Letters of March 25

Profits Over Lives
I attended a co-worker’s funeral several months ago. It’s a very sad story because it may have been preventable. She went to an Emergency Room (ER) for abdominal pain and was sent home the same day. She returned the next day with trouble breathing, so she was put on a ventilator. She died the next day.
It was very shocking because it happened so fast. It is obvious that my co-worker should never have been sent home when she first went to the ER. Another co-worker said she experienced a similar event when her husband was complaining of abdominal pain, but tests in the ER did not show anything wrong. He was going to be sent home too.
My co-worker knew something was wrong with her husband and insisted on a CAT scan. The doctors made light of her suggestion, but ordered the scan in spite of their “better judgment.”  It turned out that his appendix was on the verge of bursting and he was scheduled for surgery on the same day. My co-worker had to go home to care for their children, and in the meantime, the operating room called her and informed her that they could not go ahead with the surgery because there was a problem with their insurance. Luckily my co-worker was able to correct a paper work error through Human Resources at work in time for her husband’s surgery. The surgeon told her after the surgery that it was the worst appendix he’d seen in thirty years of practice. My co-worker saved her husband’s life. Can you imagine the consequences if she had not insisted on her husband’s behalf?!
If you recall, one of the first people to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. was also sent home from an ER, only to return a few days later and eventually die. The practice of medicine is like all other institutions under capitalism. It’s a business that is more interested in saving money than lives. ERs are understaffed and overwhelmed. Waiting times are usually long and in trauma centers, traumas must be attended to first. In many hospitals, available beds are in short supply, due to cutbacks and cost-saving policies. Efficiency “experts” have advised hospitals to cut the number of beds and keep the remaining bed capacity full.
I once saw a former leader of PLP hold up a dollar bill and say that is what the ruling class worships. The dollar represents their God, he said. Communist revolution will sweep them away  into the dustbin of history.
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No Worker Privilege under Capitalism
I was happy to read the front-page article about the anti-racist university teach-in (3/11). However, I think the subject of identity politics and white skin and male privilege needs more amplification. I, at least, have become involved in some very heavy and lengthy discussions about this lately, especially with other white middle-class friends.
There is a very common perception that being less subject to racist or sexist discrimination gives one “privilege” in society. What is missing is the understanding that racism and sexism are consciously created in order to divide workers against one another. This is manifested by not just encouraging prejudice, but by making non-racist or non-sexist workers feel separate from their coworkers because they may suffer less immediate concrete attacks in terms of wages, services or police brutality.
If one lacks the understanding that these differences in treatment by the bosses are tools to hurt the working class as a whole, then a frequent response is to accept a measure of guilt for the bosses’ segregation and step back from multi-ethnic struggle or leadership. This is different from encouraging women or Blacks or immigrants to take leadership and making sure that whites and men can accept that leadership. But we must all participate together if we are to build bonds as a class and have the power to overthrow this system. We cannot adopt this guilt that is laid on us by those truly guilty of destroying the lives of millions around the world.
This issue also frequently arises when involved in international organizing, when workers from imperialist nations are discouraged from struggle over ideas emanating from oppressed nations. It’s as if the millions of workers in the wealthy countries were not suffering, nor had valuable experience in fighting capitalism. This form of nationalism elevates the ideas of the oppressed nationality to incontrovertible even if those ideas are based on ethnicity as opposed to class.
The history of the many failed “national liberation” movements of the last century to improve the lot of most workers is the sad consequence of this approach, which serves only to change the color or language of the local exploiters. There is no country in the world today where workers hold power, so no country where we do not have to fight the ruling class, be it imperialist or imperialist lackey. Workers of the world unite! Fight for your class, not the bosses’ flag!
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