PEORIA, Illinois - Socialist Workers candidates and their supporters in Chicago and Peoria participated in a day of campaigning across the state of Illinois September 28.

Kristin Meriam, SWP candidate in the fourth congressional district here, and six of her supporters went to an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in Macomb. Claiming that area residents of this mid-state agricultural region had called on them to combat the influx of immigrants who work in area meatpacking plants, the Klan was scheduled to hold a rally and "cross-lighting" later that day on a secluded farm 20 miles away.

The protest rally in Macomb drew 300 students, workers, and farmers. United Mineworkers member Skip Atwater had come after "men in GI Joe outfits had gone around using little kids to hand out Klan leaflets. The message was very racist," Atwater said. "I don't go for stuff like that. I'm against anything to do with the KKK."

From a campaign table stocked with Pathfinder books, socialists sold 30 copies of the Militant and distributed a campaign statement calling for "Equal Rights for Immigrants!"

Meriam was the only candidate to address the rally. "As the economic crisis of capitalism deepens," she said, "politicians from both big-business parties, and groups like the KKK, try to scapegoat immigrants, Blacks, women on welfare and others for problems in society caused by the capitalist billionaires and their system.

"Our campaign points to the common interests all working people have," she said, "and puts forward an action program that will help unite us across race, gender and nationality."

Several students from Western Illinois University (WIU) approached Meriam after her speech to talk. Three of these students signed up for more information on the Young Socialists.

Following the rally in Macomb, four campaign supporters joined activists from the WIU women's center to protest along the shoulder of a rural highway near the Ku Klux Klan rally site.

A couple hundred miles to the north, 18th congressional district candidate Angela Lariscy and four supporters attended a rally in Lamont for members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) who have been locked out at the Unovan oil refinery there since April. Lariscy is a member of the OCAW at the Witco plant near Peoria. Two hundred workers attended from area unions, including a contingent from United Automobile Workers Local 974 at Caterpillar in Peoria.

Socialists in Illinois are now looking forward to a full schedule of campaigning during the weeks leading up to the November 5 election. Frank Forrestal, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, recently won a leave of absence from his job as an auto assembly worker to campaign full-time between October 20 and November 5. Harris In VIBE Magazine

The following appeared in the November issue of VIBE, a widely-distributed hip hop music magazine, along with the picture on the right. The article consisted of snippets on "other presidential candidates," including those of the Reform Party, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY
The Socialists can take heart that someone listened to their pro-worker, anti-corporate stance. Unfortunately, it was Pat Buchanan, whom this party considers "an ultrarightist and incipient fascist." So James Harris, a 48-year-old black factory worker and candidate for president, will have to look for other allies in his working-class struggle. He believes the workers of the world must look past borders and unite against ruling-class oppression. "The socialist campaign demands cradle-to-grave coverage and expansion of Social Security to include free health care and living wages for those out of work," he says. The party is pro-choice, supports equal rights for immigrants, and wants U.S. troop out of, well, everywhere.

For information, write to P.O. Box 2652. New York, N.Y.C. 10009 or E-mail: Compuserve 104124,1405 L.A. Socialist Candidate Condemns CIA BY JON HILLSON

LOS ANGELES-"What shocks the people I work with," said Thabo Ntweng, "isn't the revelation about the CIA bringing in drugs to the Black community (see article on page 10).

"A lot of workers had that suspicion to begin with. What shocks them is that their suspicions were right all along and what that means. As one co-worker told me, `If this was the government that did this, there's nothing to do but get rid of the government.' That's how deeply outraged people are."

Ntweng is the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in California's 35th District and a baggage handler on the Northwest Airlines ramp at Los Angeles International Airport.

Supporters of Ntweng, who is a member of the International Association of Machinists, and four other local SWP candidates, are participating in the protests and meetings demanding the truth about the CIA-contra-crack connection.

Ntweng's opponent is Democratic incumbent Maxine Waters.

The candidates and their supporters have circulated 2,000 flyers that demand: "Open all the contra-drug files now! Make the CIA, DEA, FBI, National Security Council Come Clean! Arrest and Prosecute the Government Drug Traffickers!"

The statement describes the kill-for-hire contra mercenaries, why Washington employed them to overthrow the Nicaraguan revolution, and the racist business decision the CIA-drug runners made to target the Los Angeles Black community for massive crack-cocaine sales to fund the U.S. dirty war.

The socialist candidates cite Malcolm X on drug addiction. "When a person is a drug addict," the Black revolutionary stated, "he's not the criminal; he's the victim of the criminal. The criminal is the man downtown who brings drugs into our community."

The statement points to Cuba, the "most drug-free country in the world, because its working people liberated it from the root of the drug business, capitalism."

"What's needed now," Ntweng said, "is the broadest, biggest protest possible to increase pressure on the government. Anger over the revelations is growing in the Black community, among Latinos, other working people, students, and all people with a sense of decency and humanity."

"This sentiment needs to be mobilized," the socialist candidate said, "to get at the truth, find the criminals at the top of the capitalist government who ordered this racist indignity against the Black community, and arrest, prosecute, convict, and jail them."

In an interview broadcast nationally on Public Radio International on October 8, Ntweng blasted U.S. government complicity in the CIA drug-running operation as "a hundred times worse than the racist beating of Rodney King."

Speaking with a reporter at the October 3 vigil, Ntweng held both Democrats and Republicans responsible for the drug running. "It's their White House, their Congress, and their CIA," he said. Garza Campaigns At North Carolina Mills

The following article appeared in the September 27 Daily News, published in Eden, North Carolina. The September 30 edition of the paper ran the picture on the right with the accompanying caption.

EDEN, North Carolina - Forget Jack Kemp's welfare rhetoric and Al Gore's Internet obsession for a minute. A vice presidential candidate who wants to liberate America's workers will campaign in Eden.

Laura Garza, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for vice president of the United States, will stop to campaign at the gates of the Karastan Rug plant in downtown Eden. Garza will begin campaigning at the factory at 6:30 a.m. Monday as part of her North Carolina tour. She is running on the socialist ticket with U.S. Presidential candidate James Harris.

"We go out with our campaign talking to workers," said Martin Boyers, a party spokesman. "Karastan has been a place with a history of struggle."

Boyers said the party's state gubernatorial candidate, Jim Rogers, used to be a carpet worker at the Karastan mill. Repeated efforts to contact mill officials were unsuccessful.

Garza's tour will also take her to the University of North Carolina's Asheville and Greensboro campuses and to the Pathfinder Bookstore in Greensboro.

Eden is the next-to-last stop before Garza concludes the tour at UNCG. She will address the Clinton Administration's attacks on Iraq, bipartisan attacks on the Social Security system, Bob Dole's economic growth proposals, and Cuba's socialist revolution during her tour.

Many workers in industrial towns like Eden listen to the socialist message, Boyers said.

"A lot of people listen to what we have to say," he said. "We're out to get an exchange of ideas, not to hustle votes. (We) also learn something about working people."

Garza, 37, is a staff writer for the Militant, a socialist newsletter. She is a former member of the United Steelworkers of America, a member of the National Organization for Women, and, in 1993, ran for mayor of Miami as the SWP candidate. She has also traveled to Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico to promote solidarity among workers internationally, and attended the international women's conference in Beijing, China, last September.

"We're a small organization," Boyers said. "We raise important political ideas. If the Democrats, the Republicans or (Ross) Perot's party wins, then the opponents of working people have won."  
 
 
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