http://themilitant.com/2017/8118/811803.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 18 May 8, 2017
(front page)
Spring drive, ‘Militant’ fund expand reach of
paper, books
BY MARY MARTIN
The Socialist Workers Party’s spring campaign to introduce the party,
the Militant newspaper and books from Pathfinder Press to working people
ends its third week with party members reporting on debates and
discussions they’re having about Washington’s moves to protect its
imperialist interests from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, Korea and Venezuela.
SWP members are also building May Day marches across the country against
deportations and demanding amnesty for immigrants. And they’re
discussing how the stewardship of nature falls to the working class with
people interested in the April 29 Climate March in Washington, D.C.
The drive is expanding the reach of the party’s publications and
increasing the number of workers involved in its activities. The drive
runs concurrently with the Militant Fighting Fund to raise $112,000 to
cover the Militant’s operating expenses, trips by worker-correspondents
to cover breaking developments in the class struggle and to help
subsidize subscriptions to prisoners.
This week the Militant Fighting Fund got a boost when Derek Jeffers
reported that a group of workers in France had taken a $450 goal for the
fund.
Ruth Robinett described the discussion she and George Chalmers had with
Mike Long in northeast Philadelphia. “I don’t think we should be bombing
or sending soldiers to any other countries,” he said, referring to
Washington’s assaults on Syria and threats against Korea. “They’re
people just like us.”
Katy LeRougetel reports Communist League members in Vancouver, British
Columbia, met Lili Motaghedi, a student at British Columbia Institute of
Technology, when they knocked on her door April 22.
“We explained we’re campaigning against the U.S. military threats and
buildup in the Pacific. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, backs
that, and Washington’s bombing of Syria too,” LeRougetel said. “The war
against working people abroad is part of the rulers’ war against us
here. Working people need our own voice, to speak in our own name.”
They also pointed to the example of Cuba for organizing society on a
different basis, not dog-eat-dog capitalism. LeRougetel showed her Are
They Rich Because They’re Smart? by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
Motaghedi raided her piggy bank to pay for a subscription to the
Militant and a copy of the book.
Three Pathfinder books are each on special for $5 when you get a
Militant subscription — the one Motaghedi got, The Clintons’
Anti-Working-Class Record, also by Barnes, and Is Socialist Revolution
in the US Possible? by SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters. They are also
available in Spanish and French.
Socialist Workers Party members in Seattle attended a film showing at
the University of Washington on the struggle of Hanjin shipyard workers
in South Korea. In the discussion period Mary Martin, SWP candidate for
Seattle mayor, thanked the film director and shipyard worker Jin Sook
Kim for getting this story of working-class struggle out. ”My party
calls for U.S. hands off Korea and for a nuclear-free peninsula and we
are taking this message to workers’ doorsteps,” she said. The panelists
and others thanked her for her comments.
Martin also participated in a candidates’ debate. They were asked to
hold up placards with “yes” or “no” to answer questions. When Martin was
asked questions that didn’t address the big issues facing working
people, she held up her own signs — “U.S. hands off Korea,” “Amnesty for
all immigrant workers living in the U.S.,” “All out for May 1,” “Support
the silver miners on strike in Idaho,” and more. At the end of the
meeting someone dropped a $20 donation in the can on the SWP table.
Martin and other party members went knocking on doors in the White
Center neighborhood south of Seattle. One of the three people who got
subscriptions was a drywall worker originally from Mexico who also got a
copy of the Spanish edition of Is Socialist Revolution in the US
Possible? “See you at the May Day march,” he said.
Joanne Murphy and other SWP members from Washington, D.C., attended an
April 9 rally of over 100 Cargill turkey plant workers and their
supporters fighting for a union in Harrisonburg, Virginia. They met José
Pérez, who picked up a copy of the Militant. They met him again when
they went back April 23. Pérez got a subscription and sent an article on
the fight to the Militant. (See On the Picket Line column.)
To join the party-building drive or to contribute to the Militant
Fighting Fund, contact the SWP or Communist League branch nearest you.
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