Letters of September 23

Capitalism killed my patient
One of the major ways the capitalist bosses keep their grip on power over the working class is by convincing us that we, as workers, should assume blame for the failures of their system. This fact was driven home for me recently during a shift in the hospital where I work.
One of the patients that was assigned to me had experienced a traumatic injury before being admitted to the hospital, and the night before I came on her condition had gravely deteriorated. By the time I arrived to work, she had already spent over seven hours in a regular unit when she should have been in an intensive care unit. I was unable to give her the attention that she needed, and within two hours of starting my shift, she had passed.
The reason why she had not been able to be transferred to one of the intensive care units was that the air conditioning unit in another had gone out, and the workers were forced to move the patients out. We were without enough critical care beds for over 24 hours. Electrical outages have been a common occurrence throughout the summer at this hospital, as the bosses are unwilling to make the necessary infrastructure improvements that will better serve our mostly Black and Latin patients.
I truly genuinely believe that if we lived under a communist society, where workers’ lives are paramount over everything and the profit motive is abolished, this patient would still be alive today. I place the blame for her death on the bosses and no one else. For her and so many other countless other workers sent to an early grave, I fight to build the Progessive Labor Party and the struggle for a better world.
*****
Boston PLP’s school against racism
At an all-day Antiracism School today, about 30 people (physically distanced in person and also online) grappled with the question of fighting racism under capitalism.  
In preparation for the School, attendees read selections on the contemporaneous origins of racism and capitalism, the efforts by the slave owners to actually create racism and the concept of "whiteness" so as to suppress multiracial rebellions, and why multi-racial, antiracist struggle is key in defeating racism.
Speeches on the origins of racism, racism in capitalist USA today, PLP's history of fighting racism, the fight against police terror in Worcester, and How to Fight Racism, were followed by workshops and discussions.  A few of the discussion questions: How are white working people hurt by racism?  If Joe Biden is elected, is that a victory against racism?  Is the Democratic party less racist than the Republican Party? Can racism be defeated without a revolution against capitalism?
One speaker said that, just as in Nazi Germany, people who do nothing while others are victimized by racism, are due to pay a huge price. Six million Jews died in the death camps, but 10 million Germans as well as tens  of millions elsewhere, died in WWII , paying the price for allowing the Nazis' racism to come to power.
Most of the speakers and workshop leaders were new members or close friends. Several participants new to PLP's ideas attended, and expressed interest and satisfaction with the School.  Several want to find out more about us, or to join PLP.
Thanks to the host family, the organizers, the participants, and especially to the existence of the PLP which made the School possible!
*****
What’s there to vote for?
The latest election polls show voters are fed up with Trump’s murderous neglect of the pandemic and fascist repression of the antiracist rebellions in the U.S. The Democratic Party alternative is Joe Biden who wrote the 1994 anti-crime bill that laid the framework for the racist mass incarceration of over two million, mostly Black and Latin workers. He allied with segregationists and opposed busing of Black children from segregated schools. During the 2008 recession, the Biden/Obama government refused to help many thousands of Black, Latin, and immigrant workers who lost their homes but bailed out the big banks with our tax money. At the same time Obama became U.S. history’s number one Deporter-in-Chief of immigrant workers.
Biden’s choice for vice president is Kamala Harris who was the main prosecutor in California, a state with the second highest incarceration rate in the country of mostly Black and Latin workers. Harris is a self-proclaimed Top Cop and calls for more police on the streets while Biden opposes any cuts in the multi-billion dollar police budgets. Harris supports Biden’s opposition to Medicare For All when Black workers are five times as likely to die in the pandemic because of lack of health care.
Both the Republican and Democratic Parties work to keep the racist, genocidal capitalist system in power. In the coming election the Democrats are using Black nationalist and gender politics to get their capitalist backers in office. To get working class needs represented, don’t vote. Organize with the communist PLP.
*****
No good cops
CHALLENGE needs to say there are no good cops. In the front-page article, “Rebel Against Racism” (9/9) the statement is made that there are bad cops referring to the two involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake. We should refrain from using that “bad cop” terminology because it implies there might be good cops.
If there is one thing the Small Fascists and Big Fascists support, it’s the capitalist state and its law and order defined as the, “biggest instrument of violence worldwide” in the same article.
However, they disagree on policing. The Small Fascists say protestors against racist murder and imperialist wars are anti-American terrorists who should be violently suppressed by police, vigilantes, and ‘badges without borders’ guards. The Democrat Big Fascists say a few bad cops will be accounted for and protesting is ok as long as it doesn’t defy police violence. If the protestors follow that advice like the “bad cop” statement as the CHALLENGE article seems to say we will be left with our murderous capitalist dictatorship.
The article correctly says, “Police are U.S. capitalisms defenders.” More than half of every federal, state and local budget goes to weaponize and train police and military as stormtroopers to terrorize and kill workers who threaten capitalist power and profits. All these hit men for capitalism know which side they’re on and that their bosses’ system will always protect them.
*****