Vol. 73/No. 37      September 28, 2009

The party needs the funds to continue joining in struggles to defend the rights of the working class. “The meetings being planned around the country to raise funds will explore the history of the working class in previous battles and some of the lessons from those fights for today,” said Harris, a member of the SWP National Committee. Harris and National Committee member Laura Garza are the national co-chairs of the fund.

A meeting will be held in Newark, New Jersey, to raise funds on September 19, featuring Norton Sandler, an SWP National Committee member.

Sandler will address why no capitalist “recovery” is possible without massive destruction of capital, Washington’s war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, why millions of workers oppose President Barack Obama’s “health-care” plan, and why defending women’s right to abortion is central to the class struggle.

Ma’mud Shirvani will address fund-raising meetings in San Francisco on September 26 and in Los Angeles September 27. He will speak to the challenge of growing unemployment and the importance of opposing Washington’s threats against Iran and North Korea.

His presentation will also address the history of the SWP in defending the revolutionary upheaval that led to the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah of Iran, and how the party opposed the bloody war launched by Iraq against Iran after that revolution, while giving no political support to the cleric-dominated bourgeois regime in Tehran that used the war in its ongoing attempt to close down political space for the working class.

His presentation will discuss the importance of the fight for democratic rights for the toilers of the city and countryside in Iran today in order to fight for their interests.

In Houston, Róger Calero, who was the SWP candidate for president of the United States last year, will speak. Calero recently took part in discussions with workers in Venezuela, Cuba, and throughout the United States on prospects for revolutionary change here in the center of world imperialism and has been a leading participant in the fight against deportations and for legalization of immigrant workers.

This week we are printing a scoreboard with the quotas taken by supporters in various cities. The fund ends November 10. Future scoreboards will be based on funds received by each Monday.

Contributions to the fund can be sent to 306 W. 37th Street, 10th floor, New York, NY 10018. Checks and money orders should be written out to the Socialist Workers Party.

$95,000 SWP Fund Drive: September 12-November 10 (chart)