Published bimonthly since 1986, Against the Current is a Solidarity-sponsored analytical journal for the broad revolutionary left. The July/August issue features an interview with Ashok Kumar on "Sri Lanka: Behind the Massacre," Charlie Post on "Exploring the Roots of the Crisis," an interview with David Bacon on the struggle for immigrant rights, and Ursula McTaggart advocating collaboration between socialists and anarchists. On the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution ATC presents "Views on Cuba," with articles by Janette Habel, Frank Thompson, James D. Cockcroft and Samuel Farber.
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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.Buttons to Build the Movement
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."
Bright orange 1 1/2" buttons boldly demand: "Bring 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.
Produced during the massive immigrant rights demonstrations of 2006, these 2 1/8" buttons read, in Spanish and English: ¡exigimos Paz, Legalización, y Trabajos para Todos! we demand Peace, Legalization, and Jobs for All!
Palestine and the Antiwar Movement
New from Solidarity. A two page comic strip tackles the link between Palestine and the war in Iraq. Traces the history of U.S engagement in the region using fifteen panels of original art and accompanying text. Please download and distribute in your area!
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- Crisis, Repression and Coup in Iran
by David posted on 07/1/09
- Mayor Bloomberg's war against the homeless continues
by Chloe posted on 06/24/09
- UE's Setting the Banks Straight About the Bail-out
by Gunni posted on 06/24/09
- Anti-abortion Terrorism Can Be Prevented
by Cyril posted on 06/21/09
- What does Dr. Tiller's murder say about the state of reproductive rights in the US?
by Chloe posted on 06/18/09
- Rev. Pinkney Barred from His Appeal Hearing
by Ted posted on 06/12/09
- A Political Eulogy for Atlanta's Public Housing
by Isaac posted on 06/11/09
- The War Goes On, With Corporate Sponsorship
by Dan posted on 06/10/09
from the Webzine
- byAnonymous (not verified)on
- byAnonymous (not verified)on
Chicago Workers’ Victory an Inspiration in Hard Times
On December 10, workers at Chicago's Republic Window and Door company ended a six-day occupation of their factory. They had been laid off after Bank of America refused to extend credit to pay them severance, but through militant action, a democratic union, and solidarity, they own a victory against the financial giant.
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Solidarity statements
- Autoworkers Respond to the Crisis
- Their Crisis, Our Consequences: Is this what 1931 Looks Like?
- Understanding and Responding to the Economic Crisis (pdf)
- The Financial Meltdown and a Socialist Response
- The Current Economic Crisis, 1987 pamphlet by Anwar Shaikh, with a new intro by Charlie Post
From Against the Current:
- Dianne Feeley: Bailing Out Banks, Smashing Unions
- Malik Miah: The Financial Calamity, Blacks and Obama
- Jack Rasmus: The Crisis Beneath the Bailout
- Nomi Prins: The Sub-Prime Market Crisis
- Bob Brenner: Devastating Crisis Unfolds
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Jack Rasmus: A New Phase of Economic Crisis
By Dan LaBotz on Monthly Review's MRZine:
- The Economic Crisis, the American Working Class, and the Left: The Situation Today and the Situation in 1930 (March 17, 2008)
- Confronting the Economic Crisis: The New Deal at 75 - Lessons for Today (April 8, 2008)
- The Financial Crisis: A View from the Left (September 24, 2008)
- World's Labor Federations React to Financial Crisis with Proposals from Re-regulation to Socialism (October 24, 2008)
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 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.
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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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