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HARTFORD,
Conn.—In March, Socialist Action launched a campaign for Congress in
Connecticut’s first district. Candidate Christopher Hutchinson is an
art teacher, a popular political cartoonist, an activist in the
anti-war and immigrant-rights movements, and a member of Socialist
Action.
This
campaign does not seek to encourage workers to root from the sidelines
for yet another white knight who promises to rescue them from the
numerous crises created by capitalism. The campaign instead aims to
expose the phony saviors thrown up by the parties of big business—the
Democrats and Republicans—to expose the parasitic class they serve, and
the system they defend. Most importantly, the campaign aspires to
challenge working people to take political action in their own names
and for their own interests; to create their own organizations and
parties; and yes, to take the reins of society in their own hands and
organize life based on human need instead of profit.
Teams
go out every weekend and some weekdays to collect signatures to win
ballot status for Hutchinson as a Socialist Action candidate. Just
under 3000 valid signatures from registered voters are needed by Aug. 4
to attain this status. Petitioners have been consistently surprised and
encouraged by the support they find for a socialist candidate. Offers
to help volunteer are not infrequent.
At a
packed May 7 campaign dinner, Johanna Rivera, a student from Puerto
Rico, told the crowd that she supports Hutchinson because Socialist
Action understands that the struggles of students in the U.S. are
linked with the struggles of students on strike in Puerto Rico.
Ryan
Henowitz, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, said that the wars
and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan are waged only in the interest
of the U.S. ruling elite and that Chris Hutchinson is the only
candidate who called for an immediate end to these wars. Student LGBTQ-rights
leader Aaron McAuliffe enthusiastically urged a vote for Hutchinson and
demonstrated how the movement for queer liberation and the movement to
end the wars are inextricable.
Hutchinson
then illustrated the interconnections between the struggles that working
people wage all over the world. He argued that the rapid growth of
unemployment has given corporations the leverage over their employees
necessary to speed up production, and thereby increase work-place
accidents, deaths, and disasters such as the explosions at the Massey
Upper Branch mine and the Kleen energy plant in Middletown, Conn. He
cited the BP oil spill as the most startling example of the
profit-driven system in action today.
Other
speakers that night included Laura Lockwood, a Hartford campus women’s
center director and LGBTQ activist; Saeed Ahghari, an urgent care
physician recently returned from Haiti; Frankie Acevedo, an
immigrant-rights activist; and Marissa Janczewska, president of the
Central Connecticut State University’s Youth for Socialist Action.
Chris
Hutchinson has employed this campaign to help build and publicize
working-class actions from Hartford to Washington, D.C., including
marches to defend immigrant rights and the ongoing strike of 1199
workers in Connecticut to demand a better contract from Spectrum
nursing homes. He will speak next at a forum organized to oppose the
escalating assault on public education. To learn more or join the
campaign effort go to www.votesocialistaction.org.
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