We're entering the second half of the eight-week international campaign with this issue. While overall the drive has fallen behind the pace, the response of working people and youth in New York and elsewhere indicates that with consistent work the goals are within reach.

Socialists in Brooklyn, the Garment District, and Upper Manhattan report substantially higher sales of Militant and Perspectiva Mundial copies in the last several weeks. Tables in working-class districts, campuses, and at factory gates in the city have been the center of lively discussions as people look over the newspapers and books. As Washington and London bomb Afghanistan and begin a ground invasion, the discussions have sometimes been heated. At the same time, interest in the socialist publications and the point of view they present has noticeably increased.

"Our tables at Brooklyn College have shown us what is possible," said Carole Lesnick. "We have started to set up a weekly table there for several hours at a time. During the target week we sold four Militant subscriptions and a number of single issues off the table. And we're getting to know some people there. They tell us they look for the table on Thursday." A couple of students have helped to organize a meeting for Socialist Workers mayoral candidate Martín Koppel, she said.

In Upper Manhattan, volunteers regularly sell 20 or more copies of the Militant off their weekly tables at Columbia University. "We just sold two subscriptions at the campus," said Ruth Harris as the Militant was going to press. In addition to the 140 copies of the Militant, socialist workers and Young Socialists sold 15 subscriptions at a variety of venues. Through their regular sales tables around the Pathfinder bookstore and elsewhere they have picked up the pace, and are now on target. Harris noted another highlight: supporters sold a Perspectiva Mundial subscription during a plant gate sale to a worker who was passing by.  
 
Paper strikers read 'Militant'
Over the past weekend supporters in New York took the campaign to upstate Glens Falls, where paper workers are on strike against the Finch Pruyn company. Salm Kolis, who participated in the sales and reporting team, told the Militant of the workers' determination to build solidarity with their struggle. Strikers told the team of the high points of their fight to date, and one bought a subscription on the strength of the Militant's labor coverage. Others didn't have the cash to subscribe on the spot, but filled out subscription blanks and said they plan to subscribe later.

Before and after their visit to the picket line, the team went door-to-door in the area. They talked with a number of people who disagreed with the Militant's opposition to U.S. imperialism's war, but who appreciated the opportunity to hear a different point of view. "We saw a lot of U.S. flags," Kolis said, "but we found that the discussion was wide open." Two people bought subscriptions. In Corinth, a worker at the International Paper mill and member of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union said he had participated in solidarity actions with the strikers. "Socialists plan to get back up there with the Militant article reporting on the Finch Pruyn plant strike," said Kolis.

Socialist campaigners in North Carolina have also been taking the campaign to workers engaged in struggle. "A team of three textile workers and a packinghouse worker from Georgia and North Carolina spent a day in Charleston, South Carolina," wrote a Militant supporter in Charlotte. "We talked with longshore workers about the fight to free the Charleston five--dockworkers who have been jailed on frame-up charges resulting from their defense of union rights on the docks.

"We set up a table at the union hall," she continued. "Between that and some sales door-to-door, we sold 11 single copies of the Militant and a copy of Malcolm X Talks to Young People. Some International Longshoremen's Association members we spoke with expressed reservations about the government's rationale for their assault on Afghanistan. One pointed out that terrorism against working people has existed in the United States for a long time--for example, in the bombing of Black churches in the South."

Two strikers at an IBP slaughterhouse near Amarillo, Texas, bought subscriptions from Militant supporters who came down from Houston to visit the picket line. Workers began their walkout September 18 and have steadily gained support in face of accusations by the company and local newspaper that "this is the wrong time to strike."

Lea Sherman reports that socialists in Houston sold six Militant subscriptions, three New Internationals, and a whopping $500 in communist literature in four days, October 18-21, at film showings of Lumumba.

"Our weekly tables at Iowa State University have really paid off," Edwin Fruit reported. Socialist workers in Des Moines have sold nearly half their Militant subscriptions to students on that campus. Two students on break at Grinnell College joined socialists at a literature table at Iowa State.

On October 21, there was a special Des Moines Militant Labor Forum that included firsthand accounts of the fights to organize the meatpacking plants in Omaha and the recent Minnesota state workers strike. A packinghouse worker originally from Sudan bought a Militant subscription at the forum and later purchased New International no. 7, featuring "The Opening Guns of World War III."

Fruit said socialists at two Des Moines area meatpacking plants have already sold four Militant subscriptions, three subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, and three New Internationals to their co-workers.  
 
 
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