July 23, 2001
Today there is an opportunity for working people to take stock of the class character of what the medical industry is all about under capitalism.
Unlike many problems that still need to be solved by humanity, there are the resources available today to provide every person with high-quality cradle-to-grave medical attention. The capitalist profit system itself is the only obstacle in the way of achieving this goal.
An example of the possibilities of transforming health care is the Cuban Revolution, which recently announced it would send 4,000 volunteer doctors, needed supplies and drugs, and teachers for 20 medical schools to Africa to help combat the spread of the AIDS epidemic.
Health care in the United States is a capitalist industry whose goal is not to cure people but to make money for a handful.
July 23, 1976
NEW YORK — As the Democrats convened in Madison Square Garden, thousands of striking hospital workers rallied outside to dramatize their demand for a new contract that gives them a living wage. Some 40,000 members of District 1199 are taking part in a strike against voluntary (private nonprofit) hospitals and nursing homes. The walkout began July 7.
When the strike began, Democratic Mayor Abraham Beame’s administration joined the fray on the side of the bosses. City officials took workers from the unstruck city hospitals and sent them to take the place of striking workers at the voluntary hospitals.
Nevertheless, the strike holds firm. It started against thirty-three hospitals — two-thirds of the private hospital capacity in the city — then extended to fourteen nursing homes and some employees of ten city hospitals three days later.
July 23, 1951
CHICAGO, July 17 — A crowd of 2,000 angry Chicago citizens gathered in the Metropolitan Church to hear the NAACP report on the case of the young veteran whose rental of a Cicero apartment set off the anti-Negro riot in that suburb last week.
On July 10 Clark and his wife supervised the moving of their new furniture and personal possessions into the flat. When they arrived, they found a hostile mob of 500 already there. By nightfall the mob had grown to 3,000.
Events were climaxed when a gang broke into the building, wrecking as they went, concentrating on the Clark apartment. Everything moveable was thrown out the windows; everything not moveable was smashed. A funeral pile of the Clark possessions went up in flames, while the Cicero police, fire department, the Cook County sheriff’s force and the state police stood by.