'What Harris said needs to be heard,' says campus reporter
BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
"James Harris wants to build solidarity with workers and farmers nationwide and says he can accomplish this goal as the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president," said an article in the Atlanta Daily World. The article highlights the growing amount of media coverage that the Socialist Workers presidential ticket of James Harris and Margaret Trowe has received across the country, including in campus, community, and daily newspapers, and on radio and television.
"James Harris will never win the presidency, but much of what he said needs to be heard," wrote Ryan Sniatecki of The University Times at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. "Bush and Gore pay lip service to the need of the working class, but both men come from upper class Beltway families.... [Harris] has actively campaigned to strengthen unions in Georgia, a 'right to work' state like North Carolina."
The reporter covered a talk given by the presidential candidate in the Cone University Center where he took up a range of political issues. Harris spoke about the drive by the capitalists to speed up production while driving down the living standards of the working class.
Sniatecki reports Harris said the average worker is "more likely to have a full-time job and be classified as poor," and "he supports a higher minimum wage and better protections for workers." Impressed by the working-class campaign of the socialist candidate, the reporter concluded, "Listening to Harris brings new issues to light and reveals a fresh perspective on more familiar ones."
"Harris' concern rests with more than just American workers. He opposes the 'War on Drugs in Colombia' on the grounds that the Colombian government violently oppresses its own people and our govern-ment's support there only entrenches an undemocratic regime," Sniatecki wrote.
The article says Harris "is the only candidate I've heard so far who brought up the AIDS pandemic in Africa. He pointed out that it will take more than reduced drug prices to end AIDS in Africa, when the people of that continent are shackled to what he called the 'imperialist' economic system run by the U.S. and its allies."
An interview with Harris appeared in the August 27-30 edition of the Atlanta Daily World, a newspaper oriented to the Black community in that city. "Harris' major concern is not to become the next president," the article stated. Instead, "he wants to use the power of the office to promote class-consciousness among workers and to lay the groundwork for a Socialist revolution that will forever change the American political groundscape."
"African-Americans think the solution is in one party rather than the other, but we really have no alternative because both parties represent the ruling class that perpetuates racism," Harris stated. "We want to explain to workers that they should confront problems as a class as opposed to individuals. Our politics are independent from the Democratic and Republican parties that represent the ruling class and put profits before human needs."
Harris said that "African Americans think the solution is in one party rather than the other, but we really have no alternative because both parties represent the ruling class that perpetuates racism." Harris added that if elected, "I would advance the political power of working people against the ruling class. U.S. workers and farmers have more in common with international workers than the ruling class."
The Socialist Workers campaign was also picked up in Twin Visions, a weekly publication circulated in all five wards of Newark, New Jersey. This community newspaper featured a full length biography of the presidential candidate as a "guest column," with an announcement of his appearance in the city.
'Importance of unity'
"Socialist Workers Party candidate visits Houston," was the headline of El Día, a Spanish-language newspaper in the city. "Our campaign is about the natural lines of resistance of the working class and when there are struggles, we participate with our fellow fighters in every city; every day we find workers who are conscious about the importance of unity," SWP vice-presidential candidate Margaret Trowe told Consuelo Alvarez, a reporter for the paper. Workers in the United States have begun to "break down the barriers of nationality, language, and religion and to see each other simply as workers," Trowe stated.
A feature story about Trowe's campaign also appeared in the Marshalltown, Iowa, Times Republican. Trowe had worked as a meat packer in that Iowa city. The socialist candidate "is calling for a moratorium on all farm foreclosures and wants a guaranteed floor on commodity prices which would realistically ensure farmers can make ends meet. She also wants massive free loans and technical help for farmers to ensure that the family farmer can stay in business," the article in the paper said.
"After spending several years working in the packing plant industry, Trowe also believes that farmers and packinghouse workers are each being led to believe that the other group is responsible for low wages or poor working conditions.
"Where Trowe differs from her opponents is in her choice of enemies. She doesn't waste time pointing the finger at the other parties' candidates, she attacks a much larger group: capitalists. 'Capitalism is in crisis,' Trowe said. 'Workers and farmers produce all the wealth and all the produce, but get the least.'"
As an internationalist working-class fighter, Trowe, together with U.S. Senate candidate Jacob Perasso, took the campaign to New Zealand to meet with working-class militants, Maori rights fighters, and others. The campaign received coverage in the New Zealand Herald and The Press, a Christchurch newspaper.
Articles such as those mentioned here, along with other news and information about the socialist campaign, can be found at the socialist campaign section of: themilitant.com.
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