Vol. 76/No. 26      July 16, 2012

The message below was sent to Socialist Workers Party candidates for U.S. president and vice president, James Harris and Maura DeLuca.

Howard was a leader of a fight by 237 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 48G locked out from September 2010 to July 2011 by Roquette America at its corn processing plant in Keokuk, Iowa.

I would like to wish James and Maura the best of luck as they campaign across the country.

I hope you can get your message out to as many people as possible while competing against a stacked deck as corporations have already purchased the election. You will take your common-sense message out on the road and just about everyone you talk to will understand and agree with what you have to say. Then the billionaires will go to work and pound them with messages night and day and they will go out and do their patriotic duty by voting for the lesser of two evils.

You will be in a “third-party debate” somewhere and a worker will just by chance catch it on the radio and want to tell everyone about what they heard. It will go in one ear and out the other as their associates will not have heard the debate. Later he or she will wonder if a politician could have really made so much sense or did they just dream it because no one else seems to have heard it.

But then maybe this person will run into someone who has recently been locked out of their job or been on strike, or been marching in a rally for immigrant rights or gay rights or for a woman’s right to choose. Maybe they will have seen the Militant and read about other struggles. Maybe they will realize they are not alone and will join the fight to take back our cities and our country from these greedy corporate bastards. This is what we have to work for and be patient for.

Thank you for taking on the task of making sure there is a voice for the millions of workers who aren’t being heard.

In Solidarity,
Buddy Howard