Vol. 77/No. 40      November 11, 2013

“Whatever the government says about recovery, we’re not surviving,” John Newsome, a school bus driver, told Hugo Wils and Paul Davies when they knocked on his door in the Baguley neighborhood in the working-class suburb of Whythenshawe, south of Manchester Oct. 26.

“The owners of energy companies get massive dividends and then put up the prices we have to pay,” said Newsome. “And now Chinese companies, which have a bad health and safety record, are investing in the Manchester airport.”

“Whatever the nationality of the bosses, they will exploit us and the profits go into their pockets, Davis told Newsome, who got an introductory subscription. “What we need to do is stand together against the bosses, wherever they come from, and support fellow workers around the world doing the same.”

Rachele Fruit, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Atlanta City Council president, met Candy McBride, a pharmacy worker, while campaigning Oct. 20 in her apartment complex in Jonesboro, Ga. “I’d like to learn about the Cuban Five,” McBride told Fruit. “I grew up in Miami and I have a lot of Cuban friends. I’d like to hear another point of view.”

McBride bought a subscription and said she has a friend who might be interested. “We talk all the time about how you can’t rely on mainstream media.”

Ron Poulsen wrote from Sydney that John Ryan, a retired seaman, called him to talk about a subscription he recently got for a friend in prison. Ryan said it takes 10 days for even a letter to get past prison censors, so he doesn’t yet know if his friend has gotten his first issue. “We’ll keep you posted and be ready to press the issue if his subscription is not delivered,” Poulsen wrote.

The Militant has adopted a goal of adding 15 subscribers behind bars during the eight-week drive. We have 12 more to go.

Beatrice Ballard Elauria, a former lab assistant, decided to renew her subscription Oct. 27 when Andrea Morell and Betsey Stone stopped by her place near the Militant Labor Forum hall in San Francisco.

“I like the coverage from around the world, which you don’t see much of in the papers here — like from the Middle East, Egypt,” she said. “I think what happens there will affect us here, and I’d like to know about it before it happens.”

“The health care is a mess, it’s feeding the insurance companies,” Rosetta Lewis, a school nurse who bought a subscription in the East New York section of Brooklyn Oct. 27, told Willie Cotton. “I worked in a hospital, but switched to a school because it was so bad. The emergency rooms are horrible, if you don’t have money they just put you in a corner and forget about you.”

“The rulers don’t care about us, health care is a profit-making business and any improvement for us cuts into their profits,” said Cotton. “If we want to defend our interests, we need to build a fighting movement of working people.”

“I don’t see that happening,” said Lewis, who signed up for a three-month subscription. “I think we are too hard-pressed and the crisis is really getting to us. I’m going to vote for [Democratic mayoral candidate] Bill de Blasio. I hope he will do more for the schools, he has promised that. I do agree it’s the capitalists that decide, but I don’t think he’ll make it worse anyway.”

“The SWP candidates don’t make such promises, because no individual politician can solve our problems, even if they weren’t beholden to the capitalist rulers as all Democratic and Republican party politicians are,” said Cotton, who gave Lewis a flyer on the SWP election campaign ticket in New York that includes Dan Fein for mayor. “What the socialist candidates do promise is to join and help strengthen the struggles of working people. Without a fight it will definitely get worse.”

The subscription drive slipped a little behind schedule, so we need to map out plans to catch up over the coming weeks. And we should pay attention to how we can increase sales of Pathfinder books as we sign up Militant readers. Last week campaigners sold one book for every five subscriptions. (See ad on books specials with a subscription below.)

Send reports and photos on the campaign by Monday morning. And be sure to include sales of books when you do.

Join the effort to expand the Militant’s readership. See page 8 for a distribution center near you or contact the Militant at 306 W. 37th St., 10th floor, New York, NY 10018 or call (212) 244-4899.
 
 
Related articles:
Fall ‘Militant’ subscription campaign Oct. 12 – Dec 10 (week 2)
 
 
 
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