Vol. 80/No. 31      August 22, 2016

 

SWP campaigns in Tennessee, condemns US
wars abroad

 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — “Workers need their own party to lead the fight for working-class political power,” Alyson Kennedy told the press after filing Aug. 8 to place the Socialist Workers Party on the ballot here. “We say to workers, ‘Our party is your party.’”

The filing followed a weekend of campaigning here with SWP supporters talking to workers on their doorsteps. In an indication of the interest, nine people bought the book Are They Rich Because They’re Smart?, 10 subscribed to the Militant and 109 signed to put the party on the ballot. In all, they submitted 569 signatures from across the state, more than double the 275 required.

The party calls for Washington to unilaterally eliminate its nuclear weaponry and to withdraw all its troops from the Middle East and elsewhere.

“The war against workers here and Washington’s spreading wars against workers and farmers abroad will deepen,” Kennedy said. “This is what happened in the last great depression in the 1930s. Capitalist governments fought ever more fiercely for markets and sources of raw material until the second imperialist world slaughter broke out, killing millions of workers. And these profit-hungry rulers have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all of humanity.”

When SWP supporters went door to door to discuss the party program in South Pittsburg, a town of 3,000 just west of Chattanooga that was a center of coal mining prior to World War II, two dozen workers signed to place the SWP on the ballot in a couple of hours of campaigning. The loss of jobs in rail transportation and manufacturing, resulting from mine closings in recent years, still mark the town.

Hans MaDave, a candy factory worker in Nashville, liked the fighting nature of the Socialist Workers Party campaign. “Change can’t come from just one person alone, but from many coming together,” MaDave told campaigner Lisa Potash. He pointed to the civil rights battles of the 1960s and ’70s as an example of how working people overcame divisions to fight more effectively.
 
 
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
Who should rule — capitalist bosses or the working class?
Working people in Utah welcome SWP campaign
Contribute to Socialist Workers Party’s $30,000 campaign fund!
 
 
 
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