Supporters of the campaign of Rachele Fruit, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president, are introducing the party’s working-class program far and wide, urging working people to endorse the campaign, break with the capitalist parties and take steps toward independent working-class political action.
In a discussion with SWP members John Staggs and Ved Dookhun May 2 at the United Steelworkers Local 10-234 union hall, long-time trade unionist and Militant subscriber Denis Stephano signed as an endorser of Fruit’s campaign. Stephano is the retired president of this local in Linwood, Pennsylvania.
“The SWP has always supported all of the union struggles we’ve been through,” said Stephano. “More so than any other political organization.”
Displayed in the union hall was literature promoting various Democratic Party candidates. Stephano said he had been asked to pass this out in the past, especially for Hillary Clinton, “which I have done.” But it’s a “total waste of time” because these Democrats never end up supporting the unions, he said.
Stephano said he agreed with the SWP’s fight against Jew-hatred and its defense of Israel as a refuge for Jews. He bought three copies of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class as well as The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward.
And, he said, “Here’s $40 for the campaign.”
During the discussion, Staggs and Dookhun saw displayed on the wall of the union hall a Militant article Stephano had posted on the Canadian rail disaster in 2013 that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and on the Canadian government’s failed efforts to frame up the engineer, a member of USW Local 1976. “The Militant is the only place you could get the truth about that,” Stephano said.
Along with winning campaign endorsers, members of the SWP and the Communist Leagues in Canada, Australia and the U.K. are heading into the last week of the international campaign to win 1,350 subscribers to the Militant, to sell the same number of books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries, and to raise $165,000 for the Militant Fighting Fund.
A Militant Labor Forum in Montreal titled “The rise of Jew-hatred on campuses, the product of growing class polarization” opened a lively discussion May 4. One participant said, “If we recognize the injustice of Hamas’ actions, we must also do so for Israel’s. Why should Israel be against a Palestinian state?”
He was answered by first-time forum participant Shay Bas, who came with his daughter, Melissa, a junior college student. “Arabs are taught that Jews are killers. But 2 million Arabs live in Israel today, no problem,” he said. “We must find a way to live together. But what is Israel to do, open its borders to the Hamas terrorists?
“I grew up here,” he added, “and antisemitism in Canada is not because of Palestine, it’s been in Canada for a long time.”
“Israel is a refuge for Jews but not a solution,” CL member Joe Young said. “Only by leading a socialist revolution can the working class wipe out Jew-hatred.”
After the forum Bas and his daughter got a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch.
‘Workers need to run government’
Family caregiver Lynnette Valentine, an African American, invited Ved Dookhun, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, and campaign supporters Abby Tilsner and Janet Post into her Philadelphia home May 4 to talk about the campaign.
“I don’t like how hard-working people are abused, manipulated and scammed,” Valentine told them. She was talking about not only workers’ treatment by the bosses, but a breakdown in solidarity among working people that can lead to illegal schemes or drug dealing that takes advantage of other workers. “Of course those involved are hurting themselves, too,” she said.
“During the civil rights movement you saw much less of that,” said Dookhun, “Workers were joining together in a common struggle for their rights. Today, workers are starting to stand up again, like the autoworkers in the South fighting for a union. They are gaining confidence.”
Valentine had also worked as a nurses’ aid, but was let go for “caring too much,” she said. “When a patient rang a bell for help I answered it whether it was my patient or not. I couldn’t stand to not help them.” Tilsner told Valentine, “If working people ran the government and economy, health care would be for human needs and not for profits. We would always ‘answer the bell.’”
“This is another reason why a labor party, a party of working people based on the unions, and a break from the Democrats and Republicans, is so important,” said Dookhun.
Valentine bought a Militant subscription; and got copies of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch; Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power; and The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us.