Letters ... November 16, 2022

Worker to worker: Rodwell-Spivey organizing continues
      Last month, a group of comrades in Newark, NJ canvassed with Monique Rodwell, the mother of the Rodwell-Spivey brothers, in front of Save-A-Lot, a grocery store on Springfield Ave, (a street that was the site of the ‘67 Newark Rebellion) where we spoke to people and asked them to sign petitions. It was fantastic; we reached out to a lot of people. We got feedback about racial profiling and housing issues. Most of the residents were vocal about politicians who only came around when it was election time. When asked if they thought things were different since the election of Newark’s mayor, they all said nothing has changed. If anything, things have gotten worse.

We need more unity. I think that we should address certain issues differently. Communication is a must. People will feel more comfortable talking to people who are going through the same struggles and come from the same neighborhoods, because they feel like that person can relate.  And there are too many organizations, too many egos and not enough working together. We have to put aside personal differences;it’s about community.

Those who signed the petition need to get together soon.

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Build bonds with co-workers
Organizing in the Transit Workers Union (TWU) as a Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) worker has been challenging. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members try to learn as much as we can about our contractual rights within our union and within the bosses’ company so we can share that info with the rest of the workers. It creates that revolutionary potential when workers learn the limitations this system offers, paving a way to more fight back.

Many workers, myself included, are isolated and get bombarded with ideas and historical events of workers’ fightback not amounting to much, especially in recent fightbacks, like for George Floyd. But even when they do report our fightback stories the ruling class dilutes them of their militancy and lies about their effectiveness. They also remove any communist influence, birthing cynicism. Workers don’t know what we don't see. So it’s our job to read and share this paper that is filled with our victories and strengths.

This is where our strength comes from and without it any one of us can be prone to idealist ideology, like it’s enough to have a union that fights some of the time or Biden is “better.” Our co-workers don’t show up to meetings because the union misleaders don’t want them to. They don’t want the workers to bear witness to their limits.

Going to our union meetings where the leadership blames the workers for our problems is like meeting with vampires. It has taken a toll on me. The bosses’ influence translates into not trusting my coworkers with a communist newspaper. But I’m overcoming that influence as now I am willing to trust someone. I …am …… willing to trust someone. The bosses’ message is a lie. The answer is clear; we must be bold and confident in our line. As I have made bonds with many workers, now I see it was my own anticommunism all along. Time to remove that and practice trusting myself with my coworkers with communist ideas. Communist-led fight back has potential in transit. It’s the only way it has worked and continues to work; by trusting the working class. I don’t expect coworkers to join right away but I’m ready to show them the door. Soon, I’m sure to my surprise one (or more) will walk through it.
                
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Fighting bosses’ barriers against booster shot
This past week I tried to get my Covid-19 and flu booster from Walgreens. I heard by way of my nonprofit job that bosses at Walgreens recently made a partnership with DoorDash and UberHealth bosses to deliver Paxlovid, a Covid-19 antiviral in pill form for workers suffering from the virus. The week leading up to the Walgreens visit, I noticed in almost every interaction that I had with friends and comrades that someone had a cough or a tickle in their throat, or excess phlegm. I figured it was as good a time as any to get fierce about boosting my immune system. In the Walgreens near my home in Jersey City, one of the most expensive and quickly gentrifying cities in the U.S., there were tons of visibly sick people waiting at the pharmacy, and each was maskless; leaving them and us vulnerable. The place was not that clean, and the longer we waited, the more the store filled with coughs and lines of people. What I also noticed was that there weren’t many workers running the place - pharmacists or cashiers. I tried my best to be patient and wait, but as we neared closer to closing time, things looked bleak.

I left and tried to look up other, maybe better Walgreens that I could find based on Google reviews. Each review told an experience similar to the one that I just went through. I found a small, less mainstream pharmacy in a wealthier small town nearby. I noticed it was run by a family from India. Although the place was clean, well stocked and they made the process of getting vaccinated easy, the two people running the pharmacy had an on-edge method to keep the lines shorter, and a kid was stocking the shelves. Even the most well-intentioned people that start and run businesses still have to participate in exploitation. Walgreens, Uber and DoorDash are some of the wealthiest businesses in the U.S. They make their profits by also being the most exploitative. To smash exploitation and this whole racist, sexist system, we as working people need to fight for a full-fledged communist revolution. Only with masses of working people working together across borders to smash this system and build communism can we have a fighting chance for healthy generations to follow us and a healthy planet they can live on.

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Radiation, harmful only at high doses
The CHALLENGE article “Imperialism poisons workers with radiation” (10/19) rightly points out the U.S. bosses care nothing about our health. However, the article errs by highlighting radioactivity in general as the main cause of health problems from Superfund sites.

These toxic dumpsites, often located in Black and Latin communities, are primarily dumping grounds for often cancer-causing, but not radioactive, waste. The article also states  “[p]lutonium is the most-deadly.” Wrong. Radioactivity is generally harmless except at very high doses.

Radioactive isotopes are used both to treat and diagnose diseases such as iodine (I-131), which is used to treat thyroid diseases. I-131 is far more toxic than plutonium, but the doses used are below the threshold for harm. I-131 was the main worry in the aftermath of Chernobyl and Fukushima but estimated doses to the thyroid from those events were a tiny fraction of doses used in nuclear medicine to save lives.

All agents have thresholds that separate “too little” from “just right” from “too much.” What matters is the dose and rate of delivery. When used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, plutonium was hazardous.

We live on a radioactive planet. We are all radioactive. Without radiation, we would fail to develop immune systems. Radiation is a necessary nutrient in low doses, and those doses are within the same range as the exposures from radioactive Superfund sites.

A study of twenty-six Manhattan Project workers accidentally received “significant doses” (see Gwyneth Cravens’s The Truth About Nuclear Energy). These workers were studied since 1951. Their cancer and death rates are the same as the average male population. Fifty years later, most were in good health.
Let’s learn more about radiation’s effects on health at various doses. Capitalism destroys lives with pollution, imperialist war, racism, and exploitation. We need to focus on that as we build towards communism.
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