https://themilitant.com/2018/08/18/swp-fight-for-independent-working-class-political-action/
SWP: Fight for independent working-class political action
By Emma Johnson
Vol. 82/No. 32
August 27, 2018
As historic changes are taking place in the world — in Korea, the Middle
East, Europe and elsewhere — members and supporters of the Socialist
Workers Party are taking their class-struggle program broadly to working
people. They knock on workers’ doors in cities, towns and rural areas to
explain where these changes come from, and why workers need to chart an
independent political course — from the capitalist rulers, their parties
and their state — on the road to overturn their system and take
political power.
Where bourgeois media and parties beholden to this oppressive system
confuse and obfuscate, the SWP reaches out to discuss and contest the
political issues and labor battles confronting working people today. The
party speaks out against every attack, abuse and indignity aimed at the
working class and the oppressed, and acts to advance the fighting unity
of the working class.
“Neither party does anything. They have us going back and forth between
them,” Enochio Taylor told Helen Meyers, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate
from Minnesota, outside her home in St. Paul Aug. 12. Taylor works two
jobs, as housekeeper in a hospital and as a personal care attendant. She
said she didn’t think there was really a choice between Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump in the last election.
“I would have voted for Bernie Sanders,” Taylor said. “But he didn’t
make it.”
Helen Meyers, left, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Minnesota, met
Enochio Taylor in St. Paul Aug. 12. They discussed need for independent
working-class political action.
Militant/Rebecca Finch
Helen Meyers, left, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Minnesota, met
Enochio Taylor in St. Paul Aug. 12. They discussed need for independent
working-class political action.
Meyers said that workers have to break with the Democrats, the
Republicans and all so-called independent pro-capitalist parties. “We
need to unite and fight in our own interests,” she said. “The SWP
believes working people are capable of taking power and running society.”
“Most people don’t know that Clinton signed the legislation that put all
those additional people in jail — and they make money off them,” Taylor
said, referring to the bipartisan legislation President Bill Clinton
signed into law in 1996 that expanded mandatory federal prison
sentences. She was looking at The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record:
Why Washington Fears Working People by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes, that Meyers showed her. It is one of five books party members
offer on special. (See ad below.)
Taylor said she remembered Clinton also dismantled Aid to Families With
Dependent Children the same year, ending “welfare as we know it,” one of
the deepest attacks on Social Security in decades.
She decided to subscribe to the Militant and asked to be kept informed
about what the SWP campaign was doing.
Amnesty for all immigrants
In April, immigration cops raided the Southeastern Provision
meat-processing plant and arrested 97 workers in Morristown, Tennessee.
SWP members Janice Lynn and Sam Manuel visited there Aug. 10-11 to talk
to workers about the impact of the raid and explain why the party calls
for amnesty for all workers without papers in the U.S.
“Growing up I used to believe what they tell you, that immigrants get
free benefits that we don’t get,” Judy Holt, a 54-year-old former
factory worker, told them outside her home in a trailer park. “They say
they get free housing. No, they don’t. Welfare, food stamps. No, they
don’t. I know, because my daughter married a Mexican immigrant. He has
worked hard for everything he has.” She opposed the raid and
deportations, and said many others there did too.
She also got a subscription and a copy of The Clintons’
Anti-Working-Class Record.
Some workers thought the raid was good. Lee, who declined to give his
last name, said he didn’t vote for either Trump or Clinton, but supports
the deportations. “I think all immigrants should go,” he said. “They
just come here for the benefits.”
Sam Manuel met Judy Holt on her doorstep in Morristown, Tennessee, Aug.
11, as SWP members went through the area to discuss the April
immigration cops’ raid and arrests at a nearby meat-processing plant.
Like many others, Holt opposed raid and subsequent deportations.
Militant/Janice Lynn
Sam Manuel met Judy Holt on her doorstep in Morristown, Tennessee, Aug.
11, as SWP members went through the area to discuss the April
immigration cops’ raid and arrests at a nearby meat-processing plant.
Like many others, Holt opposed raid and subsequent deportations.
“We support amnesty for all undocumented workers,” Lynn said. “Our party
thinks all workers, no matter their country of origin, should be organized.”
Winning an amnesty is essential to unite the working class against boss
attempts to divide us and drive down working conditions and wages for
all, the two SWP members explained. And as workers live and work side by
side and face attacks by the bosses side by side, they’ve become more
and more open to this fight.
Lee decided not to get the paper, but thanked Lynn and Manuel for their
discussion.
The two SWP campaigners met Keith West, 45, who works in a nearby coin
mint organized by the United Steelworkers. He got into a discussion
about the unions. “My union isn’t worth anything, but what can you do?”
he asked.
Manuel said that the protests in West Virginia and elsewhere by teachers
earlier this year, and the broad support they won from other workers,
show that it’s possible to build a fighting labor movement that can
change things.
The SWP points to how the class-collaborationist course of the union
officials, identifying the interests of the workers with the fortunes of
the bosses and their government, has severely weakened the labor
movement for more than half a century.
The teachers strikes were a first glimmer of bigger struggles to come,
Manuel said, where workers will transform the unions, drawing in
millions. They’ll mobilize to fight the bosses, and unite with others to
overthrow their government and take power.
West decided to try a subscription, saying he was interested in finding
out more about how to fight for a road forward for the working class. He
said he disliked both the Democrats and Republicans.
To find out more about the Socialist Workers Party or its sister
Communist Leagues in other countries, check out the directory.
Related Articles
Parties like the SWP are ‘tribunes of the people’
Below are excerpts from What Is to Be Done? by V.I. Lenin. It was
published in March 1902 and discusses what kind of party is needed to
lead the workers and farmers to overthrow the capitalist rulers and take
political…
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Gov’t immigration raid sparks Nebraska protests
•Socialist Workers Party: ‘Amnesty for immigrants!’
•15,000 Uber drivers strike over pay cuts in Australia
•SWP: Fight for independent working-class political action
•Join fight against censorship in Illinois, Florida prisons!
•Primaries expose ongoing crisis wracking both capitalist parties
Feature Articles •Venezuela: Workers, farmers face effects of capitalist
crisis
Also In This Issue •Protests hit Quebec festival move to shut musical revue
•Parties like the SWP are ‘tribunes of the people’
•Argentine supporters of right to abortion say ‘we will win’
•TSA ‘Quiet Skies’ spy program targets passengers
•US, EU rulers clash over trade, spending for NATO
•Support grows for fight to jail cop who killed Antwon Rose
Books of the Month •'A revolution is occurring among the women of our
country!'
25, 50 and 75 years ago
© Copyright 2018 The Militant - 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor - New
York, NY 10018 - themilitant@xxxxxx