Vol. 77/No. 42      November 25, 2013

This is one more example of how the pace in the books and subscription campaign has picked up considerably over the past two weeks and put us on a footing to fight for the goal of winning 2,500 new and renewing subscribers by Dec. 10.

“We have sold 16 subscriptions over eight days of stepped-up campaigning,” said Annalucia Vermunt, reporting from Auckland, New Zealand, Nov. 11. “We’re now close to where we should be. And we sold several Pathfinder titles, including The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning and Women and Revolution: The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution.”

Sales of nine books on special offer with a subscription (see ad below) also increased during the week and are an integral part of the campaign.

“You can be a mirror for the people when you write in a paper, so everyone knows about the conditions we’re living under,” Jaspreet Singh, who is a Sikh and puts out a fortnightly community newspaper in Punjabi, told Janet Roth and Felicity Coggan Nov. 8 after they knocked on his door in the working-class suburb of Papatoetoe, south Auckland.

Campaigners sold two subscriptions while participating in a Nov. 9 protest of some 50 people from Auckland’s Tamil community marking the killing of tens of thousands of Tamils during the 1983-2009 Sri Lankan civil war.

Supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, also took big steps forward, signing up 28 subscribers, Margaret Trowe reported.

In addition to going door to door in Des Moines together with supporters who joined them from Omaha, Neb., they joined two countermobilizations against the ultrarightist National Socialist Movement in Kansas City, Mo., selling 12 subscriptions to participants.

Supporters in Boston continued an upward trend from the week before, selling 13 subscriptions and climbing into the bold on the scoreboard, joining Lincoln, Neb., and Philadelphia.

Militant Business Manager Lea Sherman joined them Nov. 9 going door to door in the Dorchester neighborhood and campaigning at a demonstration by school bus workers in defense of four of their union leaders who were fired after a job action in early October.

“We got a great response to the paper and books from bus drivers and other workers at the action,” Sherman said. “We sold eight subscriptions and 24 books, 19 in French. Many of the drivers are Haitians.”

Top sellers were books by Thomas Sankara, leader of the 1983-1987 revolution in the West African country of Burkina Faso. Two titles by Sankara are part of the special offer with a subscription.

During the weekend this worker correspondent traveled to Washington, D.C., and Socialist Workers Party leader Tony Lane went to Houston to join campaigners there.

Supporters in New York have sold five copies of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics, reported Deborah Liatos, including one to a co-worker at an electronics plant in New Jersey. The book records the SWP’s experiences building a proletarian party in the U.S. during the closing decades of the 20th century. Seven workers there have subscribed or renewed so far.

Supporters in San Francisco have had two good weeks, bringing them close to being on schedule. Betsey Stone reported meeting Luz Hernandez, 15, and other members of her family, knocking on doors in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Luz, who is a student at Montgomery High School, pointed to the article on protests against the Oct. 22 killing of Andy López by a deputy sheriff. She told Stone she had marched in a number of the actions.

The family signed up for a subscription and got The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning in both English and Spanish and Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power in Spanish.

John Steele in Montreal wrote that Guillaume Imbeault, a student there, went out campaigning for the first time Nov. 9. He met supporters of the paper at a march against the anti-working-class, anti-immigrant Charter of Quebec Values proposed by the provincial government. “This won’t be the last time I do door to door,” he said.

Expanding the number of readers taking part is key to bringing the campaign home in full and on time.

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 article:
Fall ‘Militant’ subscription campaign Oct. 12 – Dec. 10 (week 4)
 
 
 
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