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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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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

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...

Chicago tenants demand "Slumlords out of City Hall!"

Submitted by Isaac on January 27, 2010 - 12:38am

In Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago, slumlords get a spot on the city's top planning board - while their tenants get thrown out of public meetings. On January 21, dozens of community activists from the Woodlawn community on the South Side packed the Chicago Plan Commission meeting to demand the removal of Leon Finney, Jr., whose Woodlawn Development Corporation owns several residential buildings with slum conditions.

Latasha Edwards, president of the Kimbark Tenants Association, addressed the Commission and was quickly called out of order. Other tenants and community activists -- many of them with Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) and some from Northside Action for Justice (NA4J) -- chanted "Mayor Daley hear our call: slumlords out of City Hall!" and "Housing is a Human Right!" as security removed us from the chamber.

Video from Chicago IndyMedia

Degrading and unhealthy apartments

Outside, residents at WRC buildings cataloged their degrading and unsafe living conditions: dangerous fire escapes, missing smoke alarms, cracked floors and mildewed walls, peeling paint, lack of heat, and more. With pain in her eyes, Edwards spoke of sleepless nights in her rodent and roach-infested apartment, spent worrying whether the pests were crawling on her young children.

Another tenant at the same apartment building found that she'd developed pneumonia in her mold-covered home.

Finney, the son of a preacher and restauranteur, has maneuvered a multi-level, insider relationship with the Chicago political machine over several decades. Over thirty years he's chalked up numerous re-appointments to the Plan Commission, was Vice Chair of the Public Housing Authority, and led a series of city-funded religious and community organizations intended to bulwark Black support for the ruling coalition's efforts to squeeze ever more profits from the city's working people.

One of the more shameful points in this history was his role in the veto of the 2006 "Big Box" living wage bill, which would have mandated social wages from corporate retailers like Wal*Mart. Finney's The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) and its development arm rake in public HUD money and slither away from meaningful fines or code violation citations while residents face substandard living conditions and eviction. "We want to know, who are the inspectors being paid to look the other way?" demanded Rev Andre Smith.

It's worth mentioning that this is a man who, in 2006, evicted his own sister!

A new movement of solidarity and defiance

Despite the odds stacked against them, Thursday's defiant action builds on a recent history of organizing for real community justice through the Kimbark Tenants Association and other projects of STOP, as well as the budding Chicago Anti-Evictions Campaign.

One of those present in solidarity with Southside renters was Erica Bledsoe, an activist in the Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago's far north side. In October, alongside NA4J the Bledsoe family won an important fight by blocking their eviction from another HUD property.

Blows against the moneyed real estate interests are too few, but through lifting up each hard won victory and organizing, we can stand up to this system that values dollars more than decent housing.

Isaac's blog