"Once you start dealing with one of the two main parties, you've left the interests of the working class," said Satter, 30, who is running under the banner of the Socialist Workers Party. "What working people need is our own party, a labor party in this country."

Satter, 30, a Roxbury resident, is one of four candidates running in the Oct. 16 election to succeed the late U.S. Rep. J. Joseph Moakley, who died in May. Also on the ballot are Democrat Stephen F. Lynch, Republican Jo Ann Sprague, and Susan Gallagher-Long of the Conservative Party.

A meat packer and union organizer at Kayem Foods, a nonunion plant in Chelsea, Satter says he took his job in part to further the cause of the labor movement.

"There are many struggles of working people taking place," Satter said. "This happens to be one of many. I seek to be part of these struggles and to help lead them with my fellow workers."

He calls for a workers' rights "revolution," including a shortened workweek without a corresponding cut in pay, cost-of-living protections for workers' wages and full unemployment benefits at union scale.

"This would largely come out of the profits of those who profit greatly off the labor of working people," he said. "That's the only way it can happen."

Satter criticizes the U.S. government as being beholden to capitalist interests. He cites Cuba as leading the way for workers' rights.

"I point to the Cuban revolution as a concrete example of workers and farmers governing a revolutionary society, where working people do run society and working people are in power," he said.

Satter said he visited Cuba over the summer as part of a youth exchange.

Satter criticizes the Bush administration's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying the U.S. is guilty of terrorizing the people of other nations. "If you want to end terrorism, end terrorism, starting with what this country is doing all around the world," he said. "The amount of civilians the U.S. government has killed is in the hundreds of hundreds of thousands. It should come as no surprise that there's some kind of a backlash against that."

Satter cited U.S. sanctions against Iraq following the gulf war as an example of government policies that have hurt people and engendered hatred against the United States.

"I call for the U.S. to remove all its troops from the Mideast, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and to lift the sanctions against Iraq," he said. "A large part of the power that this country (has) is based on exploitation of other countries. Unless we change it, the billionaires who control this country will continue on the same course, and we'll see more terrorism."

He also calls detaining immigrants and proposals to increase wiretapping in the wake of the terrorist attacks part of a government effort to crack down on working people.

Brock predicts he'll raise and spend less than $5,000 on his campaign, but says he'll continue pushing the Socialist Workers Party agenda after the Oct. 16 election.

"The main thing is to put out a perspective of what needs to be done," he said.

The 9th Congressional District stretches from Boston to Taunton and includes Milton, Braintree, Canton, Randolph, and Stoughton.  
 
 
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