Against the Current

Published bimonthly since 1986, AGAINST THE CURRENT is a Solidarity-sponsored analytical journal for the broad revolutionary left. The March/April issue features the Educational Crisis in California and the Unfolding Fightback with articles by students and workers in the University of California system. For International Women's Day there are reviews on gender, sexuality and liberation by Catherine Sameh, Chloe Tribich and Kate Flynn. Other articles include Malik Miah on Obama Forgets the Black Community, Michael Steven Smith on Lost Liberties in the Age of Obama and Kim Moody on the Crisis and Potential in Labor's Wars and coverage on Honduras and Gaza.
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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!

LaBotz, Buckeye Socialist, Senate 2010

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.

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DanLaBotz.com

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.

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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!

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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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Solidarity depends on the generous contributions of its friends and allies to continue its work. Please consider giving!

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Blocked Reform: Obama After 200 Days

The Obama presidency, contrary to the hopes of many, has not produced a big political space for the left, let alone “a seat at the table.” Most visibly, it has been the right wing that succeeded in seizing the initiative, in some truly grotesque ways that have thrown a real light on the deep paranoia and straight-up white racism that persists in this society, and on the ways it can be opportunistically pandered to and manipulated.
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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.org
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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John B. Cannon's blog

March 4 Actions to Defend Public Education: a Partial Report and a Preliminary Rumination on Next Steps

John B. Cannon's picture
Submitted by John B. Cannon on March 6, 2010 - 12:59am

I’m writing this while recovering from a good, long, and successful day on the picket lines at UC Santa Cruz, where, over the course of the day, more than a thousand students, workers, and teachers


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Resources - Follow the CA Student Movement Online

John B. Cannon's picture
Submitted by John B. Cannon on February 25, 2010 - 5:27pm

This page, which I'll continue updating from time to time, is an attempt to aggregate sources of information that will help you keep up with what's happening in the California student / defense of


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University Students and Prisoners: Are We All in the Same Boat?

John B. Cannon's picture
Submitted by John B. Cannon on January 24, 2010 - 7:59pm

In California today, we are facing an onslaught of austerity capitalism in the form of privatization / private accumulation, funding cuts, and neoliberal prioritization that effects public goods in


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The Healthcare Debate of 2009: the Role of the Left

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Submitted by John B. Cannon on August 31, 2009 - 9:27am

The US Left has a few different tasks in regards to situations of national political importance; among them are 1) putting out our politics about the situation, including a critique of the current


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Vigilantism of the Few and the Many; the Darkness of Democracy in The Dark Knight

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Submitted by John B. Cannon on August 14, 2008 - 8:05am

The Dark Knight is the pre-eminent summer action-superhero blockbuster of 2008, and will probably soon become the second grossing film of all time, behind

Elliot Spitzer's "Corruption"

John B. Cannon's picture
Submitted by John B. Cannon on March 19, 2008 - 11:44pm

I'm trying to figure out whether I think Elliot Spitzer actually did anything that we should call "corrupt."  I'm sure he broke his marital vows, quite repeatedly it seems, and I get what the folks are saying that Silda shouldn't have stood by her man, literally, and looked crushed - she should have issued a statement dumping his ass.  Then, at the same time, I feel like that kind of decision is between her and her God and her shrink and so forth and giving a feminist seal of disapproval to her actions seems kind of weird to me.  Of course it seems even weirder that I should be in a position to comment on feminist seals of disapproval, so I might as well just work my way out of this particular thread.

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Obama's pastor was right

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Submitted by John B. Cannon on March 17, 2008 - 10:47pm

Has anyone noticed how Obama and Clinton have been rushing to outdo each other in "rejecting and denouncing" controversial figures associated with their campaigns?  First it was Obama, with Farrakhan.  I was disappointed to see Obama "reject and denounce" Farrakhan himself - rather than rejecting and denouncing his anti-Semitic statements, which are worthy of being rejected.  But I figured it was par for the course.  Farrakhan has always been a lightning rod of presidential politics; Obama was really just distancing himself (again) from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Then there was Samantha Power, who is an annoying apostle of human rights liberalism, I believe, and I wasn't sad to see her go.  Then there was Geraldine Ferraro, on the Clinton side, who doesn't seem to have aged gracefully, making remarks which might have had some core sense to them but were expressed in basically openly racist terms.

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"Two Buck Huck" and Class in the Republican Presidential Race

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Submitted by John B. Cannon on February 19, 2008 - 3:52pm

Mike Huckabee is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee.  Though he’s still in the race, Republican insiders have started endorsing John McCain by the droves.  This includes many Republican leaders who don’t like McCain much (criticizing his “liberal” stances on immigration, tax cuts, and campaign finance), and some who have a lot of affinities with Huckabee’s base, such as Oliver North.  Pundits who have been very critical of McCain, such as Rush Limbaugh, have been asked to tone it down in the name of party unity.