisoners are currently on 'death row'.

	American youngsters spend 73% of their free time watching TV.

	The USA has invaded (militarily) 22 countries this century.


Information from Ekintza Zuzena (Basque Libertarian Journal)
 summer 94





DO NOT PASS 'GO'

Clinton's new Criminal Justice Bill seeks, on the one hand,
 to answer public demand for action in a country which saw 
24,500 assassinations last year. But, more importantly, it seeks
 to serve the American military-industrial complex and the state
 forces of repression. By the year 2000 its provisions will account
 for the creation of 100,000 new jobs in the police forces, an increase
 in mandatory minimal prison sentences and (surprise, surprise) more
 prisons and the setting up of correctional centres … la Willie
 Whitelaw - with 'military' discipline which of course may
 come in handy in a country which has appointed itself the
 policeman of the 'New World Order'.


 Some voices of protest are to be heard. Not too much from 
the National Rifle Association who have come out more or less
 unscathed with little more than symbolic control of one or two
 kinds of weapons - the rest being ignored. All this of course
 for political reasons. Not so important when you're dealing with 
blacks. For the Black Caucus has also expressed some reservations
 given that the death penalty affects their political constituency
 most. Since 1976 it has been established that a black person who commits a crime is more likely to be murdered by the state than someone who commits a crime against a black. No problem. Blacks don't vote. On with the bill.
 55 new offences which will carry the death sentence are to be
 added to the statute book and in addition to this there's the
 new 'three strikes and you're out' baseball approach to 
criminology. This is the insane idea that a recidivist two
 times over gets a life sentence. Not enough for the Pennsylvanians
 whose mainly Democratic representatives want in this case to
 substitute life for death in a 'three strikes and your dead'
 approach to criminology. In Georgia they're going for a 'two 
strikes and your out' approach. One Criminologist, Jeremy Miller,
 has a nightmare of all this, 'seven and a half million in jail by
 the year 2000 of which five million will be black, abandoning the
 urban centres to women on their own with their children?' Extreme?
 One accused, a small time drug trafficker in California has only 
just escaped 'life' having been found guilty of using soft drugs 
in prison. The new bill aims to criminalise society in its entirety.


All this in a country which was yabbering on not so long ago about
 human rights violations in China. Pots and kettles we say. We may
 have our own problems with the Criminal Justice Bill in the UK but
 remember that it's to the US that so many of the present regime look
 for future policies for these shores. Keep an eye on America and you
 keep an eye on the future...

