NEW YORK CITY, March 10—The fight against the closing of Downstate Medical Center heated up this week as hundreds of workers, patients, and community members rallied, closing down Clarkson Avenue that runs in front of the hospital. Members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined the rally and distributed all the CHALLENGEs we had. We emphasized the racist nature of attacking healthcare in this largely Black neighborhood that has triple maternal mortality and double infant mortality than that of white workers.

You can’t turn on the news without seeing horrific pictures of death and dying. Thirty thousand are dead in Gaza under ruthless attack from Israeli forces, in the latest of the decades-long wars over Middle Eastern oil. Millions are dead in ongoing wars in the Congo over mineral riches, with each of the big powers arming one side or the other. Now New York State (NYS) wants to cut the guts out of healthcare in central Brooklyn by closing Downstate Hospital. Often it is women and children who bear the brunt in both wars and cutbacks.

These Brooklyn attacks on the working class are connected to world events.  Downstate, a safety net hospital, has been shortchanged for years in NYS budgeting. The politicians cry that too much is being spent on healthcare. All this is against a backdrop of $3.8 billion per year going to arm Israel, plus a Biden proposal of $14 billion additional to help in the current war against Palestinians. The U.S. has given Ukraine $46 billion in military aid, but only $1.6 billion in humanitarian aid. Last year, the U.S. gave only $3 billion to the World Food Program. No penny-pinching when it comes to arms, but plenty when it comes to the care of working people.

But women are not just helpless victims. Women in Gaza and Congo are fighting to feed and shelter their families. It was largely women workers at Downstate who spearheaded the fight 11 years ago to keep it open, and they will lead again this time as we fight for our patients and our jobs. Women, (and children grown), will fight alongside men from Gaza and Israel, to Congo, to Ukraine and Russia, to Brooklyn to turn the guns around on the callous leaders who are killing us to feed the imperialist profit machine that needs world domination.