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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.

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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by John B. Cannon posted on 08/31/10
Education in the Crosshairs: Thoughts on the New Student Movement
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The Sentencing of Lynne Stewart
by Dianne posted on 07/21/10
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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.”

— Introduction
— Social Movements over the Last Two Decades
— Regroupment, Refounding and the Arc of Resistance
— Refounding a New Left: Next Generations & Their Experiences
— The Tasks and Possibilities of a U.S. Refounded Left
— Refounding the Left: Taking Our Past Into Our Future

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.
Download the pamphlet...

ideas and organization

Submitted by dave x (not verified) on April 20, 2009 - 11:38pm.

dws says:
"The Left only reproduces the wrong approach when it reads its big fantasies into merely symbolic ripples. There will be more economic crises, more sporadic protests, more symbolic reflections of dissatisfaction with capitalism. But as long as these are just that—symbolic or exceptional—they only signify a potential that we are miserably failing to capitalize upon. As Adolph Reed likes to say, the problem of the Left is not one of ideas, but of organizing."

This seems to me partially right and partially wrong. I think that in times of crisis like this, it is indeed easy to read fantasies into events and this can result in serious misjudgement of the times. I will admit to being somewhat more pessimistic about the current conjuncture than those who feel that a repeat of the 1930s (in terms of left or labor organizing) is afoot though I won't deny that there are some encouraging signs such as this poll, the Visteon struggle, etc.
What I take issue with is your assertion that "the problem of the Left is not one of ideas, but of organizing." Yes there are problems of organization. But there are also problems of ideas. Moreover these are often connected. One of the reasons why the left is in such particularly pathetic shape in the US is that the left and the working class are beholden to the Democratic Party. Why is this the case? There are no simple answers, but it is not simply a failing of organization and any successful attempt to address this will have to go beyond merely organizational solutions. There is a slogan with a long history in this country, "Don't mourn, Organize!" that in a way reflects the longstanding anti-theoretical tendencies of the left in the US, the notion that all that is needed is just a little more organization, a little more activism and we can win. And sometimes we can. Sometimes, however the problems have an objective, systemic and political character that mere organization will not address and when we inevitably fail, we will not understand why or respond appropriately.