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

SALVADOR, BAHIA, BRAZIL — Masses of students and workers took to the streets condemning the Brazilian government’s austerity attack on the working class while it pours billions into its ostentatious hosting of the World Cup and the Olympics. Workers and students protested on July 22, in the downtown square called Campo Grande, made famous by the carnival of Salvador–Ba in northeastern Brazil.
The demonstrations opposed the government spending while workers faced intense poverty. Demonstrations are continuing throughout Brazil, encouraged by the wave of opposition to the corrupt administration of the cities and the government budget. The police have answered with violence against the protesters who are fighting, the neglect of health and education and subjugating of women.

The movie Fruitvale Station documents the last days of Oscar Grant III, a twenty-three-year-old black worker from the Bay Area in northern California who was murdered by a cop from Oakland’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Department in 2009.
The movie illustrates how Oscar, after having been in jail, attempts to restore his life and help his family. The movie excels at showing the hard decisions that Oscar has to face in this capitalist state where working-class people experience unemployment and racism. He was fired and was unable to find another job. He then had to decide whether or not to sell drugs to pay the rent, which he ultimately decides not to do because he does not want to end up back in jail.
Oscar Fights Effects of Capitalism
Through the lens of the camera, illustrating the real-life harsh reality under capitalism and vivid family relationships, we see Oscar’s love for his four-year-old daughter as he helps her get ready for school. Sophina Mesa (Oscar’s partner) struggles as the only one employed in the family, and Oscar tries to also help his sister pay her rent. These are the simple and human characteristics of a young man and family aspiring to make ends meet as the end of the month draws near.
However, despite the family’s effort to create a better future, they are unable to do so. The family’s turning point comes when, while riding the train to celebrate the New Year, Oscar is confronted by a person with whom he had had previous confrontations in jail, and is forced to fight him. The racist police arrive on the scene and immediately force only African American young men to sit on the platform. While there, Oscar and a racist BART cop get into a verbal disagreement and the cop tries to put him in handcuffs. While Oscar is pinned to the ground, another cop pulls out a gun and shoots him in the back.
The film depicts this as only one incident in a string of “unfortunate” events, but the reality of this system is that Latino and black men are disproportionally incarcerated, unemployed and killed by the police. They find their choices limited because that is how capitalism attempts to keep the working class powerless and oppressed. This system blames the individual for not trying hard enough. The film does not illustrate that this is a deliberate systemic problem of capitalism that continues to leave young black workers with only dead-end opportunities and choices. Oscar lived in a system that uses racism and racial profiling to rob working-class men and women of their full potential. Many laws, such as “stop-and-frisk,” perpetuate this system.
Film Omits Protests, Role of Cops
The film also mentions that the “punishment” of the murdering cop was two years in jail but he ended up serving only 11 months. However, the film does not show the major working-class protests that were led by Oscar’s family as a result of this sentence. The working class cannot negotiate with a racist system that uses cops to oppress and kill them! The film does not expose the police as the tool that the ruling-class uses to physically intimidate and control working-class individuals. Instead, the film illustrates the murderer as an “inexperienced” officer, who did not know how to “handle” an escalating confrontation with a detainee. However, cops and their violence and racism are used by the ruling class in its attempt to intimidate the working class from organizing and rising up.
Oscar’s tragedy resonates with the Zimmerman trial and acquittal because forums, protests and near rebellions broke out throughout the country after both incidents. At the time of this writing, the New York courts have just refused again to indict the cop who killed Ramarley Graham in the Bronx (see page 3). These are not separate incidents but a series of attacks by the fascist cops and courts against black and Latino working-class youth. The only way to fight against these racist cops and the court system is to destroy capitalism.