That's what a member of UMWA Local 6417 in Paonia, Colorado told Ilona Gersh after she sold him a trial subscription to the Militant. Gersh took part in a week-long trip in the Western coal regions. The three participants on the team covered more than 2,000 miles, selling the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial and promoting Capitalism's World Disorder through farming and coal mining territory in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana.

This trip was part of a nationwide campaign to place this book, Pathfinder's newest title, in bookstores and libraries, and to sell it directly to workers, farmers, and all those who are resisting capitalist political and economic attacks today. The book's subtitle, "Working-Class Politics at the Millennium," gives a sense of how current the political questions it addresses are.

Reading and discussing the five speeches by Socialist Workers Party leader Jack Barnes collected here throws light on such recent developments as the occupation of East Timor by imperialist forces; the preparation by rightist Patrick Buchanan to win new adherents to his reactionary program by shifting his attention to the Reform Party; the round of long-running workers' struggles taking place in the United States; the assault on Chechnya and Dagestan by Moscow; and many other questions.

"The companies are taking away things we won decades ago. I'm hoping the young miners will fight to get the union back in the mines," said the UMWA member, whose local is now comprised entirely of retirees, following votes at which the union was decertified in three local mines.

The sales team had visited this retired miner "on the recommendation of a miner at the Deserado mine near Rangley in Colorado," Gersh told the Militant October 5. "This guy has been reading the Militant for a long time, and has also been digging into Capitalism's World Disorder. He's interested in making the book available to other miners in this area, and asked us to visit two bookstores in Vernal, Utah. There are no bookstores in Dinosaur, where he lives, so miners drive to the closest shopping centers to browse the shops."

The miner is "friends with ranchers and farmers in the area," Gersh added, "and explained to us that low prices and foreclosures have forced many to work in the mines and at other jobs to make ends meet. 'They're just like us,' he said, only some 'don't know it yet.' "

The trip was organized around sales at mine portals. "We set up sales teams for shift changes at nine mine portals in three states over the course of a week," said Gersh, "and miners bought the Militant at every portal we stopped at. Practically every one who bought the paper said they were interested because they'd seen teams selling it before."

The team also paid initial visits to bookstores and libraries, which the next team can follow up on.

Three workers bought Capitalism's World Disorder at the October 3 rally in Spokane, Washington, to mark the one-year anniversary of the fight by workers at Kaiser Aluminum (see article on front page). Several socialist workers participated in the action.

Scott Breen, a member of the International Association of Machinists at Boeing, said a fellow Boeing worker bought the book, as did two steelworkers at Kaiser's Trentwood plant. Four workers subscribed to the Militant in Spokane. Breen mentioned that two days earlier at a Steelworkers event in Tacoma a woman dockworker and new subscriber to the Militant bought the book.

Joe Young from Canada wrote to the Militant that "a team visiting workers on strike against the Hydro-Quebec power utility was told about a bookstore chain in the Valleyfield area of Quebec. The chain took an initial order of Capitalism's World Disorder and three other books. The team also sold a Militant subscription to a farmer."

Persistent and well-organized work has started to pay off for Pathfinder supporters in Minnesota. They have visited 21 stores and libraries in the last three weeks. Most visits have broken the ice, but at a store in Worthington the proprietor ordered six Spanish-language titles, including the translations of The 1985-86 Hormel Meat-Packers Strike in Austin, Minnesota and The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions.

Carl Weinberg in Georgia sent a note that should remind all Pathfinder readers the value of requesting the books at their local or school library. He reported that the library at the university where he teaches has purchased Capitalism's World Disorder and seven other titles from Pathfinder thanks to his suggestions and requests.

These include five titles in the series "The Communist International in Lenin's Time," which contains documents from the first years of the Comintern, during which it charted a revolutionary course for working class and national struggles around the world.  
 
 
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