Vol. 80/No. 31 August 22, 2016
(front page)
Who should rule — capitalist bosses or the working class?
At the same time, Socialist Workers Party members and supporters are campaigning on workers’ doorsteps and in their living rooms, discussing how the deepening capitalist depression is an unfolding catastrophe for workers and farmers and how we can unite to defend our class interests. Members of Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are doing the same.
Addressing the faltering U.S. economy Aug. 8, Trump noted that the number of workers the government counts as members of the labor force is at the lowest point in four decades and proposed a package of pro-business tax cuts that would boost profits, claiming this would increase production and jobs. The previous week Clinton promised “millions of jobs with rising incomes.”
But many capitalist pundits — in articles such as Robert Gordon’s New York Times Aug. 8 op-ed “Can Clinton or Trump Recapture Robust American Growth?” and Neil Irwin’s Aug. 6 Times article “We’re In a Low-Growth World. How Did We Get Here?” — acknowledge that no policy can solve the worldwide contraction of capitalism. “It increasingly looks as if something fundamental is broken in the global growth machine,” Irwin writes.
Both capitalist candidates say they are dedicated to assuring the military and political supremacy of U.S. imperialism. While President Barack Obama and Clinton argue that Trump is too unstable to be trusted with Washington’s foreign policy, Trump hammers away at Obama’s legacy of eight years in office with the U.S. government at war somewhere in the world every day of his administration. Many workers say they’re dismayed by both capitalist candidates.
David Rosenfeld, SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in Minnesota, and supporter Rose Engstrom met Jose Rosas, a call center worker, at his trailer home in Owatonna, Minnesota, July 24. Rosas liked what they had to say. Two weeks later he attended an Aug. 6 public campaign meeting in Minneapolis to hear Osborne Hart, the party’s vice-presidential candidate.
Rosas, 24, agreed things need to be changed. He said he was disturbed by the dog-eat-dog values of capitalism. “There must be a better way for people to live,” he said. “They talk as if we are all in a bucket and have to step on each other to get out, to get ahead.”
While touring Minnesota, Hart was interviewed Aug. 7 by Jeremy Jones, a reporter for the Hutchinson Leader. Jones talked with Hart for two hours at the Happy Hour Cafe in Glencoe, an hour west of Minneapolis.
Hart explained that the Socialist Workers Party campaigns going door to door in working-class areas, in towns large and small, in city and countryside, and gets a good response in all of them. When Jones expressed doubts about the kind of response the Socialist Workers Party is receiving, Hart and supporters started talking with June and Marlen Wichelman, who were having coffee at a table nearby.
“Socialism? Hadn’t considered that,” Marlen Wichelman said. “Well, there has to be something better than those two running for president!” June Wichelman replied. They wished Hart luck in the campaign.
Later Hart spoke with farmer John Worm, who was selling corn at a stand in Glencoe. “I’m a Trump supporter,” Worm told Hart, adding that he didn’t like the word “socialism.”
When Hart said the Socialist Workers Party is a working-class party, Worm pointed out that Trump’s rallies are big because working people come out for them.
“Yes,” Hart replied, “because he talks about unemployment and some of the problems workers and farmers face. But he doesn’t raise answers to those problems.”
“You’re right about that,” Worm said, and listened when Hart spoke of his discussions about the capitalist crisis and the example of the Cuban Revolution with small farmers in south Georgia. Worm took a campaign flyer and got a copy of the Militant, saying, “Now I have something to read and think about.”
Before going to Minnesota, Hart toured in Nebraska, speaking at campaign meetings at Meadowlark Coffee and Espresso in Lincoln and at the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation in Omaha. Eleven people who had never heard of the Socialist Workers Party came, discussing the need to build the party to help lead workers and working farmers to take political power.
Jacquie Henderson in Minnesota and Joe Swanson in Nebraska contributed to this article.
Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party: Join Sept. 8 miners rally! SWP tells miners ‘Our party is your party’
SWP builds Sept. 8 protest in West Virginia, Kentucky
Working people in Utah welcome SWP campaign
SWP campaigns in Tennessee, condemns US wars abroad
Contribute to Socialist Workers Party’s $30,000 campaign fund!
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