George Johnson
George Johnson, a former member and longtime supporter of the Socialist Workers Party, died after a long illness in Bend, Oregon, Oct. 15. He was 82.
Johnson served in the Army, stationed in South Korea in the late 1950s. After his discharge he worked as a journalist there and in Vietnam where he saw firsthand the role of U.S. imperialism.
After his return to the U.S., he joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1968. Johnson worked with GIs who organized protests against the U.S. rulers’ war in Vietnam and wrote about their struggle for the Militant newspaper.
He was the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate in California in 1980 and a member of party branches in San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Newark, Boston and Seattle.
After the party organized its members to work in industrial unions from 1978, Johnson was a member of party fractions in the United Auto Workers; the Machinists union; the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union; and in the garment industry.
He also volunteered in the party print shop and was a staff writer for the Militant in the early 1980s.
He and his companion Louise Goodman remained loyal supporters of the SWP.
Edwin Fruit
Seattle, Washington
Shocked at Trump coverage
I sympathize with most of your support for workers — that’s why I paid for a subscription. However, I now question that decision.
I cannot for a moment sympathize with your support for Donald Trump, who has shown no signs of genuine support for working people. He does not care about the regulations that protect them or that provide clean water, reliable health services, gun safety or safe environmental conditions.
He thinks it is more important to keep ambitious, resourceful, hopeful people out of the U.S. than it is to repair roads and bridges or improve educational programs in the U.S.
He makes lots of promises and lots of claims — why anyone believes him, I cannot fathom. He is so obviously on the side of Big Money and autocrats around the world. He is doing the exact opposite of “Making America Great Again.” One dramatic example of that is his withdrawal from collaborative efforts with other nations — collaborations like the Paris Climate accords and others that we used to lead.
I am shocked that the Militant would headline such a claim as “Liberals Drive to Oust Trump Built on Fear of Working Class.”
Virginia Wilkinson
by email
Bull’s-eye on impeachment
The Terry Evans article regarding impeachment history and the contempt phony liberals have for working people in general and the Trump voter specifically was dead on. Bull’s-eye. Keep up your courage.
John Lease
by email