“Working people today are keenly interested in how we can organize to fight to change the disastrous conditions we face worldwide — from Afghanistan, to Haiti, to the Middle East and here in mines, mills and other workplaces across the U.S.,” John Studer, Socialist Workers Party national campaign director, told the Militant. “We all face a relentless offensive by the capitalist rulers, whose dog-eat-dog profit system drives them to attack working people at home and abroad.”
Supporters of SWP campaigns on the West Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle are organizing a coordinated campaign push Aug. 19-23 across California. Joel Britton, SWP candidate for State Assembly District 18 in the Bay Area, joined the speakers platform at a Los Angeles campaign forum Aug. 14. Dennis Richter, SWP candidate on the ballot in the recently ordered special recall election for governor of California, will be joining the forum platform in Oakland Aug. 21.
Teams will visit with workers in northern California in the region being devastated by the huge Dixie Fire, as well as to Salinas, where 19-year-old Gerardo Martinez, an indigenous Mexican immigrant, was killed by cops July 16. The tour, and response to the campaign, will be covered in the next issue of the Militant.
“Workers want to discuss how we can chart a road out of the catastrophes prepared by capitalist exploitation and oppression,” Studer said.
“They look to learn about any fight being carried out by workers and farmers and to seek ways to help,” he said. “The 20 Socialist Workers Party-endorsed candidates across the country are getting out the word and building solidarity with coal miners fighting attacks by bosses at the Warrior Met mine complex in Alabama and other labor battles.
“We’re knocking on doors in cities, towns and rural areas, on picket lines and protests, discussing the roots of today’s crisis in capitalist exploitation,” he said, “and how we can organize to build a working-class movement to take political power into our own hands.”
n Atlanta, Susan LaMont reports that Rachele Fruit, SWP candidate for mayor, accompanied Sam Manuel, the party’s candidate for City Council president, who successfully filed to get on the ballot Aug. 17 for the Nov. 2 elections there.
Valerie Edwards, a stationary engineer at a university in Atlanta, joined other campaign supporters when the two candidates filed.
“The Socialist Workers Party candidates present a new perspective, one that concentrates on the working class and what we need to do,” she told the Militant. The capitalist political parties aren’t getting working people anywhere, she said, so she has been “explaining that we have to look in a different direction as workers.”
To find out more or to join the SWP or Communist League campaigns, or to make a contribution, contact the party branch nearest you in the directory.