Vol. 80/No. 28 August 1, 2016
(front page)
Workers need own party, independent of the bosses
‘Capitalist crisis is going to get worse’
“The higher-ups have a parasitic setup where they try to suck as much out of us as possible,” Debra Leeflang, a retired university worker, told SWP campaigner Bill Estrada as they talked on her porch here. Leeflang comes from a family of union coal miners.
“I wonder why the wealthy act this way when it means workers can’t buy the goods we produce,” she said. “Don’t they understand their own greed contributes to the crisis?”
“They have no choice,” Estrada said. “Their only way out of the crisis is to attack the working class. That’s why we have to build a revolutionary movement, independent of the bosses and their political parties.”
Leeflang bought a couple books — Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? and Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege and Learning Under Capitalism — as well as a subscription to the Militant to learn more about the SWP and its program.
SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy campaigned in the Salt Lake Valley and in the coal-mining area around Price, Utah. The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed her in a July 14 article titled, “Workers can change America, prez candidate tells Utahns,” and sent a photographer to accompany her campaigning door to door.
One of the people SWP supporters met in Helper, a small town outside Price, was Dana Bunch, an unemployed 31-year-old single mother. She was glad to learn there was a party discussing how working people can organize under today’s depression-driven conditions. Bunch expressed concern with the treatment of veterans of U.S. wars, speaking from the experience of friends and family members. She got a subscription and book and signed a petition to put the SWP candidates on the ballot.
A short while later, Bunch welcomed a visit from Kennedy, who had been talking with a retired miner in the neighborhood. “We need more attention to communities devastated by the decline in coal production, like Helper,” Bunch told the SWP candidate.
Kennedy, who worked as a coal miner for many years and was one of the leaders of a union organizing drive and strike at the nearby Co-Op mine a decade ago, said it’s important to look at what’s happening in Utah in the context of the crisis facing working people around the world.
“I think you’re right,” Bunch replied. “They want us to focus on home — not what’s going on in the world, and the wars.”
Socialist Workers Party campaigners also went door to door in Kanab, a small town in southwest Utah’s vast cattle-ranching region, where thousands of tourists pass through each year. Hundreds of people attended the Feb. 5 funeral in Kanab of rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum. He was a leader of the occupation at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, protesting the imprisonment of local ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond and the problems ranchers face from federal encroachment on their right to raise livestock. Finicum was killed by state police in Oregon Jan. 26 as he was headed to a community meeting to explain the goal of the occupation.
Twenty-six people are currently facing federal charges connected to the Malheur refuge occupation, including Kanab resident Shawna Cox, who was riding with Finicum when he was killed.
Opinions in Kanab are divided on the refuge occupation in Oregon. The owner-mechanics at a small all-terrain vehicle rental business said to avoid friction they seldom discuss what happened to Finicum, but added they think his death at the hands of the cops was unjustified.
Working people in the town also wanted to discuss what the working class is facing worldwide. Else Talboys, a retired teacher, told SWP campaigner Dennis Richter that as a child she attended school in the Philippines. She said being exposed to other people’s countries and cultures opened her eyes to what the world’s workers face. She blamed consumerism as a main problem facing working people.
Richter replied that capitalism markets commodities to workers by sowing the illusion that our worth as humans is measured by what we buy. Talboys subscribed to the Militant and bought Are They Rich Because They’re Smart?
Workers interested in the party and its program bought 210 copies of that book, as well as 179 subscriptions to the Militant, over three weeks of campaigning in Utah. Some 1,670 people signed the petition to put the Socialist Workers Party presidential ticket of Alyson Kennedy and Osborne Hart on the ballot, well over the 1,000 requirement.
At a July 17 barbecue to celebrate the campaigning effort more than $800 was collected to offset expenses, and another $170 was contributed during door-to-door campaigning. Three workers who met the Socialist Workers Party at their doorsteps attended the event.
Joel Britton, Anthony Dutrow and Mary Martin contributed to this article.
Related articles:
‘Join us,’ says Socialist Workers Party candidate
SWP tells workers, ‘Our party is your party’
Conference presents road forward in face of irresolvable crisis of world capitalism
Join the Socialist Workers Party campaigning
Are they rich because they’re smart?
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