The impact of Hurricane Harvey in southeast Texas, followed by Hurricane Irma in south Florida has been catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed, one million cars rendered inoperable, countless schools and other public facilities flooded and ruined beyond repair. Over a hundred people have reportedly lost their lives. These major calamities have exposed the basic structure of social and political life in a particularly stark form. Both Irma and Harvey before it have revealed that the United States is riven by social inequality, plagued by decaying infrastructure and presided over by a ruling elite that acts with criminal indifference when confronted with the critical needs of society. In the face of such disasters, the vast resources of produced by society were not be mobilized to meet the basic needs of the people affected because they have been diverted to other aims. The social wealth produced by the working class has found its way into the pockets a tiny and parasitic layer of capitalists, as well as into the limitless budgets devoted to militarism and war. On the heels of Irma and Harvey, the political establishment is already moving to escalate the transfer of wealth to the ultra rich by means of yet another major round of corporate tax cuts and the slashing of essential social services. Meets at Aztec Student Union, Room Metztli.