Just back from the August 10 protest in the working-class Bronx, NY against the system’s refusal of justice for Ramarley Graham. On only 12 hours notice, 200 of us gathered in response to Frank Graham’s call to rally for his son once again, in front of the Bronx District Attorney’s office. The demand, the theme, was “justice”: but the reality is the exact opposite. The chants were all familiar and strong, peoples’ whole bitter lives pouring into their voices. “They say get back, We say fight back!” In Ramarley’s name, in the names of all our fallen.
On procedural grounds, a judge threw out the first case against the cop Richard Haste who murdered the unarmed Ramarley in his own bathroom in front of his grandmother, but, ever “impartial,” left it open for a re-indictment from another grand jury. Last night the grand jury declined to do that. “They say get back.” The Graham family now wants to demand a federal investigation. “We say fight back.”
My heart bleeds for them in this moment when, Frank says, “everything is dark,” but the feds investigating NYPD death squads in the Bronx is a farce! The U.S. government is the king of racist death squads all over the world, from Vietnam to Congo to El Salvador to Iraq, just to name four places in my lifetime that have seen their Ramarleys shot down in their own homes by U.S. government thugs. “We say fight back.”  How, then?  An image comes to mind from Ismaël Ferroukhi’s film Free Men, of the women and men Algerian communist workers in Paris who fought the Nazi occupation alongside their French sisters and brothers only to see colonial France turn the guns on them back in Algeria.
We  will always fight back. But it will have to be in a way that takes account of the cruel predicament of our Algerian communist predecessors, and of the Grahams today. Fighting back is always necessary but no one fight, it seems, is ever sufficient. Think of how, even with state power won and kept at terrible cost, the first communist revolutions had such a hard time transforming the rotten world they were left with.
No one struggle, not even revolution, is ever enough. Every thing always seems dark when that truth hits home. It’s the dialectical truth that nothing is at rest at last, nothing is final, nothing is secure, everything changes; we must keep moving and stay with the pace. “Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.”
But if we toughen up, somehow the fight goes on harder and smarter the next time. A handful of people from my union were there, as we have been throughout this long year, because Ramarley Graham should have lived to be our student. A sobering day, being this close to official state murder of a young black Bronx high-schooler. “NYPD, KKK, How many kids will you kill today?” The black sign in back said simply “Richard Haste, you can’t hide”: everyone there knew how that chant, introduced by PLP, goes on: “We charge you with genocide.”  
A long history of genocide, in this racist city, this racist country, this racist continent, this planet of racist slums, and lengthening as we speak. But always with those who say no. Who will have the last word?  What will that word be? For now, it’s “No!” The Graham family has been inspiring speakers of that saving word.
It will be “No!” until our last breath, until we can speak that other word, for all our fallen sons and daughters. Freedom.
New York teacher

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, August 1 — In June, students at the State University of Haiti (UEH) waged a struggle against the university administration to prevent a fee increase for entry to UEH (see CHALLENGE, (07/17/13). This increase, which aimed to limit the entry of workers’ children to UEH, had been proposed by a reactionary leader close to the government and its ruling class.
For three weeks, students from several faculties (campuses) here organized a series of student general assemblies, militant marches, sit-ins and demonstrations.
Following the initial demonstrations, the Rector and a few reactionary teachers took the offensive, calling for the arrest of student leaders, accusing them of criminal activity — (breaking windows of the administration building and spray-painting government cars). They used the bosses’ press to divert us from the real question: their attack against the interests of students and their parents. These bosses have even announced their intention to break their word about rescinding the fee increases.
This student struggle achieved some success, expecting only a doubling of the registration fee to 1,000 gourdes (about U.S. $25) instead of tripling. And the bosses are in a total state of disarray: every day they take to the media to announce a different point of view and decision. They’re not even on the same page regarding the totality of student demands beyond the fee increase.
The students have not lost everything, but neither did they win. Why? The reduction of the increase stemmed from their ability to mobilize. But because they did not continue to organize students to press for all of their demands and to make alliances with workers, they’re at a standstill. And PL’ers have not yet made a protracted struggle to win an understanding of the role of the university under capitalism — which aims to recruit and train youth to be the agents and allies of the capitalist state, and the need for an egalitarian communist revolution.
However, the struggle continues, both on the reform level and ideologically among students. PLP is committed to this and is ready and able to give better communist leadership on campus and beyond.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, August 4 — July 28 was the date of the first U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1915. Today the current fascist government and its ruling-class masters chose it for a celebration. a “festival of flowers.” This is how they  commemorate almost a century of imperialist-led crimes against the masses in Haiti.
For almost 19 years, from 1915 to 1934, the U.S. bosses waged a relentless fight against the peasants, workers and students of Haiti. They killed many rank-and-filers during their bloody occupation, and murdered their leadership as well. One was Charlemagne Peralte, an organizer of the rural group called the Cacos, which had fought for many decades against the abuses of the local landowners, and then turned their fightback against the U.S. invaders.
Today, it is MINUSTAH, the United Nations-led imperialist force, which has been repressing, exploiting, raping and murdering the peasantry, working class and youth of Haiti since its arrival in June 2004. It is fronting for the major imperialists who want to control Haiti — the U.S., Canada and France.
Thousands of peasants and workers have died from cholera, imported by these imperialist forces. As of early August, over 1,000 days after its introduction into Haiti, 671,702 have become ill and 8,251 have died. [http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/haiti-cholera-counter]). The U.N. has yet to even apologize, or take steps to remedy its crimes.
Several working-class social groups organized a demonstration on July 26 in the Carrefour suburb here to continue the fight against these crimes of capitalism.
PLP took part in this event, distributing leaflets linking cholera to racism and other problems created by the capitalist system, and carrying signs advocating the need to destroy it. These were well-received by the rank-and-file. In fact, the demonstration and these slogans were used as teaching tools a few days later during some classes preparing high-school graduates to take the competitive exams for entry into the State University of Haiti.
However, the carnival-like atmosphere of the demonstration and the limited organization in the working class changed the character of this protest. Yet it did show the potential of the working class and its allies to respond positively to revolutionary ideas and a revolutionary party.
There is real room for PLP’s growth in Haiti and around the world as the bosses show their utter contempt for workers through their unrelenting attacks on our class.

LOS ANGELES, CA — An indicator that capitalism is a sick system and needs to be replaced is when doctors, who generally live very comfortably, become disgruntled and burnt out from the “assembly line” our healthcare system has become. They recognize the harmful effects it has on patient care, particularly the most vulnerable: poor, black, Latino and immigrant patients.
For the last year, our “not-for-profit” HIV organization has almost doubled its first quarter profits, $95 million to $181 million from the 1st quarter of 2012 to the 1st quarter 2013. It has continued its attacks on our wages, benefits, scheduling and the staffing of our clinics. Short of rumblings in various staff meetings or side conversations, these attacks have gone virtually unchallenged until recently.
For the last three months, the providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) have been meeting in secret trying to figure out how to respond. It’s been a truly heartening experience to deepen ties with this group as venting sessions after work quickly morphed into serious conversations that moved beyond talks of our individual pay and productivity and into conversations about our coworkers and our patients. With leadership from a Party member in this circle, the group decided to unionize. Now over 85 percent of providers have signed the petition to unionize.
Clearly, this is a far cry from being communists and joining PLP, but this growing solidarity and anger, which have trumped much of our initial fear, are part of the process of learning how to fight back. With the use of CHALLENGE and communist leadership we can continue to learn how to fight and recognize the limits of unionizing and reformism. As to be expected, there are many illusions about what the union can offer us (even if there are short-term gains).
This HIV organization is one of the largest in the world, and we will be the first to unionize here in the U.S. We recently found out that a group unionized in South Africa, although at this point we know very few details. However, the president of our company has used our passion for treating HIV as a mechanism to pay us less while overworking us. This organization makes profits off its pharmaceutical sales because it can buy highly expensive HIV medications at 30-40 percent off (called 340B pricing) and then bill at full price the insurance companies or Medicaid/Medicare, AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). The remainder counts as profits. Like the Walmart of HIV care, this company is expanding by swallowing up smaller HIV clinics that do not have their own pharmacies and with cuts in reimbursements from Medicaid cannot afford to survive. Like a virus that preys on and weakens the immune system, this company preys on the sick while making millions in the process: a model company under capitalism.
“Healthcare” under capitalism, in this period of economic crisis and war, means that there will have to be more and more cuts and attacks on workers and patients while Obama and others spread the illusion of increased access to care. We’ve already seen, here on our job as well as nationally, what Obamacare really means for our patients.
 Patients at our clinics who now qualify for “Healthyway LA,” a new insurance for the poor, get less access to medications than they had on ADAP. Moreover, if they need a referral to see a specialist like oncology (cancer specialists), they have to go to the County system just as they would have without health insurance. The County system has been continually dismantled over the last several years. In other words take your insurance and get in line, an ever-expanding line!
What will this mean for our undocumented patients who are not eligible for insurance? The federal government will likely stop funding ADAP, the only source that pays for their HIV medications and care. Once again, it is the illusion of access and the reality of more racism, illness and death!
And what will this mean for those of us with so-called good “Cadillac” health insurance? The sick irony is that we can get a glimpse by taking a look at what is happening right now to retired workers in Detroit (home of GM, makers of Cadillac). To save the bankers and government from bankruptcy, they are targeting retired public workers who currently have better coverage through Medicare and will force them into “choosing” a new health insurance plan which the New York Times (7/29/13) admits will mean inferior care and increase payments for the patients.
Like good Nazis, the Detroit bankers and politicians are starting with the elderly, those deemed no longer productive to society, who Hitler called “useless eaters.” This is fascist healthcare. From the “Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care” that collected money from the families of children murdered by the Nazis to Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” we must recognize the essence of these changes so as not to be complicit. Fighting back against these attacks on the job is the first step to recognizing the much greater problem of capitalism as a whole, and fascism as merely an expression of capitalism in crisis.
We’ve had many discussions on the job, but these broader conversations about our role under fascist healthcare and how to fight it have yet to occur. One friend and fellow provider has seen the most recent CHALLENGE and has read the rough draft of this article. There are three other providers that I will definitely show the next issue of CHALLENGE to, and hopefully, this article will be the beginning of a series that documents our progress and the growing challenges within this reform struggle. The fight for real healthcare means the fight for
communism!
Barefoot PA