Seth Galinsky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York City Public Advocate, released this statement Feb. 6. Galinsky had just returned from two days campaigning door to door and farm to farm in upstate New York.
All you have to do is knock on doors in working-class neighborhoods and rural areas to hear about workers’ reality in today’s capitalist economic recovery — vacant homes, bankrupt farms, growing numbers of homeless and the blight of the opioid crisis. Veterans back from wars that never end.
And everyone knows, sooner or later it’ll be worse when the inevitable next downturn hits.
The capitalist rulers in the U.S., Europe and worldwide, despite their rivalries, have in common their class disdain for the men and women from nowhere — workers, farmers and other small producers.
But now they are beginning to fear us. You could see that in the reaction of many of the representatives of the capitalist class to the 2016 presidential election. Their view was epitomized by Hillary Clinton who called working people a “basket of deplorables.”
If working people won’t vote the way the “smart” people want, their answer is to take steps to restrict their right to vote!
That’s the same attitude as the British rulers who in the face of the majority vote — especially from working people — to get out of the European Union, refuse to implement that decision. They want to force another referendum to get workers to vote their way this time.
You can see it in the French rulers’ attacks on the tens of thousands of yellow vest protesters who keep coming back. The French government has fired rubber bullets at unarmed protesters and pushed a new law to sharply restrict the right to protest.
But working people everywhere have common interests — whether we’re wage slaves, as in the case of workers, or debt slaves like small farmers and other small proprietors. To fight effectively against the carnage of capitalism and the attacks of the bosses and their government, we need to break with all the bosses’ parties and rely on ourselves. Working people need to fight side by side, to show solidarity with each other’s strikes and protest actions, and in independent working-class political action.
That’s why the Socialist Workers Party is running a slate of candidates in local and state elections across the country. Our candidates and supporters are going door to door, in small towns and working-class neighborhoods in big cities, and farmhouse to farmhouse, to introduce the party, discuss the big questions on workers’ minds and point to the need for working people to organize to take political power into our own hands. We introduce everyone we meet to the Militant and to books by party leaders. We look to develop long-term collaboration and to win new members.
Join us!
