Over the coming weeks, members of the Socialist Workers Party, and the Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and United Kingdom will be building on the successful completion of their spring campaigns that expanded the reach of the Militant by over 1,400 subscribers, raised over $165,000 to fund the paper and got over 1,800 books by SWP and other revolutionary leaders into the hands of working people looking for a road forward.
They continue to work to introduce the SWP, its election campaigns and the Militant and books. Josefina Otero and Alyson Kennedy, who was the party’s candidate for mayor of Fort Worth, went to Comanche, Texas, a small town of just over 2,000 in a dairy farming area about two hours southwest of Fort Worth May 16. They spoke to Benny Lopez in front of a tractor and farm supply store there.
“I grew up near here on a small dairy farm. I live in Santa Ana, a few miles away, and worked in Dallas for 30 years as an electrical lineman and moved back here to retire,” he said. “I have a dozen cattle and want to get more and ranch with my son.” They showed him the Militant coverage supporting the fight of Ukrainian working people to defend their independence against Moscow’s invasion.
“I’ve been following what is going on in Ukraine and support their fight,” Lopez said. “I think it’s important to know about what is going on in the world.” He got a Militant subscription and The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward by SWP leaders Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters and Steve Clark.
SWP members will be getting back in touch with recent subscribers, discussing their reaction to the paper’s coverage of the battles of workers and farmers here and abroad, and to the party’s program. They’ll encourage new readers to renew their subscriptions and to join the party and its candidates in activity — from attending strike picket lines to joining protests like opposition to the brutal repression organized today by the reactionary regime in Iran.
“This outreach, leading up to the SWP-sponsored International Educational Conference at Oberlin College in Ohio, June 8-11, and afterwards will be part of stepped-up efforts to campaign for the SWP candidates in elections this year and into 2024,” said John Studer, the editor of the Militant and SWP national campaign director.
Eleven featured Pathfinder books are available to subscribers at special reduced prices (see ad), and all other Pathfinder titles are available at 20% off. Party members will continue to prioritize introducing The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us.
The book explains, “A decades-long retreat by the working class and unions has come to an end as owners of capital and their parties shift the burden of their crisis onto working people’s backs. More and more workers — of all ages, skin colors, and both sexes — are saying, ‘Enough is enough!’ They’ve begun to wield the collective power of the exploited producers in response.” The book is on special for $7 until May 31 and for $5 for anyone with a Militant subscription.