Dookhun spoke September 29 at Georgian Court University in Lakewood, New Jersey, on a panel with Sean Gertner, an attorney representing the Republican Party, and New Jersey state senator Ellen Karcher for the Democrats. About 70 students and faculty members attended the event.

Addressing the question of conditions in the schools, Gertner said that President George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program was a step forward for “quality education.” The Democrat said the greatest need is for after-school programs because “children are at most risk to get in trouble from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.”

“No education can be considered meaningful until it is a lifelong endeavor,” said Dookhun. He noted that under capitalism the schools are organized to teach the majority they must be obedient to the boss, while convincing a small layer they have a stake in the system. “Everything about the current education system reinforces the dog-eat-dog morality and reality of capitalism.” He said socialists are for workers taking six-month leaves with full pay every few years throughout their lives so they can study what interests them.

Dookhun also said that at the center of the socialist campaign is championing workers’ struggles to organize unions to defend themselves against the employers’ offensive on wages and job conditions, and supporting the right of semicolonial nations to use whatever means necessary for electrification, including nuclear power, which is a precondition to economic development. Responding to comments by the capitalist candidates, Dookhun also explained why socialists call for the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. and other imperialist troops from Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, the Balkans, Korea, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Dookhun urged those in the audience to get involved in his campaign and vote for the SWP ticket.

Frantz Meronvil of Radio Verité held a live interview with Angela Lariscy October 3 in an hour-and-a-half feature on the Sunday afternoon show “Double Conscience.” Radio Verité orients to the Haitian community, and broadcasts in Creole, French, and English in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. The show included questions from both the moderator and listeners.

Meronvil asked Lariscy if she thought the bottom line is that people must choose the “lesser evil” in the elections. “Weren’t things better under the previous Democratic presidency?” he asked.

Lariscy described the antilabor offensive of the Clinton administration that included cutting welfare, signing the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and aiding the bosses’ attacks on wages and working conditions. Both the Democrats and Republicans, and smaller parties like the Greens, Lariscy said, are parties of capitalism, the system which is responsible for all the problems working people face—from declining wages to longer hours on the job, to rising rents and imperialist wars. The two-party system and the “lesser evilism” argument have been used for generations to fool workers and farmers into thinking we have a choice between the parties of the ruling rich. She said the choice in November that is in workers’ interests is the socialist ticket.

One of the 11 calls into the radio station came from a man asking “What can Haitian people expect if you are elected and what can you do about the problems we face now?”

“I respect your opinion,” said another caller, “but we need a real change for Haiti. The Republican Party is responsible for 90 percent of the problems in Haiti. With Kerry, we will have more peace.”

The problem is the capitalist system, not Bush or Kerry or other individual capitalist politicians, Lariscy replied. If elected, she said, she would use her office to mobilize working people to use union power to defend their interests, and build a revolutionary party to lead the struggle to replace the current capitalist regime with a workers and farmers government. “U.S. imperialism and both of its parties are responsible for the fact that semicolonial countries are power-poor,” she said. The lack of energy supplies is behind the extreme deforestation of Haiti that has resulted in ruinous flooding that took thousands of lives.

“I call for immediate U.S. aid to Haiti now with no strings attached in face of the disaster from the recent hurricane,” she added, “and withdrawal of U.S. and UN troops, cancellation of Haiti’s foreign debt, and an end to deportations of Haitian refugees.”
 
 
Related articles:
Break from parties of the employers!
Socialist candidate for Senate in N.Y. debates Green, Libertarian opponents
Calero meets with students, meat packers in Twin Cities
Socialists campaign in Texas, Louisiana
Calero stumps in Tampa
SWP vice-presidential candidate meets farmers, unionists in D.C.  
 
 
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