Vol. 72/No. 44      November 10, 2008

A month after the Democrats and Republicans handed Wall Street a $700 billion bailout, the capitalist financial crisis—the deepest since the 1930s—has not abated. On the contrary, it is expanding. Simultaneously, a world crisis of slowed industrial production and trade is mounting day by day with devastating consequences for workers and farmers in every corner of the globe.

The working class needs to take political power out of the hands of the capitalist class. This question will be more sharply posed in the minds of millions as this crisis deepens.

The socialist candidates are campaigning around an immediate set of demands to protect working people today against the spreading capitalist crisis, of which we are only at the beginning.

Organizing and fighting politically along this course opens the way for workers to see the need to build a revolutionary movement of millions, one that can replace the capitalist government with a government of workers and farmers and put an end to the wages system.

Along with Socialist Workers Party candidates across the country, Calero and Kennedy demand that the federal government launch a public works program to build schools, hospitals, and affordable housing and to rebuild deteriorating infrastructure. They call for shortening the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in take-home pay to spread the available work around. They campaign for cost-of-living clauses in union contracts and in government benefit programs so that, as prices increase, pay and benefits go up automatically.

The socialist candidates have marched in support of workers standing up for their right to live and work in this country. The socialist campaign calls for legalization for all undocumented immigrants as a means to unify working people and strengthen our fight against the bosses’ attack on wages, working conditions, and the right to unionize.

The socialist candidates and their supporters have walked picket lines from coast to coast, backing the strikes by Machinists at Boeing in Seattle and by bakery workers at the Stella D’Oro plant in New York, who are fighting to defend wages, benefits, and jobs.

When capitalist-made social disasters struck in the aftermath of hurricanes Gustav and Ike, Calero traveled to Texas to speak with workers. He called for a massive public works program to rebuild homes and roads, providing jobs at union scale to the many workers left jobless. The socialists also demand Washington lift its embargo preventing Cuba, seriously damaged by the two hurricanes, from importing needed food, medical supplies, and machinery.

The socialists call for cancellation of the foreign debt of the semicolonial countries and an end to all U.S. protective tariffs, which have ruinous effects on those nations.

As the economic crisis deepens, oppressed nationalities, women, and immigrants are the hardest hit. The socialist candidates have joined actions demanding affirmative action in hiring on construction sites and desegregation of public schools.

They demand a halt to the execution of Troy Davis, framed up in Georgia, and the prosecution of killer cops to the full extent of the law.

Calero, Kennedy, and their supporters have campaigned across the country for the release of the five Cuban revolutionaries who have been unjustly held in U.S. prisons for a decade. The fight to win the freedom of these five working-class fighters is in the interest of all working people. The illegal police surveillance, wiretapping, surreptitious entries, and secret evidence used to frame the Cuban Five will be used against other workers who stand up to the bosses and their government.

From the beginning of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the SWP campaign has demanded the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from these and other countries where they are stationed.

On November 4, make your vote count! Vote for the Socialist Workers Party, the working-class alternative to imperialist war, economic depression, and racist discrimination.

Hear the national and local SWP candidates at election night celebrations November 4 at campaign headquarters across the country. Come to Newark, New Jersey, November 22 for the public meeting announced on page 1 on “The Crisis Has Barely Begun! … and Workers’ Fight to End the Wages System Is Posed.”

After November 4, the socialists will continue to be on the streets, taking part in fights for legalization of undocumented workers, in defense of unions, against police brutality, and for safety on the job. We urge you to join them in these struggles. Join them in fighting for the only realistic program that can end capitalist rule and open the road to a socialist world.
 
 
Related articles:
SWP candidates present program to unite workers
Socialist candidate backs N.Y. strikers, speaks on campus
List of SWP candidates and their ballot status and presidential campaign tour schedule  
 
 
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