Given the fact that the working class is too fragmented and too
issue-confused to put together an effective political party, I would
say that in order to educate themselves, members of the working class
would be well to consider the social workers party. But still, I'm
convinced that this would need to be an interim phase on the road to
establishing a People's government. I'll have to bring up the SWP
platform and think about it.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/13/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8044/804401.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 44 November 21, 2016
(lead article)
Socialist Workers take party to working class
SWP deepens door-to-door discussions with workers
Militant/Edwin Fruit
High school student Tabitha Osborne-Rich joined Socialist Workers Party
member Mary Martin, center, talking about politics and party with
workers in Snohomish, Wash., Oct. 24.
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Across the country members of the Socialist Workers Party are deepening
their political activity in the working class, knocking on workers’
doors to introduce the party, discuss the causes of the grinding
economic and social crisis and how we can organize to unite our class
and fight for workers’ power. The SWP is in the middle of a 10-day
effort Nov. 3-12 to take advantage of the publication of The Clintons’
Anti-Working-Class Record: Why Washington Fears Working People, by
National Secretary Jack Barnes, to advance this course.
SWP members present the party’s program and record of struggle as the
way forward out of capitalism’s march toward war and depression and
invite others to join them.
Many workers and young people respond to the appeal. Tabitha
Osborne-Rich first heard of the Socialist Workers Party when Mary
Martin, the party’s candidate for governor of Washington, spoke at her
high school in Snohomish in October. A few weeks later, she joined
Martin to knock on doors in the working-class neighborhood where she
lives, enjoyed the experience, and did it again on Nov. 4.
That day they met Denise, who works at an assisted living center for the
elderly and makes just above minimum wage. “I just moved into this
rental house from an apartment, but it’s impossible to buy a home!” she
said.
Osborne-Rich said neither of the capitalist parties solve the problems
workers face and showed her The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record.
Denise told her to come back with the book early in the week when she
gets paid.
Osborne-Rich wants to continue joining with party members to reach workers.
The SWP rejects the rulers’ contemptuous portrayal of our class as
“deplorables” or “irredeemable,” as Hillary Clinton called us and the
pro-Clinton media repeated. The rulers’ fear the working class, fear its
potential to gain confidence through struggle and rise to end the
dictatorship of capital, to build a new society on proletarian bonds of
solidarity.
There are no sustained labor or social struggles to join and help lead
forward today. But there is a wide-ranging and angry discussion going on
about the crisis conditions the bosses and their government are pushing
on our backs — in workers’ homes, bars, barbershops and elsewhere. The
SWP is joining this discussion to win workers to the party.
On Nov. 11 Militant Labor Forums across the country will discuss the
results of the elections and the political course the party is on. The
gatherings will point to the example the Cuban Revolution sets about the
capacity of working people to transform themselves in revolutionary
struggle and overthrow the dog-eat-dog social relations of capitalism.
Along with other members, New York SWP leader Jacob Perasso visited the
picket line of workers at the Momentive Performance Materials plant in
Waterford, New York, Nov. 4 to express solidarity. The 700 members of
IUE-CWA Local 81359 had walked off the job two days earlier. The
socialists discussed how the capitalist crisis spurs bosses to attack
unions. They described how the SWP goes door to door in working-class
areas to promote its program, recruit and build support for struggles
such as theirs.
“I have friends and family that would be interested in what you are
saying,” striker Brandon Gulneck, 23, told them. “You should come to
Stillwater, where I’m from, to knock on doors.”
“We’ll be back in a couple days,” Perasso responded, “and it will help
if you can join us.” Gulneck said he looked forward to it.
Members in New York have gone to workers districts in Brooklyn, the
Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island and Yonkers; to Weehawken, Jersey City
and Elmwood Park, New Jersey; and to Vermont. They have joined party
members in Philadelphia to show solidarity with the SEPTA transit
workers who were on strike there.
“People are eager to discuss what workers can do about the economic and
moral breakdown of capitalism,” said Emma Johnson from SWP in New York.
“We met a Dominican-born woman in Washington Heights who was quite
interested,” Johnson reported. “She works making sandwiches and doesn’t
make enough to pay the rent so she shares an apartment with several
roommates. We discussed how the crisis affects workers in the Dominican
Republic and Puerto Rico and how Cuba’s workers and farmers made a
revolution. She bought a copy of The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record
and thanked us for coming. We’re organizing to get together again and
talk some more.”
Jacob Perasso in New York and Mary Martin in Seattle contributed to this
article.
Related articles:
Election reflects effects on workers of capitalist crisis
‘NY Times’ asks SWP supporters to vote for Clinton
SWP campaign fund over the top!
Build the SWP, the party workers need
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