BLOOMFIELD, N.J. — Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself as a refuge for Jews, and the importance to the working class everywhere of the fight against Jew-hatred were central to discussions that Socialist Workers Party campaigners had knocking on doors and introducing themselves at supermarkets.
They described the SWP program, offered the Militant and books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries and signed people up to win ballot status for Rachele Fruit, the party’s candidate for president, and Joanne Kuniansky for U.S. Senate. These teams campaigned across New Jersey April 15, two days after the reactionary Iranian regime’s drone and missile assault on Israel.
“The most important thing is getting peace in the world,” Joanny Montesino told Kuniansky.
“I’ve heard that from many people,” Kuniansky said. Israel’s war to defeat Hamas, and Ukraine’s efforts to defend its independence are just wars.
“But more wars are inevitable under capitalism. It’s a system driven by competition to maximize profits. We’re building a movement that can lead workers to take power out of the hands of the capitalist class in the U.S. and join the worldwide struggle for socialism.”
Montesino signed to put Fruit and Kuniansky on the ballot.
A woman from Nigeria stopped by to hear about the SWP campaign.
“Hamas must be defeated and dismantled,” Kuniansky explained.
“Tell me about it. We know all about these kinds of groups, we have Boko Haram where I come from,” she replied, referring to the reactionary Islamist terror outfit based in northern Nigeria.
“I wish the world could be at peace,” Tyrique Blount told Kuniansky. “As long as U.S. imperialism exists that won’t be possible,” Kuniansky said. “Israel is a refuge for the Jewish people, its fight to defeat Hamas is in the interests of all workers.”
“Yes, Israel must defend itself,” Blount agreed, as he signed the petition. “Hamas has brought no benefits to the Palestinians.”
Not everyone agreed with what SWP campaigners had to say.
“I empathize with the Jewish people because of the history of antisemitism,” one woman told SWP campaigner Sarah Ullman. “But today Israel has its fist on the necks of the Palestinians, so they’re bound to resist.”
“What happened on Oct. 7 had nothing to do with resisting oppression. It was a pogrom orchestrated by the regime in Iran,” Ullman replied. “Hamas is not a liberation organization. It is a reactionary Islamist threat to Jews and Palestinians alike, and has to be defeated.”
‘US war in Iraq was for rich people’
Iraq war veteran Shaeyne Clark stopped to talk. “As soon as I got to Iraq I realized this was a war for rich people, it was a war for oil,” he told Kuniansky. “The opening guns of a third world war were sounded by the Iraq war,” she replied. “The only way to end war is for workers to take power from the capitalist class. The SWP exists to lead that struggle in the U.S.”
“I don’t agree with the way they dumb down what children learn at schools today,” Clark, who is now a science teacher, said. “Kids need to be taught problem-solving and critical thinking.”
“The rulers don’t recognize the capacities of working people to learn, much less the capacities of workers to organize society,” Kuniansky said. “These are things workers learn about ourselves in the class struggle.” Clark signed to put the SWP on the ballot.
Several people who stopped to talk to party campaigners wanted to discuss the challenges workers face starting families. “I’m a single mother, it’s overwhelming,” Minerva Antoine, a children’s teacher, said as she signed. “The conditions in so many jobs are hard and the wages aren’t enough to survive.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Kuniansky said. “Conditions can be changed when workers join together and use our unions.”
“I pay $250 a week to get the little one looked after and another $300 for my other child,” single mom Karlas de la Cruz told Kuniansky. “That comes out of $1,800 a week I take home as a health care provider. And I’m not eligible for food stamps.”
“It’ll take a fight by the labor movement to change this,” Kuniansky replied, saying she had joined flight attendants rallying for a better contract at Newark airport a few days earlier. “We need cost-of-living adjustments in all contracts so when prices rise our wages go up automatically.”
Kuniansky pointed to gains won by unions, from the autoworkers strike last year and the labor battles that built the industrial unions in the 1930s. “The bosses always try to take back what unions win. To make lasting gains we need to take political power into our own hands,” she said. She pointed to the example of Cuba’s socialist revolution. “As we lead toward that kind of mass movement, we join union fights for the things workers need today.” De la Cruz signed to put Kuniansky on the ballot.
“A lot of things don’t get talked about,” Veronda Clark, a nurse for 32 years who’s now on disability, told SWP campaigner Arrin Hawkins. Hawkins was describing how the bosses’ drive for profit led to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Clark pointed to similar disasters in other cities.
Powerful record of working-class struggles
“It’ll take struggles by working people and our unions to win control over working conditions,” Hawkins replied, pointing to the experiences of previous working-class struggles, “like the movement for civil rights that got rid of Jim Crow segregation.” Clark signed up to get Fruit and Kuniansky on the ballot.
“I’m for Trump, I won’t sign for a socialist,” retired hairdresser Virginia Mondsini told this Militant reporter on her way into the store. “If you disagree with his politics that’s fine, but what these judges are doing to him is all wrong,” she added.
“The cases against Trump are serious assaults on constitutional freedoms that all workers have a stake in defending,” I said, to her surprise.
“Well I hope more people see through the media facade,” she said. “What they’re doing to Trump is bad for future generations.”
When she finished her shopping, Mondsini sought out the SWP campaigners and got a copy of the Militant.
Campaigning here was part of a three-day effort in towns across the state during which 560 people signed to put the SWP candidates on the ballot.
To date, more than 1,200 have signed up to get Fruit on the ballot, toward the goal of 1,700, over double the state’s requirement of 800. A similar number have also signed for Kuniansky. Party campaigners also sold 22 subscriptions to the Militant and 20 Pathfinder books.
The New Jersey ballot drive overlaps with the SWP’s eight-week spring campaign to sell 1,350 Militant subscriptions, 1,350 books and to raise $165,000 to meet the expenses of publishing the paper. There are three weeks left to make all three goals. To find out more or volunteer to help, contact the SWP branch nearest you.
