SWP: ‘Workers need to build our own party, a labor party’
https://themilitant.com/2021/05/29/swp-workers-need-to-build-our-own-party-a-labor-party/
BY JACOB PERASSO
Vol. 85/No. 22
June 7, 2021
Ved Dookhun, SWP candidate for mayor of Albany, speaks to Francesca
Jones on her porch May 21. Jones subscribed to Militant, got Malcolm X,
Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.
MILITANT/JACOB PERASSO
Ved Dookhun, SWP candidate for mayor of Albany, speaks to Francesca
Jones on her porch May 21. Jones subscribed to Militant, got Malcolm X,
Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Socialist Workers Party candidates Ved Dookhun for Albany
mayor and Kathie Fitzgerald for Albany Common Council president have
been joined by supporters campaigning in working-class areas of the city
since announcing their campaign at a press conference here May 19.
The following day WAMC-radio featured the campaign. Fitzgerald, a retail
worker, “was inspired by the civil rights movement as a young teen. In
1964 she joined CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, and has
participated in protests against police brutality and racism,” reporter
David Lucas said.
The council president, Fitzgerald told Lucas, “should use his or her
position to mobilize support for organized workers or organizing
workers. The SWP candidate “pointed to the one-day protest strike last
December by nurses at Albany Medical Center hospital, fighting staffing
ratios that are unsafe.”
Earlier this month Fitzgerald had visited the picket line of striking
nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, to deliver a
$60 collection and solidarity card from her Walmart co-workers.
“We need to organize solidarity with miners, steelworkers, nurses and
others on strike,” Dookhun, a freight rail conductor, told Francesca
Jones on her porch in Albany May 21. “As the unions become strengthened
through fights like these, we need to build a party independent of the
Democrats and Republicans.”
Jones voiced concern about crime and violence in her North Albany
neighborhood. “How can we be free enough to walk the street?” she asked.
“We need police reform and educating officers,” including “more police
of color.”
“The role of the police under capitalism is to keep working people in
line,” Dookhun said. “We need a different society and a different kind
of police force. Reform is not going to change their function.” Jones
took out a subscription to the Militant and purchased Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP leader Jack Barnes.
SWP candidates help win new readers for ‘Militant,’ books
BY ROY LANDERSEN
May 20 filing in Trenton, New Jersey, to put Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist
Workers Party candidate for New Jersey governor, on ballot. From left
are SWP candidates, Róger Calero for New York mayor; Osborne Hart for
Philadelphia district attorney; Kuniansky; Candace Wagner for New Jersey
lieutenant governor; SWP attorney Lawrence Otter; and campaign supporter
Gale Shangold.
MILITANT/LEA SHERMAN
May 20 filing in Trenton, New Jersey, to put Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist
Workers Party candidate for New Jersey governor, on ballot. From left
are SWP candidates, Róger Calero for New York mayor; Osborne Hart for
Philadelphia district attorney; Kuniansky; Candace Wagner for New Jersey
lieutenant governor; SWP attorney Lawrence Otter; and campaign supporter
Gale Shangold.
Socialist Workers Party candidates and campaigners are talking to
working people at their doors in cities, towns and rural areas; at union
picket lines; protests against cop brutality; and car caravans opposing
the U.S. economic war against Cuba. Communist League campaigners are
doing the same in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Everywhere they report a good response as the party approaches mid-way
in the nine-week international drive to sell 1,400 subscriptions to the
Militant, 1,400 books by SWP and other revolutionary leaders, and to
raise $145,000 for the Militant Fighting Fund. Those funds are crucial
for meeting the paper’s operating expenses.
In Minneapolis the SWP began May 22 campaigning to put Doug Nelson,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Minneapolis, on the
ballot. Thirty people have signed toward the 500 signatures needed.
In South Minneapolis, Amran Gutale thanked Nelson when he told her that
his running mate, David Rosenfeld, had recently gone to Moorhead,
Minnesota, to join a protest forum in the Moorhead mosque parking lot
after the mosque was spray painted with anti-Islamic graffiti. Rosenfeld
is the party’s candidate for City Council.
Gutale said she would like to invite Nelson to meet some friends in the
Somali community at her house.
“We know that the problems facing the working class will not be solved
by me or anyone else getting elected,” Nelson said. “To address these
problems, we need to build a movement capable of replacing capitalism.”
SWP candidate files for N.J. ballot
“Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New Jersey
governor, files over 1500 signatures on May 20th at the Office of
Elections in Trenton,” headlined an article May 21 in the online
publication Insider NJ. That number of signatures was nearly twice the
official requirement.
The article noted the SWP charts “a course to replace capitalist rule
with a workers and farmers government.” The May 25 online New Jersey
Globe also featured the campaign.Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’
books, fund April 24 - June 29 (week three)
Kuniansky campaigned in Clifton May 23, showing Maurice McCarthy the
Militant at his house.
“I was just talking about the Indian farmers with my friends,” he said,
noting the paper’s coverage of the massive protest by farmers in India
to defend themselves from government moves threatening their livelihoods.
McCarthy smiled when Kuniansky described her campaign’s staunch
opposition to the U.S. embargo of Cuba. “When my grandmother went blind,
we sent her to Cuba for treatment and they cleaned it up,” he said.
To learn more about the Cuban Revolution he got the book Red Zone: Cuba
and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa along with a subscription to
the Militant.
The book explains the difference working people carrying through a
socialist revolution makes. It describes how the Cuban government
responded to calls from three West African countries for help as they
faced the largest recorded outbreak of the deadly virus, sending
hundreds of medical volunteers to provide hands-on care. McCarthy said
he has three or four friends who will be interested in meeting the SWP
candidate.
Kuniansky also talked with Yarlyn Martinez on her porch in Clifton the
same day. Martinez moved here from Puerto Rico six years ago to get
medical treatment for her daughter that wasn’t available on the island.
“I was a teacher in Puerto Rico but my certificate is not recognized
here,” she said. “Puerto Ricans are not treated equally. We pay for
Social Security but only get half the benefits at retirement” that U.S.
citizens receive.
Such second-class treatment shows that Puerto Rico is a colony of the
U.S., Kuniansky said. Martinez agreed, pointing out that “electricity is
still not restored in parts of Puerto Rico years after the hurricanes.”
Workers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. face a common enemy, Kuniansky said.
That’s why working people here need to rally behind Puerto Ricans
fighting for independence from U.S. colonial domination. Martinez
subscribed to the Militant to read more about working-class struggles.
Boost to Militant Fighting Fund
In Chicago, Dan Fein spoke by phone with Michael Zimmerman, a retired
veteran who lives in Westfield, Indiana, to discuss the Militant
Fighting Fund May 24. Zimmerman subscribed to the Militant in November.
He said his family “loves the paper.” They all read it aloud and discuss
the articles. He contributed $100 to the fund and told Fein, “I like the
fact that the Militant promotes class consciousness.”
Stephen Coenen, a subscriber in St. Louis who is a trainer at a
pharmaceutical company, contributed $50 the next day. He told Fein he
supports the Militant because “the only way to address the inequalities
in society is to build a working-class movement and more unions.”
To help expand the readership of the Militant and books on revolutionary
working-class politics, and to contribute to the Militant Fighting Fund,
see the directory page 4 for the distributor nearest you. Or visit
themilitant.com to purchase a subscription and contribute online.
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Also In This Issue
Bakery workers in Northern Ireland win strike, pay raise
May 30 caravans: ‘End US economic war against Cuba!’
Fidel Castro: ‘No one has been slandered more than the Jews’
Back Quebec iron ore workers strike against ArcelorMittal
UAW Volvo truck workers vote bosses’ contract down by 91%
ATI strikers ‘hang tough’ after 9 weeks on picket line
Protest: ‘Charge cops who shot Andrew Brown’
Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund April 24 - June 29
(week four)
On the Picket Line
Massachusetts nurses strike over safety goes into 12th week
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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--
Clarence Darrow “The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The
fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study
and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.” ―
Clarence Darrow,