Vol. 72/No. 21      May 26, 2008

“While [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown is touring the United States to visit with the bourgeois candidates, bankers, and other capitalists, Kennedy and I are here in Europe to learn about the conditions workers and farmers are facing and to share our experiences in the class struggle in the U.S.,” said Joyce speaking at an April 25 Militant Labor Forum here.

Joyce reported on the recently concluded tour stop by himself and Kennedy in the United Kingdom. In Scotland they met workers from Poland and Romania. In London they joined a demonstration of more than 2,000 restaurant workers from South Asia against stepped-up raids by the British immigration agency.

Members of the Young Socialists in Sweden took off from work and school to be a part of the tour there and helped organize campus speaking engagements for Kennedy and Joyce. On April 24, Kennedy spoke in front of two classes at Nacka Gymnasium high school. In a lively discussion period that followed, one student asked if the Democratic Party’s candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama, would represent the interests of women and Blacks, respectively.

“No, both the Democratic candidates and their opponent John McCain represent the interests of the capitalist class,” responded Kennedy. “There have been women in charge of countries before, such as Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, who waged war against the miners’ union and carried out other antilabor measures.”

She also noted that Obama has distanced himself from struggles in the Black community, such as the fight for justice for the Jena Six, and that he does not support affirmative action, which she and her running mate, Róger Calero, will defend and extend when elected.

While in London, Joyce participated with young socialists from Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to discuss perspectives for building communist youth organizations in Europe. Young socialists there plan to organize a Marxist summer school in London in the coming months and will be participating in a socialist educational conference in Oberlin, Ohio, in July.
 
 
Related articles:
In California, SWP candidate for president backs workers fighting racism
Socialist vice presidential candidate backs Somali immigrants in Sweden
Socialist candidate for U.S. vice president joins picket lines in Montreal  
 
 
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