“Save Our Hospitals!” It’s Personal, and Not Just for Me…

Earlier this week, I wrote about the ongoing struggle to keep Plainfield’s Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center from being closed. By linking the fight to save Muhlenberg to both the general economic crisis the US faces and, perhaps more importantly, the imperial ambitions in the Middle East of the rulers of this country, I indicated that this is a much larger and more significant battle than just saving one hospital.

And, yes, it is all that, but the fight to save community hospitals also hits much closer to home… This history of these community-based hospitals in New Jersey being padlocked is personal.

Nearly 35 years ago, after an industrial accident in Newark, I was rushed by the Ironbound Ambulance Squad to St. James Hospital. The squad members chose St. James because back in the mid-70s it had reputation. among emergency personnel, as the top hospital in Newark. After being treated, the doctors and nurses of St. James made me promise to see my own physician in the morning. While there were no broken bones, nor apparent major injury, the gravity of the accident had them concerned.

St. James was recently closed.

Ten hours later I was on a gurney in a coma at the highly-acclaimed suburban St. Barnabas Medical Center. Staff there spent the entire night trying to locate the neurosurgeon on call 'til my doctor (a surgeon, himself) gave up and had me transfered to inner-city Orange Memorial in East Orange, where he knew a neurosurgeon on staff. The team at Orange Memorial operated to relieve the inter-cranial pressure, located the blood-clot with one of the first CAT-Scans ever performed in NJ, and gave me excellent care for the month I remained in the coma.

St. Barnabas (in suburban Livingston) is flourishing. Orange Memorial, like St. James, is now closed.

The lesson? Medical Centers that the insurance industry demean as “ghetto hospitals” are actually community hospitals where the doctors and nurses care for the sick and injured. The institutions that get the funding, equipments and kudos, on the other hand, tend to be privately-owned facilities with special relationships to the health-insurance industry.

And, as I've seen in a very personal way, it is these community hospitals that save our lives and our families’ lives, while the nationally noted institutions turn people like us out onto the street.

So keeping the community hospitals open is personal, personal to every working-class and minority individual and family in this country!

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POP says, “Save Our Hospitals!”

I was in Plainfield last weekend when it seemed like the entire city turned out to demonstrate against the for-profit Solaris Healthcare corporation's plans to shut down the more than 130 year-old Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center. The crowd that Steve Hatcher, chairman of the Plainfield Branch of the People's Organization for Progress calculated at 1,000 was both large and diverse. From elderly recovered cardiac patients who owed their very lives to the care they'd received to the young cheerleaders pictured above, from the wealthy of the nearby Crescent Historic District to working class African-American and Latina/o communities that make up approximately 89% of the municipality, every sector of the community was represented.

An older white woman at the demonstration asked me, with genuine curiosity, why the People's Organization for Progress had organized this action. My guess is that her only previous exposure to POP had come through our monthly picketline at the so-called Military Career Center on Plainfield's Front Street (in the Latina/o community) or our reputation for fighting against police assaults on African Americans and other people of color. (Four members of the local branch recently had all charges dropped after being arrested for holding an anti-police brutality banner in front of City Hall.)

But POP has included healthcare among our Core Demands for more than twenty years. So fighting hospital closings is not simply something POP does, it is part of who we are. We have been in the middle of organizing against a wave of hospital closings in Northern New Jersey that has hit Orange Memorial, Irvington General, Montclair Community Hospital, Mountainside, as well as St. James (a POP-supported protest is shown below) and Columbus.

While the Democratic Party's presidential contenders vie and debate over which of them has a more thorough going healthcare platform, while the left decries the fact that neither front-runner Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton have pledged their support for true universal single-payer healthcare, the day-to-day needs of the great majority of people are somehow getting lost in the shuffle.

But local community-based hospitals are being bought-up and shut-down by large for-profit medical centers or the same huge insurance corporations that view healthcare as a business instead of a right. Since around the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, New Jersey witnessed local community-based hospitals close at a frightening rate. Organizing to stop this trend is literally a life-or-death issue to working people in this state, and around the country.

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Women in Nepal: Threshold of a New Era

[Fire on the Mountain is delighted to be able to publish this interview with a leading Nepalese Maoist, conducted by members of the Norwegian revolutionary socialist party Rødt [Red!] for their theoretical magazine, also called Rødt. The interview was conducted in early December (in English), when Hasila Yami visited Oslo and spoke at the memorial service for Tron Øgrim, so it should be read in light of subsequent developments there. Many thanks to Johan Petter Andresen, who granted permission to use this interview, and another one with an Indian revolutionary, which FotM will publish in a day or so.]

Interview with Hisila Yami
Conducted by Jorun Gulbrandsen and Johan Petter Andresen


Hisila Yami is a central committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Yami was a minister in the interim government until the Maoists withdrew in August 2007. She has written many articles about women’s liberation. The most important are collected in the book “People’s War and Women’s Liberation in Nepal”, ISBN 81-904039-0-7. Published by Purvaia Prakashan, India.


Red!: Is it possible for the working women in the third world to achieve liberation without people’s war?

Hisila: Never before in the history of Asia has the number of women joining the people’s war been so huge. At the same time, we must keep in mind that there is a strong left movement in Nepal. The background for this is that the position of women is very bad. More than 80% live in the countryside. Because of lack of income, the men go to find cash jobs in urban areas or in foreign countries. The women stay behind and take care of the farm and the children. The feudal system does not give the woman the right to own land. There are no openings for her. Her life is between the house and the water source. She is married away to the in-law family at an early age. Normally, she cannot visit her own family more than once a year. By the time she is 35 she is a grandmother and her life is finished. If she tries to go to the city she ends up sexually exploited. So the people’s war gave openings for women.

Politically we made this a point. During the war against the colonisers in 1816 the women fought bravely. The party used this as an example that women can fight. In 1944 there was a united woman’s effort to fight against the Rana system. The party was formed in 1948 and all the fronts were formed. Through these examples from history we showed that women have played, and must play, a central role.

Already in 1995, one year before we started the people’s war, we made a rule that there must be minimum two women in each unit. A unit had between 5 and 11 members.

In the period of the first people’s uprising in 1990 it was normal among communists that the husband worked as a full time party worker while the wife worked as a teacher and took care of the family. But we broke that rule in 1993-4.

There are many concrete reasons for the women to join the PLA. The were oppressed by the police, or the families sent the women to avoid them from getting raped by the enemy. Many women also saw PLA as a possibility for another type of life, a better life.

You should know that also before the people’s war, the left was strong in Nepal. The 8th of March has always been celebrated. There was of course a gender ground for that. The left started working with women’s liberation at an early stage. It was the women’s mass organisation that first made an independent program for women’s liberation.

The women’s fronts were very active in 1996. The attacked the men who wasted time playing cards and drinking liquor. They also attacked men that bashed women. Another example is the protests against beauty contests in the urban areas.

Right now the front is organising a wide women’s front for a federal republic. We always look for a united front in our political work.

Red!: What do you think are the main achievements during the people’s war in Nepal pertaining to women’s liberation?

Hisila: Because of our intervention the government was forced to amend many feudal laws. Many NGO’s were also forced to do work directed at women. And the state started employing women.

In the liberated areas the women are now given the right to property. Even now, in other areas, the women have to return their parent’s property when they get married.

We have introduced the right for women to get married again when the husband is martyred, and we have introduced the right to divorce and remarry.

The women in the liberated areas are getting justice through the people’s courts. The formal state organs are expensive and take a lot of time.

We have also politicised women. We have taught them that they have to fight against the state, the police and the military. When you fight, you learn about state oppression in practice. When the enemy rapes women, it teaches them about the gender character of the state.

The party was generous to promote women's leadership fast. In connection with the reorganisation of the party in August, the central committee was downsized to 35 members, and there are now only two women in the central committee. But the reorganisation upgraded women’s representation and positions in the lower levels of the party.

Our demand is that 40 % of those employed by the state must be women.

Red!: What did you find were the main methods that you applied to achieve your goals?

Hisila: In the autonomous regions we made sure that many members are from the local areas. We needed to develop their social skills. They were often more interested in PLA, and the possibility of a lot of mobility. And their uniform gave them a good feeling. PLA was more technical work and made it easier for them to partake. Another positive factor was the collectivity in the PLA. Collectivity is a very important part of their culture.

We also used the method of positive discrimination of dalits and women. In running of the autonomous regions we had the rule of minimum 20 % dalits and 40 % women in leading organs.

Red!: How do you combat males oppressing females in the party and the PLA?

Hisila: The women are more vocal now at every level. One of the reasons for the promotions is exactly that the women are more vocal. But still it is a problem at every level for women to get heard.

We have also had deviations because of our cultural heritage. One example is when a politbureau member had an extramarital relation with a central committee member. The man was given more punishment than the woman.

In two line struggle: there is a tendency to pit women against women. But there is also a tendency to treat women differently than men, something I have experienced personally. When my husband Baburam Bhattarai was taken action against in 2005, this was given a political motivation, but when I was taken action against, the reasons given were my negative influence on him.

Red!: How do the women organise within the party and in the party leadership?

Hisila: When the women are in the women’s front they all work together. But in the party the women do not get together.

Red!: What are your immediate goals in the struggle for women’s struggle in today’s context?

Hisila: We should do away with the feudal system. The feudal system gives nourishment to the mini-kings in the households, and it reinforces the idea of the son as more worth in the family.
To attain this goal we are developing a united republic front of women’s organisations.
We are working for the implementation of the positive steps that were made with the interim constitution.

We are also working for the government to put priority on employment, education and health. This is especially important for women as they have a higher percentage of illiterates and are more exposed to illness, for example reproductive diseases.

We are also working for proportional elections instead of first past the post in connection with the elections to the constituent assembly. In this connection our demand is that 50% of the representatives shall be women, and that dalits, ethnic and national minorities also shall be proportionally represented. [Since this interview the Maoists have made a compromise with Nepali Congress where the elections to the constituent assembly shall be 60 % proportional and 40 % first past the post. The constituent assembly will decide the form of the state and the election procedures for the federal republic.--Red!]

Women communists can be a good rallying point to develop unity. When you see sectarian violence, you see that the women get be attacked because they bear the babies. The women can be invoked to be a uniting force in developing the new federal system.

We are encouraging a new generation of leaders, and here we must have continuous leadership development of new women leaders.

Red!: What do you think are the main achievements for women after the peace agreement in November 2006?

Hisila: The question of citizenship right. Before there was male linearship. Now the child gets citizenship if the mother has no husband. Another positive step is that when women and dalits buy land they don’t have to pay normal taxes.

Red!: What role do the various family structures among the different ethnic groups play in oppressing women in Nepal?

Hisila: In the Hindu family the concept of purity is very important. The parents want their children to get married very early to avoid her having sexual relations before she is married.

Red!: Nepal is entering the first phase of a national democratic revolution. What are the main aims for women in this phase?

Hisila: Women should be brought into the productive force. Today they are still the ones that stay behind. The right to parental property is also a central question. And they should have access to health services. Today a lot of time is spent doing household work. A lot of infrastructural work needs to be done to reduce the time used on household work. A lot of energy is waisted because of the lack of infrastructure. There must be put much more effort into education. There are less than 10 % girl pupils in the schools.

Now, in the autumn of 2007 the peace process is getting stretched out. This has led to some negative tendencies that have been detrimental to women. There is a tendency to reverse the achievements from the people’s war. There is a tendency that men dare to oppress women more openly. That’s one reason why we want to achieve elections to the constituent assembly as soon as possible.

Another example of the tendency to reversal is that some places they are reintroducing dowry again. And lastly I could mention that reactionaries that fled during the people’s war are returning and that we have witnessed an increase in wife bashing.

During the people’s war the PLA were active all over the rural areas. Now the situation is more evolutionary. Now there is a certain disillusionment. The PLA is now stationed in the cantonments. People are missing the collective life where the PLA played a central role. People are returning home and the situation is not as positive in the field. Some are a bit disappointed.
This is also a reason why we want to go forward as fast as possible--so that we get more results to show. It’s a very painful process right now.

Red!: How large is the women’s front that supports you?

Hisila: All Nepalese Women’s Association (Revolutionary) has approximately 10 000 paying members.

Red!: Which texts do you use for developing the general theory of women’s liberation in Nepal?

Hisila: We use among others F. Engels book on The Family, The State and Private Property, Women and Socialism written by Bebel, a collection of writings by Marx, Engels and Mao. We also use collections of articles written by our own comrades.

Red!: How will you avoid the valiant female liberation soldiers sacrificing their lives as cannon fodder for a male dominated party leadership and a male dominated state that ends up oppressing women as in Russia, China, a.s.o?

Hisila: It’s very much connected with political deviation. Political deviation will also affect the situation for dalits and women. The main line is the central issue, and this is the only way to avoid counter revolution.

Red!: What is your view on the relationship between class struggle and women’s liberation?

Hisila: They are very close. Women were the first to be oppressed, and will be the last to be liberated when class oppression ceases. So the test of whether class oppression still exists is if women’s oppression still exists or not.

Red!: Can the working class get liberated without the women in the working class taking the lead in the liberation of the working class as a whole? What would this mean concretely in Nepal?

Hisila: The litmus paper is whether the women get the leadership or not. In Nepal we say that the mass organisations should have 50% women in the leadership. But the party is an ideological organisation and this rule should not apply.

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The Bad News You Haven't Heard Yet

[Crossposted at Daily Kos where it made the rec list and drew some interesting comments]

Despite a deal that may keep it solvent until June, the city of Vallejo, CA, is teetering on the edge of declaring bankruptcy.

Worried yet?

No, hunh? Well, let's squint a little harder at the mess there. Vallejo is an East Bay city of 117,000, not particularly wealthy, with a population split between a fairly diverse working class already hammered by the closure of a Navy shipyard in the '90s and commuters who can't afford to buy closer to San Francisco.

The city government's financial problems have been triggered by the real estate crunch. Falling housing values and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state have cut sharply into tax revenues. For decades, the city budget has been fudged and jury-rigged to put it technically in balance every year, the kind of thing that happens everywhere as elected officials try to kick fiscal problems downstream to some future administration.

But the spin the California media and the business press has put on the crisis is that it's all the fault of--you'll never guess--greedy unions. Over 75% of Vallejo's general fund goes to police and fire department wages, benefits and pensions. (The California average is closer to 50%.)

A bankruptcy declaration last Thursday was staved off by a last minute set of concessions by the unions including 6.5% pay cuts and closing of two fire stations, as well as a host of other cutbacks in city services. And all that does is buy time for additional scheduled concession negotiations, in advance of budget time in June.

Now let's think about this. I'm not from Cali and I don't know squat about the particularities of Vallejo, but i know it makes me worse than nervous to read stuff like this:

But the mayor, along with the local police and fire union officials who joined him Saturday, was continually interrupted by residents complaining that the unions still were grabbing too big a chunk of Vallejo's shrinking revenues.

Now Vallejo may be a fluke, and some fancy financial footwork may paper this over. But if it isn't, this may be an ugly sneak preview of the next few years.

Cities around the country are in budget trouble already. Outside of the Bush administration, it's hard to find anyone who thinks that housing prices have bottomed out and foreclosures peaked, which means local revenues will continue to fall. Add in the likelihood that the economy is already in a recession, cutting sales taxes and other revenue sources.

The troubled "monolines"--the companies that insure the ratings of bonds and other securities and have taken a bath on the sub-prime mortgage-backed securities now imploding--may themselves have their AAA ratings downgraded. That stands to affect every bond they insure, which include lots of "munis" and state bonds. Lower ratings mean higher interest has to be paid. And right now new bond issues are going unsold which offer to pay interest rates as high as 20%.

This is a recipe for local bankruptcies.

What worries me the most in this scenario is not simply that working people will be forced to give up gains they have fought for and need to keep their families afloat. It's more the potential impact of collapsing local budgets on public sector unions. They are the mainstay of the US trade union movement these days, while fewer than 9% of private sector workers are unionized. A round of concessions, forced by the threat of bankruptcy, or contract abrogations and mass layoffs mandated by bankruptcy courts could well deal a major blow to AFSCME, SEIU, CWA and other unions with big public sector memberships and to the fighting spirit of their members.

And it sure looks like working people in this country are going to need every union and the unions are going to need every member in the months and years to come.

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