Around the country Socialist Workers Party candidates are speaking out against Washington’s bombardment of Iran and its mounting threats against the Cuban Revolution. They’re explaining that the working class can prevent the rulers’ march toward a third world war by taking political power into our own hands, as they campaign widely in the working class, at strike picket lines and political actions.
From the first day of the U.S. war on Iran, Margaret Trowe, SWP candidate for governor of California, and her supporters have been on the streets building opposition to Washington’s brutal assault on Iran’s sovereignty. Campaigners have met the requirements to place Trowe on the June ballot, turning in more than the 65 signatures of registered voters that are needed and raising thousands of dollars to pay the filing fee.
“Our party supports the Iranians who are fighting against the repressive regime in Iran, but the war the U.S. rulers are waging will not benefit working people there or anywhere,” Trowe told shoppers as she greeted them outside Farmer Joe’s Marketplace Feb. 28. “The goal of the U.S. rulers is to deepen their domination of the oil-rich region at the expense of their capitalist rivals and of working people.”
Near a Bay Area Rapid Transit station on March 7, SWP member Betsey Stone spoke with Robert Sandoval about the war. Sandoval agreed that the rulers in Washington are out to dominate the Middle East for their own profit, but the party’s explanation about the aims of Israel in the war was new to him.
“Israel’s goal in this war is different from that of the U.S. rulers,” Stone said. “The Iranian rulers are bent on destroying Israel. They build up Hamas and Hezbollah and their stock of missiles, and potential for creating a nuclear bomb, with this in mind.” Israel is defending its right to exist as a refuge from Jew-hatred. To learn more, Sandoval decided to subscribe to the Militant.
Trowe is one of 21 SWP candidates being fielded across 11 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. Efforts to win ballot status will begin later this month in New Jersey and in May in Minnesota.
In Fairburn, Georgia, Sam Manuel, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, spoke to Danny Wells, an auto mechanic, on his doorstep March 7.
“I am not for a military invasion of Cuba,” Wells told Manuel. Wells said he and his wife had heard many things about Cuba and in 2024 decided to go see the country for themselves. He showed Manuel photos from the trip.
“What Cuba needs is normal trade with all countries including the U.S.,” Wells said. Many Cubans had told him they were hopeful that the steps taken by the Barack Obama administration to ease relations between the two countries would go further.
“What Obama did was to look for another way to overturn the revolution,” Manuel explained. “Every U.S. administration has sought that goal in different ways for 67 years.”
Wells got a copy of the Militant to find out more about current conditions in Cuba.
In Fort Worth, Texas, Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for governor, spoke with Veronica Bosque in a Walmart parking lot.
“It’s not right what Trump is doing with this war,” Bosque told Kennedy. “He wants to control the oil. I’m afraid it will lead to a bigger war.”
“Both the Democrats and Republicans defend the interests of the wealthy capitalist class. This is what the U.S. war on Iran is all about,” Kennedy said. “Working people need to break from both of these parties. Preventing another world war depends on the working class taking power. Our class has no interest in destroying other countries for profit.”
Bosque asked why Jew-hatred exists. SWP member Gerardo Sánchez explained that Jews are scapegoated during capitalist crises. “This will increase,” he said, “the wealthy class will try to convince the working class that the Jews are causing these problems and not them.”
Bosque bought a subscription to the Militant and a Spanish-language copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
SWP members are finding a thirst to learn about Cuba’s socialist revolution at recent actions around the country demanding, “U.S. hands off Cuba.” At a picket line in Newark, New Jersey, March 8, nine of the 35 participants bought copies of Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa, Víctor Dreke’s firsthand account of Cuba’s decisive political and military aid to that successful liberation struggle.
To campaign with the SWP, and Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and the U.K., contact the area nearest you.
