I've never been physically assaulted when door belling for political
causes. And I did lots of it when I was precinct committeeman during
my days as a Moderate Democrat. I did lots of "other" doorbelling
over the years, selling magazines from Seattle to San Francisco and
back. During my lean years, when I was first blind, I'd sell my
grandma's false teeth, if she set them down for a minute. I peddled
Am-Way and Fuller Brush to turn a few "under the counter" dollars. My
wife and I took in children and she did house work for a couple of
elderly single ladies. But in all that personal contact, only one
other man told me to hustle my butt off his property. My district was
one of those Gerrymandered districts that always elected Republicans.
The fellow who ordered me off his property lived about four doors up
the block. He was, of course, a staunch Nixon man, and I was my usual
radical self. I called up the campaign headquarters of Sam Smith, a
very left leaning Black candidate for Seattle City Council, and asked
for some yard signs. Three young men drove up in a flatbed rattle
trap of an old truck and made so much noise that everyone who was at
home...and I think some who weren't, came out to see whether it was
Santa Clause. They unloaded four big yard signs and headed off. I
put all four up in the front of my yard. Sam Smith won walking away,
and served until poor health forced him to retire. The pushy neighbor
never spoke to me again. But my sweet, Christian neighbor two doors
up came over and sat down with me. Quietly she asked, "Do you think
some of Them will move in this neighborhood?" I was knocked for a
loop. This good Christian lady admitted that she did not want Negros
living on her block. Yet each Sunday she contributed to our two
Missionaries who were serving the Lord in Sierra Leone.
"How's that work?" I asked God. But He never answered. He was too
busy keeping His eye upon the Sparrow. Selling door to door was a
natural for me. I enjoy people to this day. Back then I decided to
sell Fuller Brush because it would force me to go out and use my white
travel cane. At first I hated that cane! It took me years before I
realized that it was my Liberator. Knowing that I'd never go out
without a good reason, and learning that we had not had a Fuller Brush
representative in our neighborhood for about 4 years, I signed up. I
always made wages. Of course it was only part time work, and wage
minimum was only around $1.75 or $2.00 an hour, so we're not talking a
fortune here. My goal, besides making a few dollars, was to find
every house in my territory. Eventually I did, but there was one home
that drove me nuts trying to figure how to find a gate in a high board
fence. Finally I discovered a Latch String and gave it a tug. A
section of what looked like the fence, opened up. My 5 year old
daughter was with me. I was pulling her in her little red wagon.
It's a good thing, because once in the yard I could not find a front
door. Finally Jennifer said, "Daddy, there's some stairs in the
back". Sure enough, the house looked out over a large reservoir and
on beyond to a clear view of Mount Rainier. We clambered up the
stairs and I knocked. The door opened just enough for a man's hand to
come out. "Here", he said. And into my hand he shoved two quarters.
"Fuller Brush" I smiled. But the door clicked shut. "I think he
meant this for you", I said, turning and handing Jennifer the two
shiny coins. And on the way home we stopped at the candy shop.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/27/18, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:
You got lucky. I was distributing socialist literature outside a UMWA
event when a seemingly friendly guy came up to me and said that the last
time someone passed out that kind of stuff around here they got thrown
into the river. He was smiling and had a friendly tone of voice, so I
tried to engage him in conversation. I should have known better. He even
identified himself as a cop, obviously off duty. I said something about
the risk always being there, but that the cause was so important and
then his fist encountered my mid drift hard enough that I doubled over
and had to struggle to breathe. Some time later when the Revolutionary
Communist Party was in the news as the organizing force behind the
Miner's Right To Strike Committee there was one person quoted in the
newspaper as saying, "You can't make them mad. I've seen them punched
out and just get up and walk away." I always wondered if that guy was
talking about me and had mistaken me for being a part of the RCP. There
were a good many other incidents too. I think I mentioned on this list
the story about the comrade that was punched and we had to drive him to
the hospital and he was suffering from amnesia. I was impressed, though,
that while we were helping to the car as many as five miners chased us
down to apologize for the violence we suffered, But there were very many
more threats than actual violence. Alas, though, I am making myself
nostalgic for the good old days of my activism.
On 9/27/2018 11:05 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Union organizing calls for commitment, steadfastness and courage. A
thick skin will help also. It's difficult to get ones mind around the
thought process of some Working Class Folk. I remember distributing
literature for a Progressive candidate running for the First
Congressional District in Seattle. I came to a long walkway that ran
out into Lake Union. Instead of the fancier house boats, this dock
was a collection of run-down homes. One place I went up to was an
unpainted house with stacks of junk on both sides of the door. I
knocked. A fellow about six feet tall and at least as big around
opened the door. I remember looking at his chest(I was only about ten
years old) and thinking he might be a professional wrestler. His
undershirt was grimy and ripped. His pants fastened below his big
belly and he was chomping down on a stub of a cigar. "Yeah?" he
challenged me. I stuck out my propaganda piece, and he grabbed it
from my hand.
"Goddam Commie!" He crumpled the paper up and tossed it over the
railing into the lake. "Get the Hell out of here kid, before I do the
same to you!"
I did.
What goes on behind our bushy eyebrows that causes us to turn against
even an offer of help? Have we allowed ourselves to become so dummied
down that we strike out at any offer of help?
I marvel that any woman, regardless of age, social status, color or
political preference could vote for Donald Trump. How can any God
fearing Christian support a candidate who shows contempt for People of
Color, or those who hold different religious beliefs? It's down right
demoralizing.
Still, it has always been this way. Regardless of how they gained
power, every Ruling Class becomes corrupt eventually. In part, it's
our own doing. Ours, meaning the Working Class. We have been
conditioned to place our trust in the hands of others, rather than
teaching ourselves to be our collective leaders. Until we place our
trust in ourselves we will continue to be bullied about by the likes
of Donald Trump and his gang of Corporate Lovers.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/27/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2018/09/22/we-need-to-get-a-union-into-the-place-where-i-work/
SWP Speaks with, for Working People
‘We need to get a union into the place where I work’
By Emma Johnson
Vol. 82/No. 36
October 1, 2018
“We need a union where I work,” Stephanie Revill, 42, who has worked at
National Beef for 11 years, told Rachele Fruit, Socialist Workers Party
candidate for Georgia governor. “We work in the cold and never know when
we’ll get off. We don’t get paid enough for the conditions. The
supervisors are always telling us to hurry up, hurry up. But they get
the bonuses, and we get nothing.”
Fruit knocked on Revill’s door Sept. 15 as SWP members were introducing
themselves to workers in Moultrie, an agricultural town of 15,000 some
200 miles southeast of Atlanta. Meeting workers and farmers on their
doorsteps is the central activity for the SWP and the Communist Leagues
in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
These face-to-face exchanges in cities, towns and rural areas offer
party members and supporters the opportunity to share experiences and
discuss and debate the key political issues facing workers today. They
give the best platform to respond to developments in the class struggle,
on the job and in social protest actions.
“We need to build the labor movement. The unions are our basic
instrument of defense, and can become leaders of broader class
struggles,” Fruit said.
“With the growing economy and more hiring workers are a little more
confident today to organize for better conditions and wages,” Fruit told
Revill. “We see steelworkers, hotel workers, retail workers and others
standing up against the bosses.”
Revill decided to subscribe to the party’s paper, the Militant, and make
a contribution to the SWP campaign.
The party speaks out as a tribune of the people against all the
capitalist rulers’ assaults — on jobs, wages and working conditions; on
women’s right to choose abortion; the debt slavery forced on working
farm families; and police brutality. The SWP also calls for amnesty for
immigrant workers living in the U.S.
Members and supporters stress the need for the labor movement to chart a
class-struggle course independent of the capitalist rulers, their state
and their parties. The heart of the discussions is what will it take for
working people to gain the confidence and experience needed to overturn
the capitalist system and take political power. And why they should join
the SWP to pursue this course.
Do workers need our own party?
Steve Warshell, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Florida, and Cindy
Jaquith visited Lake Worth in Palm Beach County Sept. 8. The area is
home to many farmworkers and is surrounded by sugar cane fields,
vegetable farms and nurseries.
“We met immigrant workers who wanted to talk, but requested we not use
their names, because some don’t have papers the authorities consider
proper,” Warshell wrote.
A worker originally from Peru asked if Warshell would vote with the
Republican or the Democratic bloc in the Senate if he was elected, and
whether he supported President Trump or the “resistance.”
“We aren’t either Democrats or Republicans — they are both parties of
the propertied rulers. The president is a member of the boss class. We
say workers need their own party, a revolutionary party, to overturn
capitalist exploitation, oppression and wars,” Warshell replied. “Some
of Trump’s actions, like the negotiations with North Korea, have reduced
war tensions — and that’s in the interests of all workers, here and in
Korea.
“The so-called anti-Trump ‘resistance’ is a hysterical response of fear
of the working class, who the liberals think are racist and
reactionary,” he said.
Amnesty for all immigrants
“A lot of immigrants only make minimum wage,” child care worker Venecia
Acosta, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, told Beverly
Bernardo, Communist League candidate in the Oct. 1 Quebec provincial
election. Acosta invited Bernardo to her house Sept. 17 after they met
the previous week when Bernardo was knocking on doors in Acosta’s
neighborhood.
Child care worker Venecia Acosta, right, invited Communist League member
Beverly Bernardo back for political discussion Sept. 17. They met
previous week when Bernardo knocked on doors in Acosta’s Montreal
neighborhood. Acosta signed up for the Militant and got Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes.
Militant/John Steele
Child care worker Venecia Acosta, right, invited Communist League member
Beverly Bernardo back for political discussion Sept. 17. They met
previous week when Bernardo knocked on doors in Acosta’s Montreal
neighborhood. Acosta signed up for the Militant and got Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes.
“The bosses pay immigrants less to lower everyone’s wages and divide
workers born here from foreign-born workers,” said Bernardo. “The
Communist League calls for amnesty for all immigrants here without
papers to unite the working class,” she said.
“About eight years ago my son was arrested by the police in Ontario and
framed up for drug trafficking, and then deported back to the Dominican
Republic, even though he grew up in Canada,” said Acosta, who is still
fighting for her son to be able to return.
“Working people need to make a socialist revolution and take political
power,” Bernardo said, pointing to the example of the Cuban Revolution,
where the July 26 Movement under Fidel Castro’s leadership organized the
working class and its allies in a broad popular struggle that overturned
the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship there in 1959. Cuban workers and
farmers built their own government and have extended the hand of
solidarity to toilers worldwide.
Acosta signed up for the Militant and purchased the Spanish-language
edition of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by
Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes. It’s one of five
books on special with a subscription.
To join with the party in door-to-door discussions with fellow workers,
or learn more about our program and activities, contact the SWP or
Communist League nearest you.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Iraq protests shake up moves to form new gov’t
•‘Militant’ wins a round, fight against prison censors goes on
•‘We need to get a union into the place where I work’
•Protests in Dallas demand cop who killed Botham Jean be fired
•Are frenzied liberals afflicted with ‘Trump derangement syndrome’?
Feature Articles •Social catastrophe from storms are a product of
capitalist rule
Also In This Issue •Great Russian artists of 19th century and 1917
Bolshevik Revolution
•Pa. prison authorities curb letters, books, newspapers
•Colo. meatpackers win suit against right to pray firings
•Manila book fair draws over 100,000 participants
Editorials •Join and build the Socialist Workers Party 2018 campaign
On the Picket Line •SF hotel workers rally, say ‘One job should be
enough’
•Striking hotel workers in Chicago rally for yearlong health care
•Industrial glass strikers in Montreal win solidarity
Books of the Month •Imperialism pauses only when it faces a people ready
to fight
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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