Militant/Osborne Hart

Frank Forrestal, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Iowa secretary of agriculture, campaigns in Des Moines August 5 to get SWP ticket on ballot.

Newberry urged working people to protest Washington’s support to Tel Aviv’s aggression and to demand the release of all Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. She also called for immediate withdrawal of U.S. and all other “coalition” troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Sure, I’ll support socialist candidates being on the ballot. You are the only people saying these things. I am completely opposed to the wars in Lebanon and in Iraq,” said Esteban Monreal, 18, a student at Scott Community College from Davenport, Iowa, who signed a petition to put the SWP candidates on the ballot.

In addition to Newberry, the Socialist Workers Party in Iowa is running Kevin Dwire for lieutenant governor, Helen Meyers for U.S. Congress in the 3rd District, and Frank Forrestal for secretary of agriculture. Meyers, who works in the meatpacking industry, has already been certified for ballot status.

A good number of people have signed in support of the socialist candidates’ demand for immediate legalization of all immigrants without papers. “I’ll sign and my friends with me will sign too,” said Adrián Pérez, a meat packer who works at Osceola Foods, a nonunion subsidiary of Hormel. His friends nodded in agreement. Pérez said he had joined a large May 1 pro-legalization protest in Kansas City. He said he looked forward to more street protests around Labor Day.

More than two dozen supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign fanned out across the state August 5. They campaigned in Waterloo, Davenport, and Des Moines, and gathered the remaining 1,300 signatures, for a total of 2,500, twice the official requirement to get the socialist candidates on the ballot.

Later in the evening, some 40 people packed into the SWP campaign headquarters in Des Moines to hear the socialist candidates and celebrate the completion of the petition drive.

“We received overwhelming support from working people—for our right to be on the ballot and, in many cases, for our political platform,” said Forrestal. “Among those signing our petitions were workers at the John Deere plant who are working only 32 hours a week, workers at Titan Tire who report working in extreme heat, and dozens of meat packers and other immigrant workers, who were more confident because of the unfolding fight for legalization.”

He added, “We also ran into some opposing views.” One person refused to sign the petition after reading the party’s demands in support of working farmers. “They get too much money,” she said. A few others did not sign because they said they supported the Israeli government’s war in Lebanon.

Dwire said he met a farm family in Waterloo that grows corn and soybeans and raises cattle. They told the socialist campaigners about the serious drought conditions farmers face in several parts of the Midwest. “When the crop is good, the price farmers receive goes down, and when it doesn’t rain enough and the crop is bad, the market price goes up but ‘we don’t have enough to sell to break even,’” Dwire said the farmers explained.

Dwire said that is why the Socialist Workers campaign calls for an end to farm foreclosures, for government-funded affordable credit to working farmers, and for price supports to cover their production costs.

Newberry told the audience that the SWP platform points to the need to organize independently of all the capitalist parties and “to build a movement that can ultimately take political power out of the hands of the capitalist class and establish a workers and farmers government.”

While campaigning, supporters of the SWP ticket have raised nearly $1,000 in contributions from working people.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party candidates in Massachusetts: ‘Legalize all immigrants now!’
Socialists complete ballot drive, get media coverage
SWP candidate on Pennsylvania ballot
Victory in ending use of state ‘loyalty oath’ gets publicity
Socialist Workers Party candidates in 2006
Tel Aviv expands war throughout Lebanon
1,000 dead; 3,000 wounded; 1 million displaced
UN council to Iran: end production of fuel for nuclear plants by Aug. 31
Pushed by U.S. gov’t, Security Council threatens sanctions
Tens of thousands in London protest Israeli war on Lebanon  
 
 
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