Human face of the crisis

Much has been written about the staggering numbers piling up in this economic crisis—the high levels of unemployment, home foreclosures, etc. Most often, they appear in the financial pages of the corporate press as just another economic category, as if workers are nothing but a commodity, a calculation in the equation to determine just how much profit they will make for the bosses.

Less often shown is the consideration that these numbers represent living, breathing, suffering human beings. Take, for example, Ervin Lupoe, who is suspected of killing his spouse, five children and finally himself out of complete desperation. Lupoe was just one of the thousands in Southern California who have been laid off from their jobs, missed mortgage payments and seen their options rapidly disappearing. In this case, both Lupoe and his spouse, Ana, had recently been fired from the multi-billion-dollar Kaiser Permanente because they understated their income on an application for childcare.

Or take Marvin E. Schur, a 93-year-old man who froze to death when the Bay City, Mich., electric company installed a device to restrict the amount of power his home received. Schur, who had more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, died “a slow, painful death,” according to the Oakland County deputy chief medical examiner. It is unclear whether anyone at the power company ever contacted Schur to inform him that the device was installed. Neighbors said that when they discovered his body on Jan. 17, the temperature in his home was below 32 degrees.

How can any “stimulus” plan not grant immediate relief for those who are now or will soon face the same options as Ervin Lupoe or Marvin Schur? There needs to be an immediate, federal moratorium on utility shutoffs and home foreclosures. There needs to be a real jobs program—one that actually creates jobs, instead of throwing money at corporations and banks in the hope that they’ll do it themselves. The onus rests fully on the government to see to it that people don’t starve, freeze, harm themselves and others, or otherwise suffer as a result of a crisis that capitalism—not the workers—created.

Those staggering numbers represent workers and oppressed people who are becoming increasingly distraught and increasingly angry about the situation. The ruling class may attempt to shut its eyes to the suffering of the individuals who make up those statistics. But when numbers like that coalesce into a serious, united fightback movement, it won’t be ignored.