https://themilitant.com/2019/01/26/swp-dallas-campaign-attracts-working-class-interest-in-texas/
SWP Dallas campaign attracts working-class interest in Texas
By Paul Mailhot
Vol. 83/No. 5
February 4, 2019
SWP Dallas campaign attracts working-class interest in Texas
DALLAS — “Really the only way to change things is what they are doing,”
Katelyn Galbreath told Socialist Workers Party campaigner Sarah Ullman,
pointing to the photo of Kentucky teachers protesting at the state
Capitol last year depicted on the front cover of In Defense of the US
Working Class, a new book by Mary-Alice Waters. “The advantage we have
is that there are more of us.”
Ullman was knocking on doors here campaigning for Alyson Kennedy,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor. Following their discussion
about the conditions working people face, and how it is possible to
fight to change them, Galbreath told Ullman, “I’m probably a socialist too.”
“I’m probably a socialist, too,” Katelyn Galbreath told Socialist
Workers Party campaigner Sarah Ullman, right, after they talked when
Ullman knocked on her door in East Dallas, Jan 17.
Militant/George Chalmers
“I’m probably a socialist, too,” Katelyn Galbreath told Socialist
Workers Party campaigner Sarah Ullman, right, after they talked when
Ullman knocked on her door in East Dallas, Jan 17.
Kennedy and her campaign supporters have been going door to door in
working-class neighborhoods in Dallas and the greater Dallas-Fort Worth
region. “We have gotten a good response everywhere we go talking about
the Socialist Workers Party,” SWP campaign director George Chalmers told
the Militant. “We get out the map to plan where we’re going town to
town. We’ve been to Midlothian, Waxahachie, Weatherford, Tyler, Canton
and other places in the region, as well as all over Dallas. We’ve found
that many of the smaller cities and towns have substantial industries
and farming areas around them, where workers have been harder hit by the
capitalist economic crisis than in Dallas.”
After meeting Kennedy when she knocked on his door in West Dallas,
26-year-old Manuel Palacios came to a public campaign meeting Jan. 19
featuring Kennedy; Dan Fein, SWP candidate for Chicago mayor; and
Osborne Hart, SWP candidate for mayor in Philadelphia. “I came to find
out more about the Kennedy for Dallas campaign,” Palacios told the
Militant, “but I got interested in what the other candidates had to say
too — about the police on trial for murder in Chicago, the high suicide
rate among struggling farmers, and the solidarity of construction
workers in Pittsburgh supporting nurses on strike there.”
Some 25 people attended the event marking the first full week of
campaigning. A co-worker of Kennedy’s, originally from Mexico, who has
been helping to campaign door to door with her, was also on hand for the
meeting.
Kennedy thanked all those who had come to Dallas to fan out and talk to
working people throughout the region about the Socialist Workers Party.
“When we go door to door, workers want to tell us what they’re going
through,” Kennedy said. “And there’s a lot of interest in the SWP’s
program, which points to the need for the working class to take
political power to end the system of exploitation that is damaging so
many working people.
“A lot of workers, self-employed laborers and drivers, small proprietors
and others we meet want to talk about immigration and the border wall
being promoted by President Trump,” Kennedy said. “They see this as an
important issue for working people to discuss. We explain to everyone
that we advocate amnesty for the millions of undocumented workers in
this country, many of whom have lived and worked in the United States
for years. Their children have grown up here, and spent their years in
school here.”
“We find a lot of support for this position,” she said.
“Amnesty is needed to strengthen the entire working class. When millions
of workers here are forced into second-class status, fearful about
deportation if they speak out and fight for their rights, for higher pay
and safe working conditions, and for unions, it means all workers are
less capable of making gains,” Kennedy said. “In addition, I talk about
the need for the labor movement to build solidarity with workers’
struggles in other countries. The solution to the devastating conditions
around the world isn’t for every worker to pour into the U.S.; it’s for
solidarity among workers across borders and for the working class in all
countries to fight for political power, just like we need to do here.”
‘How can I help?’
Kennedy described some of the workers she and her campaign supporters
are meeting door to door, what they’re discussing, and how they’re
buying books about working-class politics and the Militant newspaper,
and their willingness to sign the petition to get her on the ballot.
Many have offered to help.
One worker wrote to Kennedy after reading about her campaign. He wants
to help after he is finished with a maintenance shutdown at a GM plant
where he is working seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day.
Another worker at the Lockheed Martin-Marietta plant, who campaigners
met on a trip to Weatherford, said he agreed with the socialist
candidate that raising a family is no longer affordable for young
people. He bought Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers
Power by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes and emptied out his coin
jar to contribute $37.
Kelly Alford in East Dallas said she wanted to help petition to get
Alyson Kennedy, right, SWP candidate for Dallas mayor, on the ballot,
and to consider joining the May Day brigade to Cuba.
Militant/EdwinFruit
Kelly Alford in East Dallas said she wanted to help petition to get
Alyson Kennedy, right, SWP candidate for Dallas mayor, on the ballot,
and to consider joining the May Day brigade to Cuba.
In East Dallas, Kennedy met Kelly Alford and spoke to her about the SWP
campaign. “How can I help?” Alford asked. “How can we expect changes
when no matter who we vote for the same kind of people always end up in
power?”
“The capitalists’ response to today’s crisis of their system is to try
and drive down wages and our standard of living to ensure their
profits,” Kennedy said. “The government of the Democrats and Republicans
backs this setup.”
Alford said she is concerned about police brutality, racism, capitalism,
women’s rights and the environment. She got a subscription to the
Militant and signed the petition to put Kennedy on the ballot. “Can I
have a petition to take to the dry cleaners where I work?” she asked. “I
think I can get some signatures.” She also wants more information on the
upcoming May Day brigade to Cuba.
Widespread press coverage
Novedades, a Dallas/Fort Worth Spanish-language newspaper with a press
run of 100,000, featured a front-page lead article on Kennedy’s
campaign, titled, “Former Presidential Candidate Aspires to Dallas
Mayor’s Office.” The lengthy article outlines the SWP candidate’s
working-class program. And it describes her participation in the 2003-06
United Mine Workers union struggle in central Utah where she joined with
her Mexican co-workers to fight for a contract.
The Dallas Observer assigned a writer to interview Kennedy and to go
with her as she campaigned door to door. SWP campaigners have met many
people door to door who have read coverage of the campaign in the Dallas
Morning News and other papers and have been impressed by the serious
articles about a working-class candidate.
Nine candidates have announced they are running for mayor here. They
include lawyers, real estate developers, former aides in the Bill
Clinton campaign, CEOs who describe themselves as philanthropists, and
others who represent the wealthy beneficiaries of capitalist
exploitation. Kennedy’s short biography, run alongside all the others in
each Morning News article about the mayor’s race, presents Kennedy’s
starkly different working-class life and perspective:
“Occupation: Wal-Mart employee. Kennedy was a minor candidate for
president in 2016, earning a spot on seven states’ ballots. Now, the
socialist candidate says she wants to improve conditions for workers in
Dallas.”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Los Angeles teachers won with broad strike support
•UK capitalist rulers ‘Brexit’ political crisis continues on
•Florida voting rights victory spurs fights in Iowa, Kentucky
•SWP Dallas campaign attracts working-class interest in Texas
•Liberal, FBI anti-Trump ‘resistance’ is a threat to working people’s rights
Feature Articles •José Ramón Fernández: Revolutionary of exemplary integrity
Also In This Issue •Chicago cop who killed Laquan McDonald gets prison
•SWP takes books, ‘Militant’ broadly to working people
•Readers contribute to winter appeal for ‘Militant’
•An Unconditional Soldier of the Revolution
•‘Don’t make us go West Virginia on you!’
Books of the Month •Jew-hatred incited by capitalist rulers in times of
crisis
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Corrections
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