Today’s discussion about what workers can do to fight back against the relentless attacks of the bosses and their government continues broadly, as results of the Nov. 2 elections offer no solutions for working people.
Socialist Workers Party campaigners continue to present the party and its program as they talk to working people on their doorsteps; build solidarity with workers striking for better conditions and wages; and join protests against the U.S. embargo of Cuba and in solidarity with working people in Sudan fighting to overturn the military coup there.
They explain why organizing solidarity with today’s strikes by unionists at John Deere, Kellogg’s, Warrior Met Coal and elsewhere is not only in the interests of all workers, but is the foundation for building the fighting labor movement we need. Workers who have gone on strike return to work with some gains, setting an example to millions who face bosses’ attempts to put the crisis of their system on our backs.
President Joseph Biden used his trip to the U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Glasgow, Scotland, to tout his so-called Build Back Better World Initiative, presenting his government as a defender of the “green economy.” The conference is a sham, where Biden and like-minded capitalist politicians spout doomsday talk about environmental disaster to instill panic, fear and paralysis among working people, while offering no serious answers to the real crisis workers face.
Republican Glenn Youngkin’s unexpected victory in the Virginia gubernatorial election reflects the ongoing political crisis that has been gripping the bosses’ twin Democratic and Republican parties since 2016.
Democratic Party candidate Terry McAuliffe tried to rally support by charging that Youngkin is an “acolyte” of Donald Trump. The Democrats’ answer to the fact they have no serious program to offer to working people is to campaign on their hatred for Trump and for the “deplorable” workers who voted for him or didn’t vote at all.
Democrats began to panic when Youngkin gained ground in the polls after McAuliffe scolded parents for having the nerve to “be telling schools what they should teach.” Many working-class parents — who liberals dismiss as reactionaries — object to schools teaching critical race theory, which says all Caucasians are inherently and irredeemably racist, and imposing “woke” pronoun requirements on students. The contempt for working people by the capitalist rulers and their two main parties has grown as the crisis of their system has intensified and more working people see the need for deep going change.
“Democrats and Republicans are both parties that defend capitalism,” Joanne Kuniansky, the SWP candidate for New Jersey governor, told NJ.com, a website of the Star Ledger. “It’s the lesser evil game that’s been a big obstacle to workers organizing our own party that fights in our interests.”
Kuniansky’s campaign has received regular press coverage. As the Militant goes to press the final results aren’t in, but so far 3,424 people have voted for the working-class candidate.
“I’m out campaigning for Joanne Kuniansky running for governor,” Evril Goldsberry, a resident of Rutherford, New Jersey, told her neighbors as she introduced them to the SWP candidate Oct. 31. “She’s a worker — she works with me at Walmart.”
Afterwards Goldsberry looked through SWP campaign literature over a coffee and told Kuniansky, “They don’t teach us anything about this in school.
Kuniansky pointed out we’re taught that history is made as a result of the actions of individuals. For example, they hide the fact that it was the disciplined actions of millions of working people, led by African Americans, that overturned Jim Crow segregation.
Goldsberry subscribed to the Militant and bought the book In Defense of the US Working Class. She suggested getting together with Kuniansky soon to study the book and the Militant.
There are three weeks to go in the international drive to sell 1,300 subscriptions to the Militant and an equal number of books by leaders of the SWP and other revolutionaries, and to raise $130,000 in the U.S. for the SWP.
Prisoner donates $100
A first-generation Cuban American who has been imprisoned in Florida for 18 years and subscribed to the Militant earlier this year sent in a check for $100. He writes that he was raised to oppose Cuba’s socialist revolution but now wants to “learn as much” as he can about the revolution Fidel Castro led “to continue his great works that help many around the world.”
“I cannot find in other newspapers” what is in the Militant, he writes, “which has led me to want to read further.”
Like workers on this side of the prison walls, he has been facing skyrocketing inflation in the prison canteen and extra money “comes in handy.” But when he got a windfall from the IRS he wanted to “donate a few dollars to the Militant and the struggle.”
Other workers, farmers and youth will want to do the same by contributing to the SWP Party-Building Fund. Every contribution makes it possible for SWP members to get the Militant and books into the hands of workers looking for a road forward.
Sara Lobman, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Manhattan Borough president, spoke to a school bus driver in the Bronx Oct. 31. “I told her why workers at John Deere and other companies are on strike,” Lobman said. “Everything from the bosses demanding lower pay for new hires, to forced overtime, slashing benefits, speedup, and cutting overtime pay.”
“She said, ‘The same thing is happening on my job!’” Lobman reports. The driver subscribed to the Militant and bought a copy of Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs. The book describes the strikes and organizing drives by the Teamsters union in Minneapolis in the 1930s, which built a movement to defend all working people.
In Minneapolis, Gabby Prosser and Dan Fein met hairdresser Raven Mosley as they campaigned for SWP candidates Doug Nelson for mayor and David Rosenfeld for City Council Ward 12. They showed her the book Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning Under Capitalism by Jack Barnes, Socialist Workers Party national secretary.
“I’ve been working for 20 years for everything I’ve got — they make millions while they’re sleeping,” Mosley said. She subscribed to the Militant and bought the book.
Help the SWP go over the top on all three goals for the propaganda campaign and fund drive! To find the branch of the party nearest you see the directory.