APHA Convention: Revolution, Not Resolutions

CHICAGO, November 10 — Communists from the Progressive Labor Party joined the 12,000 attendees at the American Public Health Association (APHA) annual convention in early November, and raised revolutionary politics through a rally, literature distribution, discussion groups, and more.
We kicked off with mass leafleting and selling CHALLENGE at the Opening Session. Our message: Capitalism is the enemy of public health – fighting racism is the key to social change and public health.  Our leaflet also documented many struggles we are engaged in. Other organizing tools included a flyer about price gouging by drug companies.
PLP organized fighters for our annual Troublemakers Breakfast to discuss public health politics and plan actions for APHA. Over 30 people participated, including students. Our discussion covered a wide range, including about the cutbacks in healthcare that involve the threatened closure of the pediatrics program at Stroger Hospital. Others raised the issues of the excessive prices of HIV and Hepatitis C drugs, and the fight against cholera in Haiti. We also examined student debt, the apartheid state of Israel-Palestine, and the high murder rates of transgender (particularly Black transgender) people. The group vowed to coordinate local and national public health struggles in the coming year.
U.S. Police Terror and Israeli Apartheid
In the session organized by the Black Caucus of Health Workers, young black students and professionals from the University of Illinois at presented talks on police violence. Treating racist police murder as part of a long-term public health crisis, speakers revealed that the number of people killed by kkkops— about 1,150 a year — is about seven times as high as the number of people lynched (160 a year) in the peak years of 1880s and 1890s.Without the recent courage and militancy of the Ferguson and Baltimore rebels, there would be a much smaller movement against racist state violence, and less of an impetus for an important session like this one.
In the session on Palestinian health justice, a PLP member presented a paper proposing a single secular communist state in Israel-Palestine and exposing the unequal class societies that prevail in both Israel and Palestine. The audience applauded. This begs the question: why can’t all borders be eliminated? It is not possible to have communism without making a worldwide revolution and having the international working class run society under one Party.
The Palestinian work group plans to invite every section of the convention to submit resolutions next year to force APHA to take a position against Zionism. Years ago, the APHA leadership had lied and promised to organize a fact-finding mission to pacify these fighters.  Meanwhile, Israeli forces invaded towns and hospitals killing health workers and patients, arresting and shooting kids throwing stones, and more. For a world to make public health its top priority, we must cut out the root cause: this capitalist disease responsible for state terror and racist inequality.
Rally in the Exhibit Hall
A dozen people chanted “patients, not patents” in condemnation of racist drug company practices. We protested pharmaceutical booths for their outrageous drug prices, especially for Hepatitis C treatments. Hepatitis C affects over 3 million U.S. residents and 80-160 million people worldwide and is disproportionately prevalent among the poor. Companies like Gilead are charging $80,000 for the course of treatment.  This is a racist attack on our class! With the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, drug companies will be allowed to set higher prices and maintain monopoly patents for longer periods of time, further killing the working class by restraining access to drugs. While APHA security followed us and issued warnings, vendors and visitors took our literature and thanked us for providing some antiracist excitement around an important issue.
Reformism, Camara Jones Style
Incoming president, Camara Jones, instituted a campaign to make racism the major focus of APHA (about time!)  APHA, like many professional organizations, tries to reform capitalism and secure a seat at the table of policy makers.  We want to burn down the table and create a system based on equity where there is no profit, racism, or any other forms of oppression.
Even as the ruling class works to place liberals like Jones in charge of key mass organizations such as the APHA, her presidency is an opportunity for PLP to continue to fight for multiracial unity and militancy in the struggle for public health equity. Our aim is to do what Camara Jones never will —build a base for communist revolution among public health workers.  The opening is there; as the president of the Black Caucus of Health Workers said, “we need revolution, not resolutions.” By the end of the convention, over 2,250 communist literature were distributed, including a four-page document outlining the need for communist revolution.
Join your local public health struggles and come to Denver in November 2016 for the next APHA meeting.  Join the Progressive Labor Party if you see no justice under capitalism.