https://themilitant.com/2019/01/12/socialist-workers-party-launches-texas-campaign/
Socialist Workers Party launches Texas campaign
‘We’re going to campaign all throughout the state’
By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 83/No. 3
January 21, 2019
Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for Dallas mayor, introduces SWP to Jorge
Méndez Jan. 8.
Militant/George Chalmers
Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for Dallas mayor, introduces SWP to Jorge
Méndez Jan. 8.
Supporters of the campaign of Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party
candidate for Dallas mayor, are planning two weeks of intensive
campaigning Jan 12-26.
“We’re going to go all over Texas,” George Chalmers, who is organizing
the campaigning, said by phone Jan. 8. As she campaigns, Kennedy
explains that no movement to defend the interests of working people can
be successful and take political power out of the hands of the
capitalist class unless it unites in struggle those who labor in big
cities, small towns and farm areas.
Supporters of the Socialist Workers Party from around the country are
heading to Texas to help campaign.
“There’s rail lines that radiate out of Dallas all over the state,”
Chalmers said. “And a lot of small towns dot the rail lines. We’re going
to follow the rail tracks and knock on workers’ doors to introduce the
party and its working-class program.”
“We’re going to talk to cattle ranchers, farmworkers, rail workers,
truck drivers, U.S.-born workers and immigrants,” he said. “And as we do
so, we’ll also go to working-class neighborhoods in every corner of
Dallas to get the signatures we need to put Kennedy on the ballot.” She
filed her candidacy Jan. 8.
“We’ll find out more about the conditions workers, farmers and small
proprietors face and meet people who are interested in learning about
the Socialist Workers Party,” Chalmers said. “Some will want to join.”
Like elsewhere in Texas and across the country, working people in the
Dallas-Ft. Worth area are being hit hard by boss and government attacks
as they try and boost profit rates amid an ongoing crisis of capitalist
production and trade. “People get angry when we explain that at least 52
construction and other workers have been killed on the job here over the
last two years,” Chalmers said.
Kennedy says not one worker should die on the job. Workers need to
organize and fight to win control over conditions on the job to ensure
that everything they do is done safely. When she worked as an
underground coal miner, Kennedy explains, this was what the United Mine
Workers union fought for and, at least for a period of time, won.
“Already some of Kennedy’s co-workers at Walmart are going to take
petitions to sign people up to put her on the ballot,” Chalmers said.
“We’re inviting people to help out, campaign with us, take flyers, take
petitions, show their friends, relatives and co-workers the Militant
and books by leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and about the
example of the Cuban Revolution.”
Dan Fein, SWP candidate for mayor of Chicago, talks with bottled-water
delivery driver Chris Hartzol Jan. 6. Fein is one of over a dozen SWP
candidates in 10 states. “The companies these days are pushing us to
work faster, but don’t increase our pay,” Hartzol said. “The way that I
see it, it’s corporate America.” Fein replied, “It’s the dictatorship of
capital.”
Militant/Leroy Watson
Dan Fein, SWP candidate for mayor of Chicago, talks with bottled-water
delivery driver Chris Hartzol Jan. 6. Fein is one of over a dozen SWP
candidates in 10 states. “The companies these days are pushing us to
work faster, but don’t increase our pay,” Hartzol said. “The way that I
see it, it’s corporate America.” Fein replied, “It’s the dictatorship of
capital.”
The SWP is running over a dozen candidates in 10 states. “We aim to
speak in the interests of all the exploited and oppressed,” SWP national
campaign director John Studer told the Militant. “We explain working
people need to build a movement of millions to fight to defend ourselves
against the attacks of the bosses, their parties and their government,
and to organize to take political power into our own hands.”
Kennedy and other party members went knocking on workers’ doors in North
Dallas Jan. 8. “We’re calling for all U.S. troops to get out of the
Middle East and Afghanistan,” Kennedy told those they met. “Working
people there need to fight to control their own destiny. The best way
workers in the U.S. can help them find a road forward is to demand
Washington get out now.”
Jorge Méndez, 22, a cook, was one of the people they met. “Life in the
U.S. is better than in Mexico,” Méndez said. “The money here is low, but
it’s still way more than in Mexico.”
That’s true, Kennedy said. “In fact, U.S. capitalists want immigrants
without ‘proper’ work papers, so they can pay them less than U.S.-born
workers and drive down wages of everyone,” she said. “Their government
opens and closes the border based on the bosses’ need for labor. And
they try to drive a wedge between immigrant and native-born workers to
better exploit both and to point us away from our real problem — the
capitalist rulers and their government.”
“The Socialist Workers Party fights for amnesty for the more than 11
million undocumented workers in the U.S. today,” she said. “That’s how
we can build strong unions and unite the working class.”
They also spoke to dental student Barett Andreson who said that the
health care system is broken and has to be “fixed.”
Health care in the U.S. “is based on making profit,” Kennedy said, “not
on keeping you healthy. We’re for universal, government-funded health
care from cradle to grave, not health insurance. Insurance plans, like
Obamacare, are structured to profit the medical and pharmaceutical
industries, not get us taken care of.
“The Cuban Revolution is an example of what is possible when working
people make decisions based on human need not profit,” she said.
“Working people there fought and took power. They transformed health
care, education and other social needs into a human right. And they send
doctors and other medical volunteers out wherever they’re needed, like
they did in the fight against Ebola in Africa.”
Kennedy and her campaign are helping to build the April 21-May 5
International Volunteer Work Brigade to Cuba, where workers and youth
can go see the Cuban Revolution for themselves.
Anyone interested in helping the SWP campaign in Texas should email the
campaign at dallasswp@xxxxxxxxx.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Socialist Workers Party launches Texas campaign
•Fight to extend right to vote for ex-prisoners!
•US, Chinese rulers’ trade talks continue amid rivalry
•SWP wins a hearing in Kentucky coal country
•Ex-prisoners turn out to register to vote in Florida rights victory
•LA teachers call for workers, parents, students to join strike rally on
Jan. 14
Feature Articles •New book ‘In Defense of the US Working Class’
Also In This Issue •Over half a million people in US have nowhere to live
•Half of adults have had family members thrown in jail
•‘Yellow vest’ protests respond as French gov’t cracks down
•Albany DA drops charges against Ellazar Williams
•NY event celebrates 60th anniversary of Cuban Revolution
•Beijing forces a million Uighurs into ‘re-education’ camps
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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