“This is a good period for working-class politics,” Frank Forrestal, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of Minnesota, said, launching his campaign at a Militant Labor Forum here April 19.
“Hundreds of millions of workers and farmers around the world have carved out political space to discuss and debate political questions, as well as to begin organizing to defend their interests,” said Forrestal. “Nowhere has the working class been driven out of politics by crushing defeats. And, as the bosses are driven by the capitalist crisis to go after our wages and working conditions, as they seek to chip away at our rights and weaken our unions, they also confront real limits on how far and fast they can go.”
The SWP has launched campaigns for governor in Minnesota and other states across the country to help broaden the reach of socialist propaganda and advocate a fighting, working-class course to confront the crisis of capitalism and need for workers to take political power.
Socialist gubernatorial candidates — Forrestal, Ellie García in California, Naomi Craine in Florida, John Studer in New York, David Rosenfeld in Iowa and more to come — will back workers in struggle wherever they are, campaign to free the Cuban Five, and raise fighting demands that can help advance the unity and combativity of the working class. Many questions that concern working people, Forrestal said, fall under the purview of governors’ offices. These include the fight for extending unemployment compensation; universal health care; an end to the criminal “justice” frame-up system and brutal prison conditions; women’s right to abortion; and workers’ control on the job to defend their safety, as well as those of other working people.
“Ukraine is an example of what is open to the working class,” said Forrestal, who was part of a March 16-April 2 Militant reporting and solidarity trip to Ukraine after President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in face of popular mobilizations.
“As a consequence of the worldwide capitalist economic crisis, there will be decades of working-class struggles and rebellions ahead,” he said. “Over time, workers will see their own independent class interests in Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and elsewhere in the capitalist world.”
Read the full article here.
The person in question could imply start a dicussion of other aspects of the article, party, etc, rather than complaining about a tangent a few previous posters took.
“I came on this site trying to get a feel of what you are about only to find debates about a logo!!”
Makes you want to pull your hair out, doesn’t it?
The site is what people make of it.
I came on this site trying to get a feel of what you are about only to find debates about a logo!! I’ll pass.
Scott: That’s actually interesting, thank you for the link.
I didn’t confuse the two, and I wouldn’t call it sloppy. I was well aware of the controversy, but I chose to go with this logo, and here’s why:
Parties don’t always get to choose how they’re graphically represented. When you think of Democratic Party logo, you probably think of a donkey logo, am I correct?
Like this?
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/images/candidates/b3/C3155D0000-00-00.jpg
The Democrats are the donkeys, the Republicans are the elephants. However, the donkey has never been officially adopted as the official logo of the Democratic Party. Not once. This is their logo:
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/images/parties/Party1.gif
A blue D with a circle around it. (Ironically, a red R with a circle around it is not the logo for the Republican Party, but RadioShack.)
Since this is the logo most often used to graphically represent the SWP, both here and in Britain, I used it.
Hope this clears things up. You’re not pushing me around, I’ve enjoyed the discussion, nitpicky though it may be.
The SWP-US doesn’t use this symbol on NY ballots. They just use the initials “SWP”, as you can see in the link in my name.
ISO in the US used to be affiliated with the SWP UK and use a similar logo. And the name of their paper is “Socialist Worker” So initially, when I glanced at the headline and the logo, I thought it referred to ISO running candidates. Which would be much more interesting.
Lots of people confuse the SWP US and SWP UK because of their name. It’s clearer now why you did, but it’s still slightly sloppy.
Anyway, don’t let an anonymous commenter push you around. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Congrats.
I agree. If SWP themselves are not complaining it’s fine; if they do we can change it.
Almost all parties have logos. New York even prints them on the ballot. The logos I’ve seen used for the SWP in the U.S. are either this logo (which yes is the same as the British SWP) or a plain red version. If the SWP leadership has a problem with this, they are free to contact me with a better image to use, but as far as I can discern this is the correct logo.
The defense of the Castro’s is always tragically funny. How do these socialists that allegedly demand equality think about the racism and homophobia of the Castro’s or Che? Ah, those silly “militants”.
They are similar logos. And I am no sympathizer of either SWP, but I bet if someone posted an article on the Libertarian Party and used the logo of the Personal Choice Party, for instance, LPers would take it as a slight.
How about a photo of National Secretary-for-Life, Jack Barnes?
I’ve seen that used as the SWP-US logo on several sites. And even if it’s not, close enough.
That’s the UK SWP logo, which doesn’t have an affiliate in the US. Totally different groups. So far as I know the SWP-US doesn’t use a logo.