BY JILL FEIN
SPANISH FORK, Utah - Socialist Workers candidates in Utah -
Dan Fein for governor and John Langford for U.S. Congress, 3rd District - got an enthusiastic response from the 8,000 young people who came to the fairgrounds here on September 11 to hear Rage Against the Machine.
Rage Against the Machine is a band well known for its support for the Cuban Revolution, the Zapatista peasant rebels in Mexico, and framed-up Native American activist Leonard Peltier, as well as its anti-cop views. A banner of Che Guevara adorned the band's stage.
Literature tables for the Salt Lake City Committee in Solidarity with Chiapas, the Socialist Workers 1996 Campaign, and the Western Shoshonee Defense Project were set up on the fairgrounds, by arrangement of the band.
Hundreds of youth came by the socialist table and heard Fein and Langford explain why the U.S. was bombing Iraq. "I want to join the Socialist Workers Party" Brandy Fax said, after reading parts of the presidential campaign brochure for James Harris and Laura Garza.
Five Pathfinder books on Cuba were sold at the literature table as well as six Militants and one Militant subscription.
Nine youth signed up to go to next summer's 14th World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba.
A few of the radio stations in Salt Lake City and Provo reported on efforts of right-wingers in Spanish Fork to cancel the concert. The rightists claimed the band was nothing less than Satan, and their performance would bring drugs and gangs to Spanish Fork.
The local cops mobilized to harass concert-goers. Youth had
their cigarettes, cigarette lighters, refreshments, and wrist
bands confiscated by cops who frisked all those who entered the
outdoor fairgrounds.
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