BY ANDY BUCHANAN

BOSTON - Speaking at a public meeting for Socialist Workers vice presidential candidate Laura Garza in Burlington, Vermont, dairy farmer Sherry Kawecki said, "I support the socialist campaign because we need an alternative. Farmers have a lot in common with labor. We're fighting the same big corporations. Huge agribusiness controls the market and can set the prices farmers have to sell for. It's the government that allows this to happen, and farmers aren't supposed to think, to challenge that system."

Kawecki raises a herd of 40 cows near Alburg, in northern Vermont. She first met socialist campaigners a year ago at a rally in support of striking railroad workers, in St. Albans, Vermont. Kawecki is an elector for the socialist candidates in that state. She explained to the audience at the September 19 meeting, "No one speaks for family farmers and we are being pushed off our land day by day. Being an elector was something I could do to help."

Twenty people, many of them students, turned out to hear Garza. The meeting was held on the campus of the University of Vermont in Burlington, and was sponsored by a student newspaper, the Gadfly. The paper's editor, Scott Muddleton, chaired the meeting. Some of the participants had met the socialist campaign through activities called to protest the bombing of Iraq.

Responding to a question on the difference between the Socialist Workers campaign and the perspectives offered by the Green Party and the Labor Party, Garza said, "These groups both put forward the idea that capitalism can be remade to be more humane, and they both put forward a perspective that is a death trap for the working class - American nationalism. They demand that American corporations not invest in other countries so that `American jobs' are preserved. This is gives wind to the chauvinism promoted by ultrarightists like Patrick Buchanan. Our campaign puts forward a program to defend all workers."

Garza's visit to Vermont kicked off a three-day campaign swing through New England. Before going to Burlington, Garza filed over 2,400 signatures, collected by campaign supporters, at the Secretary of State's office in Montpelier, Vermont.

Following her visit to Vermont, Garza spent a day campaigning in Rhode Island, where the state Board of Elections is trying to keep the SWP candidates off the ballot. In Providence, Rhode Island, Garza helped to distribute a leaflet protesting the undemocratic attack on ballot access, and was interviewed by WBRU, the Brown University radio station.

Garza wrapped up her New England tour with a rally in Boston. Thirty-five people attended the meeting, including several young people attending their first campaign event. Asked by a young Latina about her policy on education, Garza pointed to the model of Cuba. "That's what we're for - guaranteed free education through university. The resources exist to do this, but what is happening is that the rulers aim to take back rights and benefits working people have won."

Bruce Burleson, political activist in Boston, told the meeting, "I was pretty impressed to get a call right after the first bombing of Iraq from a member of the Young Socialists telling me about the picket line."

BY KAY SEDAM

MIAMI - Banners read "Stop U.S. Bombing of Iraq" and "U.S. Out of the Mideast and Haiti." It was amid them that Socialist Workers candidate James Harris told an audience at the Pathfinder Bookstore here September 14, how capitalism works.

He described a recent medical discovery linking a potential breast cancer cure to a gene. The researcher, however, insists on having his discovery patented before releasing it so only he can profit from it. "You open the newspaper everyday and find this kind of revelation," said Harris.

The presidential candidate explained that increased economic competition between imperialist powers like Washington, Tokyo, Bonn, London, and Paris, as well as "third world" countries, is the source of wars. It was the cause of both world wars, the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and Clinton's recent attacks on Iraq.

"But the U.S. government runs into problems trying to do whatever they want in the world. The most recent example is the attacks on Iraq. More people today realize that the reason for the attack has nothing to do with saving the Kurdish people," Harris said. "They want to keep out Germany, France, and other countries out who would also like to control this area." This is the central reason many governments refused to join a new U.S.-led coalition to fight against Iraq.

Harris added, "What the socialist campaign says to working people and their allies is that we have no stake in imperialist wars, the welfare bill, the `antiterrorist' bill, or cut backs in democratic rights. There are two parties who are trying to carry out all of these attacks on working people, both are trying to devour working people."

The socialist candidate went on to say, "What we have before us is more struggles, decades of struggle, conflicts, social explosions. Out of this will come a new world for working people if we are disciplined now to be a part of these battles." He encouraged everyone to be a part of these fights and join the Young Socialists and Socialist Workers Party.

Harris also spoke at a meeting sponsored by the Young Socialist Club at Florida International University, and then to a student speak-out of about 30 students sponsored by the Black Student Union at FIU. A student from Cyprus agreed with the socialist candidate's analysis of Iraq. Because, he said, he had seen first-hand in Cyprus what capitalism and imperialism can do - including the Turkish government's harassment of Kurds for years.

Harris also spoke to 50 members of Veye-Yo, a Haitian rights group, about the recent U.S. military intervention in Haiti and Iraq. One person commented that Washington "has supported terrorism in Haiti for 35 years.... They pay the terrorists around the world to destroy socialist movements. I wish you well and strength."

Harris agreed, "The United States is the chief terrorist regime in the world today."

The socialist candidate's news conference was covered by the CBS Spanish TV affiliate and an AP reporter.

Morell explained that "despite filing the signatures of 1,942 Rhode Islanders who support the inclusion of the socialist candidates on the ballot, the Board of Elections denied Harris and Garza ballot status, claiming insufficient `valid signatures.' " Some 192 signatures of students at Brown University in Providence were invalidated on the grounds of "no address" because they listed their school post office boxes as their address. Campaign supporters requests for additional time to check the petitions were denied, and at a hearing September 16 the Board rejected the socialists' appeal.

"We are launching a protest campaign to reverse this undemocratic decision and to demand that our candidates be included on the ballot," Morell said. "Our aim is to reverse the exclusion or to drive up the political price to the Board for having excluded us." Since then, campaign supporters have visited the Brown campus and contacted student organizations, a Student Council member, and written a letter to the editor the of Brown Daily Herald. A fact sheet has been prepared and distributed to campus organizations and other activists requesting protest messages to the Secretary of State. Attorneys have been contacted pursuant to possible legal action.

"Winning ballot status is an important democratic right," Morell concluded. "It widens political space for communists and for all working-class and political activists. Running in elections and achieving ballot status makes it possible for communists to reach a broader audience and to be listened to by workers and young fighters more seriously than if we did not participate." - A.B.  
 
 
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