http://themilitant.com/2018/8219/821904.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 19 May 14, 2018
(front page)
The ‘Militant,’ SWP books welcomed at
protest actions
BY DAN FEIN
DENVER — “I’m interested in a fighting labor movement. These books and
your newspaper look like they point the way,” Eddie Asher told Socialist
Workers Party member Jacquie Henderson at the thousands-strong rally of
teachers, school workers, bus drivers and their supporters here April
27. Asher subscribed to the Militant for a year and got Are They Rich
Because They’re Smart? and The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record, both
by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
Barbara Stein, a retired teacher, also came by the literature table we
set up at the rally. “I don’t think we live in a democracy, the rich run
the government. I’m more for a socialist democracy,” she said.
“We look to the Cuban Revolution as an example for workers to follow,”
Henderson said. Stein picked up an introductory subscription.
We joined in the rallies at the state Capitol April 26 and 27, and
traveled to nearby cities and towns to knock on workers’ doors and talk
about the teachers’ battles across the country and introduce the party,
the Militant and the books the party is campaigning with. Twenty-three
subscriptions were sold at the rallies along with 16 books. In addition,
over 65 single copies of the Militant were sold and $62 donated to the
Militant Fighting Fund.
The SWP and supporters of the Militant are going into the sixth week of
an eight-week spring drive to sell 1,400 subscriptions to the Militant
and 1,400 books by party leaders by May 22. And the Militant is
simultaneously working to raise $112,000 toward its annual operating
expenses.
In Wheat Ridge, a working-class suburb, carpet layer Edward Gonzales
told Henderson and Edwin Fruit that he had strong opinions about how the
U.S. rulers treat veterans of their wars abroad. “It’s us and our kids
that fight all those wars,” Gonzales said. “When we come home, they say
‘thanks,’ but they have no use for us — no jobs, no programs.” He got a
subscription and Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? and The Clintons’
Anti-Working-Class Record. All five books on special are listed in the
ad below.
Christina Ortega and her husband Isidro got into a serious discussion
with Horace Kerr, Henderson and myself on their doorstep in Pueblo. They
live near the giant steel mill now named EVRAZ Rocky Mountain Steel,
which today employs only a few dozen production workers. Christina has
been a school bus driver for 22 years. Isidro is a welder and a member
of the Boilermakers union. Their daughter just quit her job at Walmart
to go to school in Greeley, where she got a job at the meatpacking plant
there.
The mill used to be part of a Rockefeller family-run conglomerate named
Colorado Fuel and Iron Corp., which had the government in its back
pocket for decades as it fought workers. It was responsible for the
Ludlow Massacre in 1914, where dozens of miners and their families were
mowed down by the National Guard armed with machine guns and rifles, who
then burned down their camp.
Christina Ortega told us about one time she forgot to pay her utility
bill. “Black Hills Energy cut off my electricity and then charged me
$700 to turn on the lights again!” she said.
“I really appreciate what your party is doing,” Isidro Ortega said. They
got a subscription for Christina’s mother, who’s a retired
schoolteacher, and a copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? for
themselves.
Joe Swanson from Lincoln, Nebraska, writes, “Three working rail workers
subscribed to the Militant last week and a rail worker contributed $10
to the Militant Fighting Fund.” Supporters there have raised their
Militant subscription quota by 25 percent.
Arizona school workers walk out
A number of other SWP units have raised their goals, especially in
places where members have been participating in teachers’ battles — West
Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and now Colorado and Arizona.
Teachers began a walkout in Arizona April 26. Socialist campaigners
joined statewide rallies in Phoenix that day and the next, and also went
door to door in working-class neighborhoods in the “copper corridor” of
mines and smelters in southeast Arizona.
“We knocked on workers’ doors in Sahuarita, April 28, near two copper
mines,” Maggie Trowe told the Militant. “It gave us a real feel for the
social movement the teachers’ struggle is, how many teachers are
stepping into political activity for the first time in their lives and
finding it both exhilarating and frightening. And how there is a rolling
discussion on the fight going on among workers everywhere.
“Workers support the teachers in their fight for a raise,” she said,
“but also for championing school funding and their efforts to organize
meals for the children of working parents.”
“I hope the teachers will stay out on strike until they win their
demands, not compromise or go back for some promises of the perspective
of getting a raise from some ballot measure months from now,” Veronica
Vironet, a former teacher, now a school counselor and mother of three in
Tucson, Arizona, said. “It was a slap in the face that the legislature
went home in the middle of Friday’s rally.” She subscribed to the Militant.
The teachers’ rebellion continued April 30 with thousands mobilized in
Phoenix and others staffing schools and additional places to provide
food and shelter for students of working parents.
“I didn’t even know there was a teachers union until this started
happening,” Heather Covitz, an English teacher from Chandler, Arizona,
told Bev Bernardo at the rally outside the Capitol. “I joined last
week.” And now she found out about the Socialist Workers Party, getting
a subscription, Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? and Is Socialist
Revolution in the US Possible?
So far, the team of socialist campaigners has sold 77 subscriptions and
55 of the books by SWP leaders.
To join SWP members and supporters in expanding the reach of the party,
the Militant and the books, contact the SWP branch nearest you.
Related articles:
Campaign to expand reach of 'Militant,' books, fund
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