Vol. 76/No. 38      October 22, 2012

A chart with the campaign’s overall and local goals will be printed in the issue to be mailed Oct. 18. We are looking forward to adding cities and towns that haven’t been on the chart in recent years. Make sure to get your region on it by sending your local quota by 8 a.m. EDT, Tues., Oct. 16.

We urge all our readers to join this effort. The backbone of the campaign will be going door to door in working-class neighborhoods, in big and small towns as well as in rural areas.

Four books on revolutionary working-class politics will be offered at reduced prices with a subscription. (See ad on this page.)

The response so far to our call for readers to join this effort shows the potential that exists to mobilize hundreds of them to expand the reach of the paper.

“The Militant isn’t just about what is going on right here. It also has articles like these here on China and South Africa and Greece. That’s why I really like this paper,” Kenneth Davidson from Palestine, Texas, said when he met last weekend with Militant supporters Jacquie Henderson and Michael Fitzsimmons from Houston.

Davidson is the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Palestine and a long-time fighter for Black rights. He subscribed to the Militant and bought the Workers Power book at the June NAACP national convention in Houston, where he met James Harris, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president.

“I’ve been reading this paper for many years. You should get a subscription to keep informed of the struggles of the working class.” This is how Militant subscriber Juan Valadez introduced himself as he was going door to door with Fredy Huinil and Jacob Perasso in his neighborhood in South Omaha last weekend. Valadez works at Excel Beef, one the city’s big meatpacking plants.

The three Militant readers sold two subscriptions to the paper over the course of the afternoon and got the names of two workers who want them to come another time for more discussion.

“I was struck by the number of people we met who initially thought there was nothing working people could do, but were convinced to read the Militant,” Lilian Julius commented after going door to door in the working-class neighborhood of East Acton in London. A teacher, she has been reading the Militant for three years. “One worker who subscribed had recently arrived from Greece. He was keen to find other people involved in struggles.”

In Manchester, England, Roberto Carrasco, a student from Mexico, joined Militant supporters going door to door in the Moss Side area of the city. All together they sold three subscriptions and 13 single copies of the paper, as well as one copy of The Cuban Five book.

“Today, I met working people like I never have during my two years here,” Carrasco said afterward.

Militant supporters in New York went to a Communications Workers of America meeting in the Bronx Oct. 3 where members were discussing a contract agreement with Verizon that covers 34,000 workers from Virginia to Massachusetts. CWA workers returned to work without a new contract after a two-week strike in the summer of 2011. Votes on the new contract will take place by mail ballot later in October.

A number of workers at the meeting knew the Militant and its support for last year’s strike because they got a copy on the picket line during the walkout. They bought a total of 13 subscriptions and 23 single copies of the paper.

“Sign up for the subscription. It’s a great paper,” Ken Spatta yelled to a worker nearby who was looking through the paper. He decided to get the subscription. Spatta had renewed his subscription for a year a few months before.

Guilford College student Samir Hazboun was joined Oct. 4 by two Socialist Workers Party members from Atlanta at a table on the campus in Greensboro, N.C., publicizing the Militant and a coming meeting for Harris.

“I was completely caught off guard by the amount of interest about Harris coming to speak and fellow students buying copies of the Militant and looking into getting subscriptions of their own,” Hazboun said. He had recently ordered a weekly Militant bundle of five copies.

Belinda Parker-Brown from Slidell, La., recently renewed her subscription because, as she told Henderson who called her from Houston, she couldn’t do without it.

“I love the articles, especially those by and about prisoners,” she said. Parker-Brown has organized protests in Slidell against the prison system, including one on Aug. 4 where cops arrested her son for videotaping their harassment of demonstrators. She told Henderson that as soon as she finishes an issue of the Militant, she is giving it to someone else to read. “I want the paper to get around,” she said.

The Militant has more subscribers behind bars than in a long time and looks forward to expanding its circulation in prisons. We call on these readers to help win fellow inmates to read and subscribe to the paper.

Subscriptions to prisoners are made possible by contributions from Militant readers to our Prisoners’ Fund. The fund makes it possible for inmates, often with help from friends or family, to order subscriptions at reduced rates of $6 for every six months. Six-month subscriptions are also offered free of charge for those who have no means to pay.

“I am going to show this paper to some of the people at work,” new Miami subscriber Chiquita Thomas said. She especially likes the fact that the Militant explains how the bosses and their politicians have no solution to the economic crisis, except attacking working people. Thomas bought her subscription from a team of Militant readers going door to door in the mostly Black neighborhoods of South Miami and Coconut Grove.

Send me your reports, comments, quotes and photos by 9 a.m. EDT every Monday. You can order subscription blanks and Militant bundles at themilitant@mac.com or (212) 244-4899.  
 
 
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