the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Sep 5, 2011
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been busy ever since Irene passed through, patting himself on the back for saving New York.
It’s true, he ordered public transport shut down. The entire system of buses and subways was shut down more than eight hours before the storm arrived.
But Bloomberg did not require businesses to shut down. And many did not, leaving their employees, who depend on mass transit, scrambling to find a ride just before the hurricane hit. And without public transit, many families in the evacuation zones had no way to get out.
Moreover, thousands of families in the huge public housing projects within the evacuation zone, such as in Red Hook, Brooklyn and the far Lower East side of Manhattan, were trapped in their apartments, because management shut down the elevators “for the tenants’ safety.”
Just as with Katrina, a city administration was saving property to the detriment of the population.
In fact, if Hurricane Irene had been severe, the Bloomberg administration’s measures would have cost many people their lives.