The spring campaign to expand the reach of the Militant, books by Socialist Workers Party and other revolutionary working-class leaders and win contributions to this year’s Militant Fighting Fund kicked off March 14 and runs through May 12. Members of the party and the Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and the U.K. are discussing with fellow workers what our class can do in the face of the increasing capitalist rivalry and march toward another world war.
The campaign will go side by side with introducing workers and youth to SWP candidates for office, as well as efforts to win ballot status in California, Minnesota and New Jersey.
Communist League members Katy LeRougetel and Lynda Little knocked on the door of Ramina Kamani and Meysam Majdi, two Iranians living in Montreal, March 14. Kamani and Majdi said they supported President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, hoping it would end the repression facing the Iranian people and lead to the fall of the regime.
Little explained why the Communist League opposes the war and calls for the U.S. imperialists to get their forces out of the Middle East. “Washington’s aim is to advance the interests of the U.S. ruling class,” she said, “not to aid Iranian working people.”
Right of Israel to defend itself
Kamani and Majdi said they supported Israel’s right to defend itself. “In elementary school, they forced us to go into the streets to shout ‘Death to America, death to Israel.’ They painted Israeli and American flags on the ground at school so we would walk on them,” Kamani said. “We were children and we didn’t understand.”
Little agreed. The Communist League supports Israel’s war to defend its existence as a refuge for Jews.
Kamani signed up for a subscription to the Militant, saying she’d like to meet again over coffee to continue the discussion.
In Minneapolis, Socialist Workers Party member Joanne Murphy spoke with Elijah Jackson, a retired press operator and member of the Teamsters union, while campaigning for Kevin Dwire, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Minnesota, March 14. When Jackson saw the Militant headline “Get all U.S. bombers, troops, warships out of the Mideast!” he said, “We got into this mess and have to get out. We need peace on earth!”
Murphy said that there isn’t a “we” but a “them.” It’s the U.S. ruling class, not workers, that are pushing more wars. She contrasted Washington’s wars for domination and plunder with Cuba’s working-class internationalism, pointing to the hundreds of thousands of Cuban volunteers who joined battles to help liberate African nations from colonial rule.
Jackson bought a subscription to the Militant and a copy of Malcolm X Talks to Young People. The book contains Malcolm’s speeches where, over time, he speaks more and more directly about the capitalist roots of racism, exploitation and oppression.
“Young people need to read more books like this,” Jackson said.
In Birmingham, England, Mike Masters, a Unite shop steward at the Perry Barr refuse depot, met Communist League campaigners at a March 11 demonstration to mark one year of their strike.
“I was brought up as a union fighter in the spirit of solidarity,” Masters said. “My parents worked at the Longbridge car plant and told me that during the 1972 coal miners strike, thousands of Birmingham car workers and others in the city walked out to join the picketing. They forced the closure of the Saltley coke depot — a major step in the strike’s victory.
Support for Cuban Revolution
“I began to get interested in broader politics and history,” he said. “I spent six weeks in Cuba in 2005 and learned about the Cuban Revolution and the people who made it.” Masters got a subscription to the Militant and bought a copy of Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Víctor Dreke.
Outside Farmer Joe’s Marketplace in Oakland, California, Joann Yoshioka, a strong supporter of immigrant rights, signed the petition to get Margaret Trowe, the SWP candidate for governor, on the ballot Feb. 28. “Declaring a city a sanctuary for immigrants is not going to stop raids and deportations,” SWP member Betsey Stone told her. “What we need is a fight for amnesty for workers without papers.”
“More has to be done,” Yoshioka agreed. “‘Sanctuary City’ is a joke.”
She explained that her family members were among the Japanese interned in concentration camps by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration during World War II. Yoshioka purchased Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power, two books on the Cuban Revolution and a subscription to the Militant.
U.S. out of the Middle East
While campaigning March 9 for the Socialist Workers Party at a Walmart parking lot in Forest Park, outside Chicago, SWP member Dan Fein spoke with Alexander Rodriguez, a painter. “I agree with the headline of the Militant, ‘US out of the Middle East!’” Rodriguez said.
“The U.S. aims to establish its Pax Americana there, its political and economic domination,” Fein said.
“The war is about oil,” Rodriguez said. “The workers are the ones that get killed in the bosses’ wars.”
After Rodriguez filled out a subscription form for the Militant, Fein introduced him to Naomi Craine, the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate. Rodriguez said he was glad to meet her and told Craine he participated in nearby weekly demonstrations against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The first chart, with quotas adopted by local areas for subscriptions, books and the Militant Fighting Fund will appear in next week’s issue.
To join in campaigning for the SWP candidates and to help get the Militant around, contact the area nearest you.