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Introduction from Thomas Fiske - 
Socialist Workers Party Candidate

Working people in the U.S. are stepping up our resistance to 
the employers' attacks on our wages, rights and living 
conditions, even at the start of a devastating world economic 
crisis that is beginning to deeply affect the United States.  
Strikes against companies such as UPS, Northwest and US 
West indicate that working people are rejecting more 
concessions, and are fighting for a shorter workweek and 
against cutbacks in benefits.  Other fights reflect the same 
sentiment, such as farm protests against low prices for crops, 
fights to defend bilingual education, demonstrations against 
police brutality, the resurgent fight for Puerto Rican 
independence, the effort to defend affirmative action, and 
protests against U.S. military threats to intervene in Iraq and 
Yugoslavia.  

The Socialist Workers campaign and its youth supporters, the 
Young Socialists, are part of this developing fight back.  We 
campaign to help organize and mobilize working people and all 
those struggling for social justice to use our numbers, our role 
in the economy and our capacities for political thought and 
solidarity. 

Our campaign points the way toward the organization of 
working peoples' energies into an effective force independent 
of the Democratic, Republican or any other capitalist political 
party.  It is along this road that working people can prepare our 
class and its allies to take on and defeat even sharper attacks 
the capitalist rulers are preparing for us, disarm the ruling 
class, and replace their government with a government of our 
own,  a workers' and farmers' government.

Tom Fiske is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for 
governor. Fiske, 54, is a machinist at Eaton Corporation in 
Eden Prairie and a member of the International Association of 
Machinists Local 1037.  He has participated in getting labor 
solidarity for union struggles; in demonstrations against U.S.
intervention against Iraq and Yugoslavia; and conferences 
that tell the truth about revolutionary socialist Cuba.

John Hawkins is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for 
Lieutenant Governor.  Hawkins, 49, is a laborer at North Star 
Steel and a member of United Steelworkers Local 7263.  A 
participant in a number of strikes in his previous job as a coal 
miner, Hawkins is a veteran labor activist.  He is a longtime 
fighter for Black rights and has participated in the 
demonstrations against police brutality here.

For more information about our campaign and for on-the-spot 
coverage of the struggles of working people around the world 
you can subscribe to the Militant newspaper.  A twelve week 
introductory subscription can be obtained by sending a check 
or money order for $10 made payable to the Militant to our 
campaign address, 2490 University Ave., St. Paul. MN. 55114.