PATRICE GREANVILLE—LITERALLY MILES OF CARS WAITING FOR FOOD HAS BECOME ANOTHER SEARING IMAGE OF LIFE IN AMERICA THESE DAYS. Jimmy Dore properly calls them, “poverty traffic.” And they are popping up all over the country, including in once “proud” libertarian cultures like Texas.
Major crises, like this “trifecta” of a pandemic, economic implosion and political bankruptcy, reveal in stark relief the shortcomings of any major social system, and so it is with America’s “Way of Life,” its beloved capitalism. While Congress and the White House have done literally NOTHING to assist the tens of millions thrown into complete destitution, it is the people who spontaneously organise themselves to help each other, and they do. Mind you, this is not charity, per se; this is people properly and promptly doing what needs to be done to solve a social problem. There is solidarity here, and a lesson that we hope will not be forgotten: the people really don’t need the capitalist structure oppressing their lives.