Some of the sales efforts on the first weekend of the target week are good examples of the kind of socialist campaigning work that can set the pace everywhere.  
 
Socialists visit home of ‘Lackawanna Six’
Over the October 12–13 weekend Arrin Hawkins, Socialist Workers candidate for lieutenant governor of New York, and five campaign supporters visited the Ward One area of Lackawanna, New York, located on the outskirts of Buffalo. Sitting in the shadow of the hulking remains of the now-closed Bethlehem steel mill, this ward is the home of the "Lackawanna Six," U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent arrested by the federal government and charged with giving "material support" to al Qaeda. The socialist campaigners came to show their solidarity with the struggle to free the six framed-up workers.

Residents told the socialist campaigners that since the arrests there has been constant harassment by the FBI and local police of those living in this community. "The police are checking everything," said Gwen Moore. "You can’t even breathe out here without looking at a policeman’s face. We’re sick of it."

"They are not guilty," said Riyadh Almadrahi, 25, who moved here from Yemen seven years ago as he signed up for a subscription to the Militant. "Just because you visit Pakistan does not mean you are a terrorist. I am against the FBI wiretapping." Riyadh also took 100 campaign leaflets to post and distribute at the local community college where he works.

Although most people the team met spoke against the arrests and police harassment, some sharply disagreed with the stance of the socialist candidates. One commonly expressed view was, "If they arrested them, they must have done something wrong."

Three people signed up for subscriptions and 34 others bought copies of the Militant during the socialist campaign visit to Lackawanna.  
 
Socialists campaign on campuses
In Des Moines campaigners for Socialist Workers congressional candidate Edwin Fruit got off to an early start with a swing through four Iowa campuses the week prior to the target week. At the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Fruit participated in an hour-long radio debate, which included the candidates from the Republican and Libertarian parties.

Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell also participated by telephone from the U.S. capital just before voting for a Congressional resolution authorizing Washington to conduct a military attack against Iraq. "The U.S. drive to war in the Mideast is a war so that U.S. and British corporations can exploit the resources of the region and politically and militarily control it," Fruit explained in the radio discussion.

Afterward socialists set up a campaign table. A number of students who stopped by said they were happy to see the socialists’ literature display and told the candidates about a demonstration by 30 students against U.S. war plans that had occurred the day before. Four signed up for subscriptions to the Militant.

That evening campaigners for Edwin Fruit attended an antiwar teach-in at Drake University. The next day two students from Drake joined socialist campaigners in distributing campaign literature outside the UPS facility in Des Moines.

In all, 13 people signed up for their first subscriptions to the socialist press--9 for the Militant and 4 for Perspectiva Mundial--and three bought copies of New International magazine.

Socialist campaigners in Michigan and Ohio participated in the Second National Conference on the Palestine solidarity movement at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor October 12–14. They sold $225 worth of Pathfinder books and seven subscriptions to the Militant.

During the conference proceedings, which was attended by about 400 students, a group called Michigan Student Zionists organized a demonstration outside. They smeared the gathering as anti-Semitic and claimed it promoted terrorism and violence.

Most of the speakers at the conference posed the solution to the Palestinian struggle as the formation of two states in the region, Israel and Palestine. "This doesn’t address the real character of the state of Israel," said Don Mackle, Socialist Workers candidate for governor of Michigan. "The only solution in the interests of working people is overturning the Israeli government through a revolutionary struggle that will open the door for working people--Palestinians and Jews alike--to forge a democratic, secular Palestine."

Some of the students attending the Ann Arbor conference expressed interest in participating in the 13th congress of The Continental Organization of Latin American and Caribbean Students, a gathering of youth, many of them anti-imperialist-minded, from throughout the Americas. The congress that will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico, November 29–December 2.  
 
 
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