The following is a speech  given by a PL’er  at the American Public Health Association (APHA) rally in San Antonio:

It is an honor to be here today with these other speakers and everyone here. We are on the right side of history. I have been a member of APHA for decades as well as the Progressive Labor Party.  PLP is a communist party. We are fighting to ultimately get rid of the capitalist system entirely and replace it with an egalitarian society in which workers worldwide share equally in the wealth they produce without billionaires.

APHA’s annual meeting is here in San Antonio which is on the front lines of a fascist onslaught. The Dilley detention center is close by. While Dilley is not quite at the level of a Nazi concentration camp, it is comparable in many ways. People are dying there from poor or nonexistent health care, lousy food and crowded conditions. The use of racism and dehumanization helps make it happen. I saw the result of this racism some decades ago on a visit to the Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany. Many thousands died there but the principle is the same. 

Ordinary Germans living near the camp denied knowledge of what was going on in Dachau right under their noses. It took the intervention by U.S. soldiers at the end of the war for it to stop. While Dilley is not quite Dachau, it is moving in that direction. The difference is we are not waiting for the cavalry to come into Dilley and end this despicable camp. We in the APHA are here to declare our opposition to what’s happening in Dilley and all the detention centers.  APHA talks a lot about guaranteeing the health of people and preventing illness. Unfortunately, its actions to this goal are very limited. We must engage APHA to take strong stands against detention centers like Dilley. Without trying to do that, the APHA comes off as a paper tiger. 

While ICE is going after many thousands of workers, there has been a genocide going on in Gaza and Palestine, backed by the U.S.  Support for the racist regime in Israel was also, lest we forget, a part of the Democrats' program for many years.  It’s important to understand that no matter what candidate, Republican or Democrat, Palestinian workers will continue to have their homes bulldozed or bombed and maybe die as well.

Tactics originated by the Israelis to attack Palestinians have been used by ICE. 

We have attempted for years to engage APHA in taking a stand against Israel ‘s attacks on Palestinians that are causing thousands of deaths, illness and amputations of limbs of children. We have met with a brick wall with the shoving into our faces a treatise called “Codes of Conduct.” A long time APHA member, Amy Hagopian, was thrown out of APHA for demanding that APHA stand up to the genocide in Gaza/ Palestine.  APHA has tried to quell these voices for years by taking Israel‘s side without exception. If APHA wants to retain any legitimacy in the struggle for health worldwide, it will have to start listening to its anti-imperialist non-Zionist members.  The cat is out of the bag. The world is much more aware of the horrible conditions of living for Palestinians in Gaza and also the way that Israel is also making life hell for Palestinians in the West Bank. They are beating and killing journalists and many others there as well as cutting down and burning down olive trees along with bulldozing homes.

The struggle goes on. It’s inspiring to see workers here in the U.S. standing up to detention centers and the fascist murder or kidnapping of their neighbors. It’s also inspiring to see the people of Palestine (Jewish and non-Jewish) allying together to stand up to attacks by the fascist IDF/IOF and the super racist settler population. We really can’t elect our way out of fascism or end imperialism with a vote.

These fights are happening in the context of a system known as capitalism that thrives on racism and the exploitation of labor and that is faltering worldwide.   Witness: French, Spanish, Italian, and Albanian workers and students fighting back recently.  We in Progressive Labor Party believe that it is essential to fight back and build for an egalitarian communist society. However, clearly this bankrupt system is quaking. Just fighting back is not enough. We must ultimately get rid of the system that allows billionaires to accumulate wealth that is really created by workers and leaves workers in wage slavery with worsening quality of life. Power to workers, smash ICE and US imperialism. Let’s ally with Jewish and Palestinian workers to smash the racist Zionism of Israel and the U.S. We have a world to win! Thank You! AND CHECK OUT OUR NEWSPAPER: CHALLENGE.