Many working people are seeking a way to resist the employers’ offensive to cut wages, speed up production, make health coverage more expensive and limited, and gut pensions. The results can be measured in the lives sacrificed to the altar of bosses’ profits, including 33 coal miners killed so far this year. And more than 5,700 workers were killed from job-related injuries in 2004 alone, according to the most recently published federal data.

The bosses’ foreign policy is an extension of their anti-working-class drive at home. Under the banner of the “global war on terror,” the U.S. government, acting on behalf of the ruling billionaire class through its twin parties, is using military might to try to gain more control over the world’s markets and natural resources and edge out its imperialist competitors. That’s what’s behind the reactionary U.S.-led campaign against Iran and north Korea. And it goes hand-in-hand with Washington’s use of protectionist measures under the slogan of “free trade,” which, along with the imperialist-imposed foreign debt squeeze, devastates many semicolonial nations.

The socialist campaigners take part in protests to demand that all U.S. and other occupation troops be pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan now. They are joining other supporters of a woman’s right to choose abortion mobilizing in Jackson, Mississippi, to defend a women’s clinic targeted by rightist forces.

SWP candidates are speaking out against recent FBI “antiterror” raids in Miami and in Pittsburgh. These attacks on constitutional rights are aimed at gaining legitimacy for future “homeland defense” operations against unionists and other working people resisting the capitalist offensive. In Philadelphia, the SWP candidate for the state legislature, John Staggs, has announced that he will not sign the “anti-subversive” pledge demanded of candidates by Pennsylvania state authorities.

During these struggles, socialists explain that working people need to organize independently of the capitalists and their parties—Republicans, Democrats, Greens, and the like. This requires building a movement by millions to take power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers, establish a workers and farmers government, and join the worldwide struggle for socialism. The living example of the Cuban Revolution shows this road is possible and necessary in the United States and worldwide.

If you support this perspective, the SWP campaign is your campaign. Join the petitioning drives to put the socialists on the ballot in Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania. Invite socialist candidates to speak to your union, school, or other organization. Contribute to the campaign.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist Workers candidates in Pennsylvania offer
Socialist Workers launch ballot drive in New York
Socialist Workers Party campaign platform for the mid-term elections in November 2006
Initial list of Socialist Worker Party candidates in 2006  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home