Lee Camp: We have an economy of death
"The system needs people [to be] fucked.. so everyone submits to endless wage slavery. That's how this machinery works. It has to churn out people, suck away their life force and then spit them out.."
By DOUGLAS J HARDING
Lee Camp, head writer and host of “Redacted Tonight,” said during a Labor Day Occupy Congress protest at the U.S. Capitol building that Americans are suffering from “an economy of death” which perpetuates senseless violence upon millions of people around the world.
“There are 15 million people facing eviction right now,” Camp said. “15 million Americans right now are afraid they're going to be kicked out of their homes with the [eviction] moratorium ending and unemployment [benefits] ending. There are 17 million empty living spaces littering our landscape all over the fucking place. Does that sound like a reasonable system? It sounds like utter madness.”
Camp said such extreme circumstances for the less fortunate in America are not as uncommon as they may seem, as evidenced by the 2008 financial collapse, when close to 1-in-50 households in the country received foreclosure notices before being forced to leave their own homes.
“After the 2008 financial collapse, millions of people were foreclosed upon,” Camp said. “Millions of people were kicked out of their homes. Many of the banks couldn't even prove they owned those homes, but they still kicked them out. I ask you: Does it make any difference whether you kick a family out of their home, like the banks did, or you burn it down? No, it's an equal amount of violence. Yet, one we call 'good business.' The other, we call 'violence.' It's a completely screwed system.”
Such instances of ultra-wealthy banks and individuals exercising near-unlimited power to worsen already-extreme wealth inequality across the country represent a fundamental problem with the U.S.’s capitalist economy, Camp said:
“This is how capitalism works: The rich own everything and they decide to parse it out in little pieces as to how they can get richer. There is never a moment when they care whether people actually get housed, whether people have enough food— whether people have enough to live regular, comfortable, sustainable lives. None of that factors into the equation. It's just GDP [and] product— it's producing and profit and that is it. We could house everybody. We have the money. We have the infrastructure. We have the ability. And instead, people are fearing for their lives. Lives are destroyed.”
Camp said the U.S. government possesses an abundance of resources that could be used to solve issues of inequality and homelessness, but, instead, most the country’s resources are spent waging endless wars around the world.
“Right now, there's $20 billion owed in back rent,” Camp said. “That is a rounding error at the Pentagon. That is nothing. We left more than that in the couch cushions in Afghanistan when we left. $20 billion is nothing to them. It's less than the extra money Congress threw at the Pentagon that they weren't even asking for. We could pay all of the back rent. These people could do it instantaneously, with the flick of a pen— and they won't. Because the system needs people [to be] fucked. It needs that so that everyone submits to endless wage slavery. That's how this machinery works. It has to churn out people, suck away their life force and then spit them out when it's done with them. We have an economy of death rather than an economy of life. We dump trillions of dollars into the military— a trillion dollars a year— into death and destruction. Yet, we put very little into the living and health of our society.”
Further illustrating the connection between militarism and growing inequality, Camp noted that many Americans join the military primarily because of the exceptional benefits and career opportunities that doing so offers, especially to young men and women from underprivileged communities.
“Think about it: How do they get people to sign up for the military? They offer them free education, free health care, help with loans, free car insurance, help with home ownership, earlier pensions when they're out— they offer them socialism,” Camp said. “That's what is offered to our men and women in the military. We'll offer you socialism if you'll go and crush the countries that actually have socialism. That's the offer of a sustainable life— we'll offer you education and health care and everything else if you come kill for us. It's truly incredible.”
Camp also spoke about the “Housing First” policy implemented in Utah from 2005-2015, which, over the course of the decade, led to a 91% decrease in homelessness in the area. After discontinuing the program, reportedly due to a lack of funding, the state saw the number of people sleeping on its streets nearly double from 2016-2018.
“We have the ability to give everybody housing,” Camp said. “They've tested this already in various places across the country. In Utah, for a few years, they gave an apartment to everybody who needed a place to stay— for free. And they gave them a case worker to help them get out of homelessness. It decreased homelessness by 95% and saved the state money. You know what they did? They ended the program. It was working too well. It was showing people that there is an alternative— there is another way to do this. There are ways to have an economy based on life instead of an economy based on death and destruction. And we have to move away from this economy based on death; But, it will not happen as long as we have this two-party, corporate oligarchic shit-show. It will never happen as long as they have a stranglehold on what is done in this country. It is so important to break outside of that [two-party system].”
For more information about #OccupyCongress, visit https://peoplesparty.org/vote-to-occupy-congress/.
The West Virginia Holler is an affiliate of The Tennessee Holler and is powered, in part, by West Virginia Can’t Wait.
Follow the Holler on Twitter @HollerWV and Instagram @WVHoller. We're on Facebook too! Follow writer Douglas J. Harding @douglasjharding.