The recent racist murders of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO., Ezell Ford and Omar Abrego in Los Angeles, CA. and Eric Garner in New York have shocked and angered workers everywhere. Rather than a series of isolated incidents involving a few racist cops, they are part of a growing racist, fascist movement, designed by the US ruling class and carried out by their storm troopers.

Their capitalist system is slowly decaying; they cannot save it. The US bosses are no longer on top of the festering heap of garbage they have created. The shifting of world power from one rival capitalist to another has forced them to attack their own working class. 

Barefoot doctors doing village health education in China in the 1950s

A huge capitalist disaster is occurring in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Africa. Thousands of people have died from a terrible virus called Ebola. It is estimated that 20,000 people will contract the disease before it runs its current course.

There is no vaccine against Ebola yet and the original source of the virus is still being studied.  We do know the disease spreads from human to human through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from an infected person, or corpse.

As soon as a person exhibits symptoms they should be brought to a hospital and isolated. Strict universal precautions must be used. Patients should be hydrated with a balance of fluids and electrolytes. This would be done automatically in medical centers in most industrialized countries.

In Sierra Leone and Liberia, people live in extreme poverty with very little medical care, the results of racist capitalism-imperialism. Liberia has only 51 doctors for 3.8 million people. Healthcare workers who work with Ebola-infected patients often contract the disease because of inadequate protective equipment.  These heroic dedicated workers have seen hundreds of their coworkers die, yet they risk it all to continue their work.

Perhaps most impressive of all are the young men who have volunteered to find and bury the corpses. They receive no pay and can't return to their families and villages, who fear they will spread the virus to them. They call themselves "the burial boys".

One 21-year-old man said, "If I don't volunteer, who can do this work? There are no other people to do it, so we decided to do it."

These young men should inspire us. They are  risking their lives for the collective good. The way they see it, they have no choice but to fight the disease. For their heroism not to be wasted, they, and we, need to fight the system that caused it. 

Ebola "burial boys" in Liberia, Africa

When we hear of young black men being gunned down by killer cops, or see people having to fight to get their water turned back on in Detroit, or see blocks of expensive condos being built for millionaires while families are homeless, we should know that we have no choice but to fight the system.

The way to do this is to mobilize the masses to make a revolution and bring capitalism down forever. We will make a new world based on communism: a world where healthcare, housing, food and education will be available to all.

Communism Will Rely On Mobilized Masses to Defeat Disease

Communist-inspired masses can accomplish amazing feats. Massive outbreaks of diseases and natural disasters could be brought under control by huge numbers of well-trained workers ready to jump in at a moment's notice. Their prime mission will be to help organize masses locally to provide the care needed.

In Africa, Ebola has broken out several times before. Yet there are no teams of trained medical people being brought in from all over the world. They did have volunteers from Doctors Without Borders initially, but they were pulled out when the going got tough.

After the Chinese revolution in 1948-49, thousands of poor peasants and students were trained for 3 to 6 months to become "barefoot doctors." They promoted hygiene, preventative health care and family planning in rural areas. They helped the peasants mobilize to wipe out diseases like schistosomiasis, small pox, polio and malaria. Malaria is, to this day, the biggest killer in western Africa, not Ebola.

Unfortunately, this program was considered in China a temporary tactic born of necessity. When capitalism was consolidated under the cover of socialism, the revisionist leaders of the so-called communist party did away with collectivization and the rural health care program. Conditions in the rural areas are once again terrible and diseases like schistosomiasis have returned.

The capitalism system, based on exploitation and war, racism, sexism, and inequality can only take us backwards. 

The masses of workers can only move forward under the banners of communism. We in the ICWP agree with these brave young workers in Sierra Leone and Liberia...we have no choice but to act and fight for the collective!

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