Vol. 74/No. 30      August 9, 2010

The party is also running Sarah Ruth Robinett and Willie Cotton for U.S. Senate and Dan Fein for governor. They are write-in candidates.

The socialist campaign’s platform points to the need for workers to take political power and puts forward a series of demands workers can fight for to defend themselves from the assault by the bosses and their parties in government.

On July 25 Calero and Robinett joined supporters campaigning in Harlem at 145th Street and Frederick Douglas Avenue, a corner where hundreds of workers signed petitions for Calero. A young woman, originally from Grenada, spent 20 minutes talking with Calero about U.S. and world politics. She purchased Maurice Bishop Speaks, a collection of speeches by the leader of Grenada’s 1979-83 popular revolution. She said in the last election she noticed the SWP was on the ballot and wanted to know more about what the party stood for.

“I signed the petition last week,” a woman told one of the campaign supporters. Upon being shown a copy of the Militant, she added, “I got that last week too.” Another woman, who said she had also signed, bought a Militant.

Outside a nearby Pathmark store, Robinett introduced the campaign to a store worker who was wearing a large button saying, “One Voice, One Union Contract.” Robinett pointed to the campaign’s support to workers’ struggles to use union power, or to organize unions where none exist, to defend all working people against the bosses’ assaults.

The same day Fein joined campaign supporters in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a working-class, predominantly Black neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he soapboxed with a bullhorn. A number of workers passing by stopped to listen.

“Workers need to stop supporting the Democratic and Republican parties, the parties of the capitalists, and launch a labor party based on a rejuvenated and militant union movement,” Fein said. One woman commented, “I agree with what he said. Give me some more information.” Two people bought the book Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.

On July 24 Calero and Fein participated in a South Bronx outdoor festival in support of the fight for legalization of undocumented workers and to oppose anti-immigrant measures like Arizona law SB 1070.

Calero addressed the crowd in Spanish. “The attacks coming down on immigrant workers, whether through laws like the SB 1070, increased deportations by the administration of Barack Obama, or the recent increase of cops and the National Guard at the border,” he said, “show the only road forward in the fight for legalization is one that is independent of the Democrats and Republicans.”

That evening the SWP candidates participated in a celebration of the Cuban Revolution. The meeting, sponsored by Casa de las Americas and the July 26th Coalition, marked the 57th anniversary of the launching of the revolutionary struggle that resulted in the toppling of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, and the taking of political power by workers and peasants there.

A campaign supporter who is an electrician brought two Caribbean coworkers to the meeting, one of whom was a participant in the Grenada revolution. Between the two, they bought Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power and Maurice Bishop Speaks from the SWP campaign table.
 
 
Related articles:
Meat packers in Iowa sign petitions
D.C. socialists go into final stretch  
 
 
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