Hurricane Harvey: A Natural Disaster, and the Crisis of a System

Roundtable Discussion with

Raymond Lotta

Revolution Books, New York City
437 Malcolm X Blvd @ 132nd (#2/3 to 135th)
212-691-3345
www.revolutionbooksnyc.org

Hurricane Harvey is ravaging the Texas Gulf Coast. Millions of people's lives have been thrown into a desperate struggle for survival. Many are poor Chicano, immigrant, and Black people who have worked the docks and refineries, and rice, cotton, cane fields -- confined to dilapidated urban slums and in rural settlements along the Texas-Mexico border.

Hurricane Harvey was caused by forces of nature. But the lack of preparation for evacuation, shelter, food, and medical needs...the inability of the government to really mobilize and organize people to confront and assist each other in dealing with this catastrophe...the concern first and foremost for the oil refineries and oil production in Houston...and how Houston itself has been built up in a way that compounds this disaster...

All this has everything to do with the profit-based capitalist-imperialist system we live under.

Join the discussion. We'll get into:

The role of human-caused climate change in massive storms like Harvey.
Why the lack of preparation.
The dangers facing immigrants and how this is connected to the Trump-Pence fascist agenda.
Why capitalism cannot address extreme environmental and human needs.
And how this would be different in a genuine socialist society.

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