Vol. 77/No. 22      June 10, 2013

BY LOUIS MARTIN

At the end of the third week of a seven-week international campaign to win 2,800 new Militant subscribers and sell hundreds of books on revolutionary working-class politics, the drive stands at 1,261 — 2 percent above target.

Workers today face ongoing attacks from the bosses and their government. Under these conditions, many are increasingly interested in getting a paper that champions battles of workers around the world and promotes the need to build a revolutionary movement to fight for workers power.

Socialist Workers Party candidates in Seattle have been circulating the paper as part of their campaign.

“I can name five people among my family and friends affected by police brutality,” Queenie Bradfor told Mary Martin, SWP candidate for mayor, and John Naubert, running for port commissioner in Central Seattle, May 26. She got a subscription after looking at the front page article in the June 3 issue on a protest in New York against the police killing of Ramarley Graham last year.

“My cousin was shot in the back — 11 shots — by police in San Diego,” Bradfor, a temp worker, added. “His body was held for two weeks before they reported it to us. I’ve spoken at a few protest activities. I protested when Trayvon Martin was executed. You cannot accept this.”

Two teams of Militant supporters from Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., fanned out in the coalfields of West Virginia May 23-26, selling at the portal of Patriot Coal Corp.’s Hobet Mine No. 45 in Madison, joining a May 23 United Mine Workers of America-organized vigil in Charleston and going door to door in surrounding mining towns. The vigil was part of ongoing protests against Patriot’s attempt to use its bankruptcy filing to tear up union contracts and gut retirees’ pensions and health benefits.

Twenty-four subscriptions and 36 single copies were sold over the four-day effort.

“Don’t underestimate people here,” retired oil worker Elvin Gore told Militant supporters when they knocked on his door in Madison. “I worked for many years in Illinois and I know how they call us hillbillies. But I always figured any real fight will begin here.

“I’m against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I changed at Heartbreak Ridge where I was during the Korean War,” Gore said as he got a subscription. “Some guys I know didn’t come back, others were shot up. For what? What’s going on is too deep. It will take a revolution.”

During the May 25-26 weekend, Militant supporters from Montreal joined forces with two readers from Toronto and attended a Saturday solidarity rally and barbecue with close to 1,000 locked-out Steelworkers in Nanticoke, Ontario. After the barbecue, they took the paper door to door in nearby Port Dover.

“If you’d asked me before, I’d have said no, this is a small town. People will say, ‘What are you doing here?’ But people listened. One retired man bought a subscription and another woman bought a copy,” Hugo Esteban said about the response to the paper. A metal polish worker from Toronto, he has read the Militant and revolutionary books by Pathfinder Press for years.

Altogether that team of Militant supporters sold five subscriptions and three books on special.

“I like reading stories about working people,” said Cecelia Laborde, a domestic worker in Montreal, when asked why she renewed her Militant subscription for the second time. She also purchased The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free, one of nine books offered at reduced prices with a subscription.

“We have sold 69 books during the campaign — 45 of The Cuban Five,” wrote Militant supporter Bev Bernardo from Montreal. “Without a doubt, having the book in French has been a tremendous asset.”

You can help circulate the Militant. Show it to friends, relatives and coworkers. Call distributors listed on page 8 or contact us at themilitant@mac.com or (212) 244-4899.
 
 
Related article:
Spring ‘Militant’ subscription campaign May 4-June 25 (week 3)
 
 
 
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