Against the Current
Published bimonthly since 1986, AGAINST THE CURRENT is a Solidarity-sponsored analytical journal for the broad revolutionary left. The Sept./Oct. issue features Malik Miah on How Race Fuels the Rightist Agenda, Kit Adam Wainer on Obama's Race to the Top vs. Teacher Unions and Susan Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber interviewing Venezuelan activists Gonzalo Gómez, Stalin Pérez Borges and Luis Primo on the processes of deepening the revolution. Coverage of The Mexican Revolution at 100 continues, featuring an interview with Adolpho Gilly and articles by Dan La Botz, James D. Cockcroft, Heather Dasner Monk, Fred Rosen and Scott Campbell.
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International Viewpoint is the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International. IV is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
Put a Socialist in the Senate!
Dan La Botz, a 64-year old Cincinnati school teacher, has filed petitions with the Ohio Secretary of State to become the candidate of the Socialist Party for the U.S. Senate. La Botz, who needed 500 signatures to get on the Socialist Party primary ballot, filed petitions with approximately 1,200 signatures on Thursday, Feb. 18. La Botz, a long time labor and social movement activist, is the candidate of the Socialist Party of Ohio which is the state organization of the Socialist Party USA.
Read more...Keep up with the campaign!
Campaign website- DanLaBotz.com
Order these eye-catching buttons to spread the demand for social and economic justice. If you don't have paypal, email us!
Reads Bail out People, not Wall Street!. Around the edge, these 2 1/8" buttons read "Free Health Care," "Defend Public Services," "Living Wage Jobs," "Free Higher Education," "Troops Home Now," "Rebuild the Gulf Coast," and "Affordable Housing."
Brown and black buttons demand: "Bring all the Troops Home Now!" Wear one everywhere to start a conversation about why US occupation can never be a force for liberation, and people's needs should come before the massive military budget.
These 2 1/8" buttons read, in Spanish and English: ¡Alto a las deporaciones - Legalización para todos! Stop the deportations - Legalization for all!
Videos from Solidarity's Educational Conference
November 14-15 in New York City, Solidarity held a successful conference featuring engaging talks on a number of topics. Click here to view these videos from "Their Crisis, Our Movements"
- Crisis of Capitalism, Challenge to the Movements (David McNally, New Socialist Group)
- The New Imperialism and The Global Fightback (Vivek Chibber, Christy Thornton, Jonah McCallister-Erickson)
- The State of Resistance in Communities & the Workplace (Normahiram Perez, Steve Downs, Penelope Duggan)
- Race and National Liberation Under Obama (Glen Ford, Lalit Clarkston)
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- A Great Variety of Morbid Symptoms, Seen in the Reflecting Pool Yesterday
by John B. Cannon posted on 08/31/10
- Education in the Crosshairs: Thoughts on the New Student Movement
by Nick posted on 08/13/10
- Don't Just Snap, Organize... Let's "Slater" together!
by La Botz for Senate posted on 08/12/10
- Pakistan: Over 20 million people affected by the flood
by Dianne posted on 08/11/10
- Stop police harassment of anti-facists in Russia!
by Isaac posted on 08/8/10
- As Santos Becomes Colombian President, U.S. Bases and Tensions Remain
by Dianne posted on 08/5/10
- Immigrant Rights Protest at Mets Game - Exciting organizing!
by Nate posted on 08/2/10
- Enough Is Enough... We’re Human Beings
by Joanna posted on 07/23/10
- The Sentencing of Lynne Stewart
by Dianne posted on 07/21/10
- NY Governor candidate Howie Hawkins Opposes Increased Jail Time for Lawyer Lynne Stewart
by Howie Hawkins posted on 07/19/10
from the Webzine
- Closets
12 hours 37 min ago - Closets
13 hours 18 min ago - Article Review
1 day 10 hours ago - you did a wonderful job.
2 days 10 hours ago - Douceur.
1 week 8 hours ago - abortion& disabled people
1 week 2 days ago - Sending money to Pakistan within next month
1 week 3 days ago - The reason the ad doesn't say
1 week 3 days ago - Stalinist Slsnders...
2 weeks 3 days ago - Santos charges course; U.S. and Rightwing outfoxed
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Barbara Zeluck Presente!
Our comrade Barbara Zeluck died June 5, 2010. She was a lifelong socialist and founding member of Solidarity. Barbara had a long and active life, unwavering in her support for radical social change and movements that she felt were dedicated to mobilizing the working class and raising class consciousness. She always believed that a better world was possible. Read More...
One Year of Obama and the Democrats’ Debacle
Last fall, in the discussion that produced our analysis of “Obama After 200 Days,” we said it would be premature to speak of a “crisis” for the administration. A year after the euphoric 2009 inauguration, it no longer looks premature. People who looked to Obama and the Democrats for leadership are bitterly disappointed, and a very peculiar brand of rightwing politics has seized the initiative.
Read more...
Regroupment & Refoundation of a U.S. Left
As part of the preparation for our 2008 Convention, members of SOLIDARITY have begun a political document describing some perspectives for socialist renewal in the twenty-first century. We welcome responses to this initial draft of the document. Some of the themes here have also been developed in Solidarity's Founding Statement and our 1997 pamphlet, “Socialist Organization Today.”
New Pamphlet: Hell on Wheels
New from Solidarity! Long time transit worker activist Steve Downs has written a pamphlet charting the twenty year story of New Directions, a rank and file caucus in New York City's transit union that he helped build and develop - including the challenges of keeping the rank and file democracy movement alive after New Directions won control of the local.
Read an interview on Zmag.orgRead a review and order your copy today!
From Abortion Rights to Reproductive Justice
New from Solidarity's Feminist Commission, this leaflet responds to the right wing attack on reproductive freedom and argues that the movement must go beyond "pro-choice" to true reproductive justice. This socialist and anti-racist feminist agenda would take up issues such as access to health and child care, forced sterilization, and the division of "productive" and "reproductive" labor.
Download the pamphlet...
Report from Winter Soldier
The following are excerpts from the account of Elaine Brower. Brower is a marine's mom who attended Winter Soldier, "is adamantly opposed to the so called ‘war on terror,' the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan," and a leader in the anti-war movement:
On Friday, Day 2, testimony began at 9 AM with a panel about the "Rules of Engagement". Speakers from the Army and Marine Corps recounted the atrocities that they not only witnessed but participated in. The stories they were telling about the rules of engagement they learned while training at boot camp, or on a military base "back home," were the same as what I had heard from my son. I broke down sobbing. The photographs they were showing on the five viewing screens of bloodied bodies torn apart by close gunfire, 50-calibre Machine guns, rocket launchers, and every other damn weapon our great military industrial complex has created, were all too familiar to me.
Watching and listening to the testimony made me very ill. Here were these young men and women, handsomely dressed, some wearing medals, talking about how they shot civilians who were holding nothing more threatening than a cell phone, groceries, a shovel, a white flag, or a pair of binoculars. Anyone deemed suspicious by the particular soldier or Marine on watch was fair game, subject to the orders, "Take ‘em out!" The Rules of Engagement as stated by Garrett Rapenhagen were "a joke and disgrace, and ever changing." I knew that. I had heard it back home from my son.
Camilo Mejia spoke about how soldiers were trained that dehumanizing the enemy is necessary to survival, and how they are taught to think of Iraqis as "hajjis." I know that word all too well; I have heard my son talk about it, as well as other anti-Iraqi slurs such as "towel head," and "sand nigger." The expression "if you feel threatened, use your weapon" was also a familiar phrase to me. So, too, was the slogan, "Do what you need to do."
One other Marine, Bryan Casler, was part of the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. He described [how Marines would] remove the chemical packets that were within the MREs (which helped heat the food) and hand them to children to eat…when they went into Babylon, the marines would drive vehicles into mosques and historic ruins, and break off pieces to take home with them.
Some of the soldiers' testimony was characterized by defiant anger. At the end of his testimony, former Marine Mike Totten ripped up the commendation he had received from General Petraeus, and threw it on the floor in front of him, to a huge applause. One day earlier, Jon Turner had taken a chest full of medals and thrown them into the audience. "I don't work for you anymore!" Turner said.
ATC 134, May-June 2008
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