The Militant enthusiastically supports the campaign of James Harris for U.S. president and Margaret Trowe for vice president, as well as that of other Socialist Workers candidates around the country. These candidates are working-class fighters and the program they advocate represents the interests of working people. We urge you to consider the socialist alternative in the 2000 elections, join in action with the campaign to deepen the resistance of working people in town and country, and discuss the class answers and political course the candidates propose.

The Militant will continue to feature coverage of the campaign, both in the printed and on-line editions. The paper is a place partisans of the campaign and those interested in finding out more about a fighting working-class and socialist alternative can follow the activities of the candidates, read their statements, and find out how they can become a part of this effort. We are pleased the candidates and supporters of the campaign are using the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books in the campaign, through which they can help introduce workers, farmers, and youth to the facts about strikes and social struggles today, a fighting working-class perspective on developments in politics, and a broader world view and internationalist outlook.

The struggles of working people today against the increasingly harsh realities of our daily lives--from the bosses' relentless push on the production lines, to cop violence on the streets, to government assaults on democratic rights, to victimization by the INS and other police agencies, to the assault on social security and other hard-won gains--pose more sharply than ever the need for independent working-class political action and a revolutionary course to fight for a workers and farmers government.

Through giant battles in the 1930s in face of the ravages of the Great Depression and in subsequent struggles, our class organized potentially powerful industrial unions. But labor in the United States never broke from its backing of the two-party system and the trap of lesser-evil politics. The labor officialdom remained a defender of capitalism and the parties that serve the capitalist ruling class--the Democrats and Republicans. They hoped at best to win a few concessions from the employers and their government, while backing Washington's wars, national oppression, and exploitation of workers and peasants around the world.

Instead of using the organization, resources, and potential power of the unions as a motor force for independent political organization, the labor skates in every election turn tens of millions in union funds over to the parties of the same bosses who are attacking working people.

This dead-end road has crippled the labor movement, undercutting its ability to pose every question as a social question and to fight and act on a political level for the interests of a class in society.

This is the only way to unite working people, build an alliance of workers and farmers, and uncompromisingly chart a course to lead them to power. In this, the Socialist Workers campaign offers an example for the entire labor movement.

Socialist campaigners are fighting for ballot status in many states, building solidarity for strikes and other struggles, opposing Washington's war moves and assaults on working people around the world, distributing the Militant and campaign literature, and organizing meetings across the country of those interested in the socialist alternative. Join in this effort!  
 
 
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