Oil 'Working people need their own party. Both the Democrats. and Republicans represent the oil, steel and auto companies. We need our own labour party, fased on the unions. workers their own voice.
More and more American • trade unionists are becoming aware of the need for a new independent party. on the Rampage'.
He told the conference that they should be running didates who are products of the labour movement. I don't want individual the entire community. I want someone who represents us, period.' Other leading unionists, like Henning Californian AFL-CIO equivalent of the TUC) sive material on a variety of national campaigns, and are using the opportunity of the elections demonstrations like those publicise support of the ERA. and build nato the Illai SWP ed man. THE United States is supposed to be the home of democracy. The electoral system is used as a model for other countries.
But in actual fact the two party system is designed to ex. clude other candidates from the especially socialists like the SWP The Democratic Governor of California, Jerry Brown, is currently trying to prevent all SWP candidates apeparing on the state's ballot form. Apart from Pulley for president and Matilde Zimmerfor vice-president, . the are running George Jackson for the Senate and Mark Friedman for Congress.
The campaign is particularly embarrassing for Governor Brown, since Friedman's "Democratic opponent is the Grand Dragon of the racist Ku Klux Klan.
The Democratic and Republican appear automatically on the ballot, but minority parties have to collect signatures from registered elec • specified number The California legislators demanded 101,300 signatures for the SWP candidates to get on the ballot. They were hand.
145,000 for Pulles 139,000 for Johnson and Fried.
Electoral officials ruled however that most of the • signatures Welc registered voters and were therefore invalid. Johnson claims that this attack on the SWP's democrati rights Dolitically motivated "The Democrats', he says, 'see the SWP's campaign as encouraging independent political action at the very when the state trade umon movement is aiscussing the need for a labour party.
Johnson and Friedman taken * Governor Brown to court for open violations of the state election laws. They are confident that they will win, and that their case will help to expose the real nature of the American electoral system.
For this kind of harassment is not just confined to Califor nia. In Missouri, for instance the authorities are trying the same trick although the SWP has collected almost double the number of signatures required.
By the time of the elections the SWP will have collected hundreds thousands of signatures to place socialists on the ballot in more states than Never previously been achieved by a socialist party:
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VOTE Socialist Workers