Through the circulation campaign, socialist workers and Young Socialists are meeting workers and youth who are attracted to joining a revolutionary proletarian party and youth organization, and who want to attend weekly Militant Labor forums in many cities.

More individuals are also buying the Militant, cutting out the subscription coupon on page 2, and sending it into the paper's business office. Partisans of the paper around the country are finding that many who buy a single copy of the paper like it so much they decide to take out a subscription, or to buy and study New International.

Socialist workers in Houston sold five copies of New International in English and French this past week from literature tables, at a Militant Labor Forum, and at showings of the film Lumumba. "Three people who came from the movie to the Militant Labor Forum said they want to come back next week to get copies of New International to study," wrote Jacquie Henderson.

These experiences help point out how to continue to win new subscribers through November 18, and the potential to expand the readership of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial in the weeks and months ahead. The Militant will count all subscriptions received at the office by noon, November 21, in the final scoreboard.

A note from San Francisco gives an example of how consistent work yields sales of single copies and subscriptions.

"We sold 17 copies of the Militant and one subscription to the paper at a November 3 rally defending the Palestinian struggle against Israeli military occupation," wrote Bernie Senter. "That same day we also sold two subscriptions to the Militant at a debate between Palestinian leader Hanan Ashwari and a representative from the Israeli consul in San Jose. The next day Ashwari spoke at a meeting in Berkeley where we sold 13 copies of the Militant."

Senter said socialist workers in the Bay Area also sold another eight copies of the paper, a copy of Perspectiva Mundial, and $30 worth of Pathfinder literature off a table in a working-class district in San Francisco. A few days later they set up a literature table at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where they sold two Militant subscriptions, seven Militants, and $85 worth of literature. "One student told us, 'young people need books like these,' and said she wants to help us set up a literature table at Cabrillo College," reported Senter.

Joanne Kuniansky from Australia reported sales over one weekend of two Militant subscriptions, 21 copies of the Militant, one subscription to PM, 11 Pathfinder titles, and a copy of the Marxist magazine New International no. 10. "We've had a very successful drive and are mapping out plans to make all our goals," she wrote.

"We sold four copies of the Militant despite being harassed by a man who declared his support for the war in Afghanistan," reported Maria Alice Andre, a Young Socialist member in Toronto. "One person, a man of Mohawk descent, stopped by to help us out. He told the harasser, 'we have a right to our opinions. Just because we don't agree with everything CNN says doesn't give you the right to attack the table.'" Andre said the previous weekend on the same corner they had sold 13 copies of the Militant, one subscription to PM, one copy of New International no. 7, which features the article "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq," and one copy of Nueva Internacional no. 1.

From Vancouver Gabriel Charbin reported that partisans of the paper sold 18 Militants, three Militant subscriptions, two copies of New International, and one subscription to Perspectiva Mundial at meetings to defend Dr. Sunera Thobani, who has come under attack for speaking out against the imperialist war in Afghanistan. They sold another nine Militants and two subscriptions in a workers district in the city before running out of papers.  
 
Use target week to boost sales efforts
"So far in the target week we have sold four Militant subscriptions and one copy of New International," said Francisco Picado in St. Paul, Minnesota. "Two of us are taking days off work to spend time on campuses and two other supporters of the campaign are planning to join us. The Young Socialists have decided to join the campus teams and the regional sales teams we are planning next weekend. Two workers we met during a plant-gate sale yesterday at Dakota Premium Foods told us they would buy subscriptions."

"Several co-workers who have purchased copies of the Militant and PM are considering buying subscriptions," wrote Stu Singer, a packinghouse worker in Washington. Singer said he joined others on a regional team to Georgetown, Delaware, this past weekend, where they sold five subscriptions to PM, one Militant subscription, and three copies of New International. "One worker who bought a PM subscription told us they had a walkout a week before to protest short hours at the Perdue poultry plant where he works," said Singer.

"Two soldiers stopped by the literature tables we have set up here in northeast Pennsylvania," wrote Militant campaigners from that area. "One of them said he had just been called up and disagreed with the Militant's viewpoint, but bought a copy of the paper to read for himself." Another student at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, who also said he "disagreed, but wanted to learn more," purchased a copy of New International no. 7 containing the article "1945: When U.S. Troops Said 'No!'"

Supporters of the Militant in western Colorado and members of the Young Socialists in Tucson, Arizona, were part of a coal team that took the Militant to miners at mine portals and in coalfield towns. Jim Spaul, a long- time coal miner and member of the National Union of Mineworkers from Great Britain, was part of the three-day team. Spaul, currently a rail worker in London, spoke to miners he met about the conditions that working people face in the United Kingdom and explained why he opposes the British government's participation in the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

The team organized sales at four mine portals and went door-to-door in coalfield towns. Team members introduced Spaul to miners who stopped to talk. Spaul told them about the strike of British miners at Rossington Coal in Yorkshire, England.

Spaul had dinner with a miner from the Twenty Mile Coal Mine and discussed Washington's war on Afghanistan, as well as the U.S. invasion of Panama with him.

In Birmingham Spaul spoke at a Militant Labor Forum along with Bill Tyler, a coal miner from Alabama and member of the Socialist Workers Party. Tyler spoke about the September 23 mine explosion that killed 13 miners at the Jim Walter no. 5 mine in Brookwood, Alabama. Another miner with 17 years at Drummond's big Shoal Creek mine attended and spoke in the discussion about the importance of standing up for safe working conditions. "I completely agree that the explosions at the no. 5 mine were no accident," she said. "This could have happened anywhere."

Spaul joined a portal sale where five miners bought the Militant, and a regular Militant reader purchased a copy of New International no. 7.  
 
 
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