Fighting the war at home: Occupy Harrisburg PA

Harrisburg PA

The capitalist mass media ensures that the major headlines are about how much of a threat Iran is to our basic freedoms and other such nonsense but this is all part of the capitalist class' efforts to divert our thoughts from the crisis at home.  The OWS movement is making it hard for them to do this as it is shifting the debate from blaming irresponsible Americans and the immigrant hordes for the economic crisis to where it belongs, a dysfunctional system and its representatives, the bankers, speculators, capitalist politicians and other social parasites. We owe the OWS movement a debt of gratitude regardless of its shortcomings.

I am on the California Nevada border just outside Yosemite and a woman in this little coffee shop I'm in said tells me how proud she is of the OWS movement, "It's about time" she said to me. I am thinking that one place the OWS movement might converge on and occupy is Harrisburg Pennsylvania.  There is a war raging in Harrisburg, or more accurately, in the state of Pennsylvania between a faction of the Harrisburg City Council and the state government.  Harrisburg is bankrupt and a faction of the city council voted to declare bankruptcy. 

Bankruptcy protects the city from creditors to a certain extent; it gives the city a little breathing space from the bondholders.  But the state government led by the Republican governor who is supported by Harrisburg's mayor is opposing the move and it has been declared illegal and unconstitutional by opponents.  Many councilors have had it with bond holders and it is clear that divisions are opening up between various political factions about how to deal with the issue, divisions determined to a great extent by the pressure politicians are feeling from their respective constituents as well as investors and bondholders.  We wrote about this in more detail in an earlier blog.

The Pennsylvania state government is tightening its grip on its "cash starved state capital" writes the Wall Street Journal.   The governor has taken steps to have a state representative come up with a plan to "protect crucial city functions".  One of the city council members, Wanda Williams, makes it clear what is going on and that the move is to protect the city's bond investors "over the rights of it's residents", "There is no interruption of services whatsoever" she tells the Journal.  Pennsylvania's governor is about to appoint a receiver who will take over and control the plan for Harrisburg's recovery which will no doubt please the bondholders.

This councilor is absolutely correct.  Let's think about it for a second.  When does a state government or any of the capitalist political representatives care about services?  They have presided over the most savage cuts in social services in a long long time. The faction that is supporting bankruptcy protection is feeling the heat from below.  Harrisburg is a working class town much like Central Falls RI.  These sort of divisions will be opening up more in the future as the unelected rulers of society impose force the cost of their crisis on to the backs of workers, youth and the middle class.

Thanks to the OWS movement for shifting the debate.

Occupy Harrisburg PA
Halt all foreclosures return people tp their homes

Lower all mortgages to real market value.

Take the banks (not the deposits of savers) and financial houses in to public ownership and allocate capital based on social needs.  Banks should not participate in speculation and commercial activity. Banks, can hold our savings and provide capital for social needs and cheap loans for small mom and pop businesses.


Iran is not the problem, the Pentagon is.  Occupy Harrisburg.