“Hey, I’ve read your paper a few times,” said another worker from the pork line as he drove by. “You’ve got some good ideas. Keep it up!”
Socialists from Colorado, New Jersey, and New York joined Tim Mailhot, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 11th District, for a week of stepped-up campaigning in response to the September 11 firebombing of the SWP campaign hall here.
Campaign teams set up near the large packing plant on Monday and Friday, September 17 and 20, giving out dozens of campaign flyers and selling 10 copies and 3 subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial and 6 copies of the Militant. Several workers pulled over to talk briefly, and find out how the effort was going to repair the damage to the offices.
Mailhot was also invited to make presentations on his campaign and on the arson attack at two campuses during that week. At Bucknell University in Lewisburg, the leader of a campus women’s group set up a public meeting for the socialist candidate. Students asked questions on the views of the SWP candidate on a wide array of topics.
“Why do you say attacks like this firebombing or racist assaults are attacks on the working class?” one student asked.
Mailhot said that working people don’t face today a generalized attack on democratic rights and civil liberties. They mainly face an onslaught on our wages and working conditions, which is part of the effort by the bosses and their government to shore up the employers’ sagging profit rates. As a by-product of this offensive by the wealthy rulers, civil discourse in the bourgeois election campaigns begins to go by the wayside and cops or other rightists are emboldened to carry out isolated attacks like the firebombing of the socialist campaign hall.
“Whoever did this had in mind trying to silence those like us who dissent from the Democrats and Republicans and who present a working-class alternative to the parties of capitalism,” he noted. “The ruling class can own newspapers and many more media outlets to get out their views, for instance. Working-class candidates are more restricted and value even more organizing centers like the socialist hall in Hazleton that was recently firebombed.” Ruling-class privilege stands out in many ways, said Mailhot, for example “when abortion was illegal the rich could pay the high price for a safe abortion while many working-class women had to go to back alley abortionists.”
Another student asked if U.S.-born workers could see beyond their own economic interests and view immigrants as fellow workers, “not someone stealing their jobs.”
Immigrant workers have been part of leading fights for unionization, higher wages, safety, and dignity on the job across the United States, Mailhot said in response. He pointed to the example of the Co-Op miners in Utah, most of whom are originally from Mexico, who are waging a determined fight for a union and inspiring hundreds of other workers (see article in this issue). “In fact,” Mailhot said, “immigrant workers strengthen the working class, bringing their traditions of struggle and experience in fighting imperialism. And more native-born workers see that today.”
Socialist campaigners also spent two days working the crowd at Penn State University in the town of State College. One student who met the socialists September 21 bought a subscription to the Militant. Two days later, she joined SWP campaign supporters at their literature table for several hours. While at the campaign table, she called several friends to come by. Two of them did. One bought a subscription to the Militant and another got a copy of The Second Declaration of Havana (see link to ad). Several students also volunteered to help the socialists get their campaign platform more broadly known on campus.
The same day, Mailhot was invited to address a rally sponsored by the Black Caucus at Penn State.