“You guys have changed the way I look at things,” he said, as he left with three books published by Pathfinder Press: Socialism on Trial, The Communist Manifesto, and The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform Under Capitalism. This young worker was one among about two dozen people who met the socialists for the first time at actions protesting the Republican convention August 28-29 and came to the Sunday open house and a campaign forum the night before.

On Saturday night, August 28, the New York Militant Labor Forum featured Calero and his running mate, Arrin Hawkins. SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from New York Martín Koppel chaired the meeting. Socialist campaigners Jenny Johnson-Blanchard and Warren Simons also spoke. A fund pitch by Ved Dookhun, SWP candidate for the 10th Congressional District in New Jersey, netted $1,700 for the SWP 2004 campaign. It was a standing room only meeting, as more than 120 people packed the socialist campaign center in Manhattan’s Garment District. Most everyone stayed through the end despite sweltering heat that resulted from a breakdown of the air conditioning system during the event.

Justine Davies, a student at Sarah Lawrence College, had joined the SWP contingent at a march to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion earlier Saturday (see article). She said she disliked not only Bush, but Kerry too, and was glad to find campaigners offering a working-class alternative to the capitalist parties. She came back with the socialists and stayed for the event.

These meetings were part of a special 12-day effort by the socialist campaign to build support for SWP 2004 ticket at protests, conferences, and in the streets leading up to and during the Republican National Convention. Dozens of volunteers joined the effort from cities around the country, as well as from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

As of August 31, socialist campaigners had sold 785 books and pamphlets on the history and lessons of the revolutionary working-class movement, most of them at steeply discounted rates (see ad). They also sold more than 1,000 single copies and 157 subscriptions to the Militant and 25 to its sister publication in Spanish Perspectiva Mundial.

In addition to campaigning, the socialists organized public classes. These included a discussion on The Lesser Evil? by SWP national secretary Jack Barnes, a class on “Marxism v. Anarchism,” and another on “The Revolutionary Potential of the Working Class.”

A Militant Labor Forum planned for September 3 on “The meaning of the Republican National Convention and the Protests Surrounding it” will cap these activities, which have served as a launching pad for effective campaigning around the country for the socialist ticket through the November 2 election and beyond.

A highlight of the sales effort was the August 29 protest march. A total of 806 single copies of the Militant, 75 subscriptions to the Militant and PM, and 249 books were sold that day alone.

The week’s activities gave a running start to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial subscription drive, which officially began on August 28. The ten-week drive will conclude November 7, the weekend after election day. Partisans of the two socialist publications have a goal of signing up more than 3,000 subscribers in the 10 weeks.

The buzz around the SWP campaign headquarters has drawn interest from others in the building.

Ines, a garment worker who came to New York from Puebla, Mexico, was going floor-by-floor looking for work August 31 when she came across the socialist campaign headquarters.

“At first I thought this was a bookstore,” she said. “Then I came in and saw what was happening. I didn’t think such a place as this existed in this country.

“I came in because I like to read,” she told Calero, who was there at the time with a group of volunteers. After some discussion, Ines bought a copy of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, which explains why the education system under capitalism is designed to teach working people to be obedient, not to learn to think for themselves

“I went to school until the sixth grade but didn’t learn how to read,” she said, commenting on how accurate the pamphlet’s description of education under capitalism is. “It’s hard to learn when you are hungry. I would watch my cousin reading the comics in the newspaper and laughing, but I would look and not be able to read the captions. So I taught myself.” She promised to visit the socialist campaign center again.

Sub Drive Chart
 
 
Related article:
New York protests target ‘Bush agenda,’ push election of Democrat John Kerry
N.Y. march: ‘defend women’s right to choose!’  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home