As Los Angeles is engulfed in flames, it’s not the Hollywood and media elite who suffer, but the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society. It is an invisible working class, rather than various celebrities, producers, and industry executives that Los Angeles is known for internationally, that bears the brunt of the criminal negligence and incompetence of municipal, state, and federal governments in the face of natural disasters like this.

The repeated inability of the US government to provide minimal relief, assistance, and aid to its own citizens in the midst of natural disasters increasingly indicts its claim to power. One of the most fundamental tasks of governance since the beginning of recorded history has been organizing populations and providing them with relief in the midst of natural catastrophes. The US government is failing to fulfill the most minimal and baseline functions of governance.

That is not to say it lacks the capacity. For the cause of providing Ukraine and the Zionist entity weapons to murder innocent civilians in the Donbass and Palestine, the US government never seems to shirk its duties, never appears to demonstrate the same level of incompetence and neglect. In fact, the California state government is guilty of funneling aid and supplies which could have been put in the service of US citizens but was instead redirected to support the criminal Kiev regime.

The crisis affecting California demonstrates that our country’s problems go far beyond issues of competence and governance. Toward aims that fulfill the agenda of the ruling capitalist class, the US government is the most competent and effective in the world. Our country faces a brutal form of class warfare, and every working class life destroyed by the fires in Los Angeles is a casualty of the capitalist class’ war of extermination against the American people. The tax dollars, sacrifices, and labor of the American working class are what form the foundation of the US government. And the US government is simply not holding up its end of the social contract.

With this simple fact in mind, the California Chapter of the American Communist Party has already begun mobilizing to provide relief and assistance to working class communities in Los Angeles, stepping in where municipal, state, and federal governments have failed.

Our Party is in the process of mobilizing cadre from across the state and outside the disaster zone to pool their labor and resources to provide on-the-ground assistance for the people of Los Angeles. Communists will assist in evacuating as many civilians as possible to shelters. Our medically trained cadre will provide first aid at shelters for the injured, while other cadre will bring other crucial supplies. Our cadre will assist with clean-up and, wherever possible, participate in reconstruction efforts.

While our Party lacks the vast resources and wealth of the US government, it will do everything in its power to serve the people of Los Angeles amidst the criminal neglect and incompetence of the ruling class.