While reaching 28 percent of the international Militant goal--slipping only slightly from where we should be--sales of the New International series and Capitalism’s World Disorder have surged as Militant supporters have visited West Coast dockworkers and joined protests against police brutality and demonstrations against Israel’s war on Palestine. Socialist Workers election campaigns continue to play a crucial role in selling subscriptions and books on communist theory and strategy. The accounts below illustrate these positive results.  
 
At picket lines in Washington State
"I’m glad that you could make it," said Petra Núñez, a worker at Snokist fruit packing in Yakima, Washington, to David Ferguson, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in Washington’s 7th District. A union election is scheduled for October 11 at Snokist, which recently cut the pay of workers by several dollars per hour by forcing them to go to an employment agency to get their jobs back.

Ferguson met Núñez at a picket outside the Yakima police station. The protest was called to demand dropping all charges against Ricardo Jiménez, who was beaten and framed up by the cops.

"Many people stop and listen when a candidate for congress speaks out against the imperialist war and denounces police brutality," Ferguson told the Militant. One person bought a Militant subscription at the protest and two people renewed their subscriptions--one each to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial.

The socialist candidate and his supporters have joined rallies and picket lines nearly every day in solidarity with longshore workers, who are now locked out. On a recent visit to a picket line, two locked-out longshore workers bought subscriptions to the paper after talking to Ferguson.

Ferguson has walked the picket line with striking teachers in Issaquah, Washington, who recently approved a contract with a significant pay raise. He has also participated in several meetings initiated by the NAACP to plan protests in Seattle against the police killings of Robert Lee Thomas Sr. and Shawn Maxwell. The initial protest September 29 attracted 200 people and received wide publicity.

William Kalman, the Socialist Workers candidate for Lt. Governor of California, and Deborah Liatos, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in District 8 in San Francisco, campaigned at a demonstration of a few thousand people against Israel’s war on the Palestinians and the U.S. war moves against Iraq. Socialist campaigners sold four subscriptions to the Militant, and four copies of New International no. 7, featuring "The Opening Guns of World War III: Washington’s Assault on Iraq," three other issues from the New International series, and Capitalism’s World Disorder. More than $200 in Pathfinder books was sold.

"Several high school students liked the fact that our campaign defends Iraq’s right to protect its sovereignty and that we reject the imperialist demands for inspections," Kalman reported. "Our view on the role of inspections was in stark contrast to what many speakers at the event put forward. We explained that United Nations inspectors aren’t neutral; their sole purpose is to give legitimacy to imperialism’s war plans."

The candidates have taken their message to the ILWU hiring hall in San Francisco and to the Oakland docks. They handed out 100 copies of their campaign statement outside a dockworkers union meeting. One worker, who offered a $10 contribution to the campaign, decided to get a subscription instead after campaign supporters encouraged him to check it out.

The Socialist Workers campaign will go to Fresno during the October 12–20 target week to visit raisin farmers.  
 
From Auckland to Iowa
The Militant’s truthful reporting received a wide hearing at a protest in Auckland, New Zealand, against the escalating assault on Iraq. Two people at the September 28 demonstration bought subscriptions to the paper and 18 picked up a single copy. Two days later at Auckland University 15 people bought the paper and a student originally from Iraq subscribed. Nine Pathfinder books were sold in the course of the two days.

In Des Moines, Militant supporters took the September 30 issue of the paper--with the article, "Iowa cops’ grilling of women violates privacy"--to Storm Lake, Iowa, the center of a controversy where cops, after finding an infant’s discarded remains, have interrogated women throughout the area about their private lives. During their visit, supporters sold four papers and five copies of Perspectiva Mundial outside the IBP meatpacking plant and another two Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions in town.  
 
 
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