Solidarity

From ‘Grand Bargain’ to ‘Grand Collusion’

by Jack Rasmus — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:16:49 +0000

ON APRIL 10, PRESIDENT Obama released his formal budget for Fiscal 2014 beginning this October. Liberals should not act shocked and surprised: Obama’s repeated offers to cut
Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, and other yet undefined Medicare measures, are a
continuation of his practice and approach for the past two years.
The budget will usher in the final stage of negotiations over the proposed deficit cuts —
Austerity American Style — that began with the recommendations of...

Earth Day – Its Legacy and Our Future

by Paul Prescod, for the Political Committee — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:01:36 +0000

[This article was written by Paul Prescod for the Solidarity Political Committee. For information on the April 20 Ecosocialist Conference in New York City, please see their "call to conference" here. A statement by Solidarity’s Ecosocialism Working Group on the Superstorm Sandy disaster is online at the Webzine, as well as an announcement by Nick Davenport of the “Ecosocialist Contingent” here.]
EARTH DAY BEGAN on April 22, 1970 as an environmental teach-in modeled after those on the...

Sequestration: Crisis by stealth

by Warren Davis, for the Political Committee — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:11:20 +0000

Is it the stupidity of dysfunctional bureaucrats? The tactical blundering of a likeable president facing an irreconcilable congressional divide? Or is this the cleverest maneuver yet from the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy and the American quality of life? My vote is for clever.
For the moment we are talking about the Sequestration crisis, just the latest of what president Obama himself called many manufactured crises in his inauguration speech. Though it may seem like he is distressed...

The NGO-Industrial Complex

Dawn Paley — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:53:20 +0000

Paved with Good Intentions:
Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism
By Nikolas Barry-Shaw and Dru Oja Jay
Fernwood Publishing, Black Point, NS, 2012
302 pages, $24.95 (Canadian) paperback.
IN ONE SENSE, I came of age with regard to the problems with Canadian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) around the same time that Nikolas Barry-Shaw and Dru Oja Jay’s new book Paved with Good Intentions was conceived. In late 2003 I had stayed for four months in Johannesburg,...

Labor's Bitter Defeat in Detroit

Barbara Ingalls — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:48:22 +0000

The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor
By Chris Rhomberg
Russell Sage Foundation, 2012, 387 pages,
$47.50 paperback.
A GREEN THUNDERSTORM lit the Detroit sky on the evening of July 1, 1995. The air literally turns green from ozone, which hangs in the air until the thunder, lightning and rain begin. On the fourth floor of the Detroit News building on Lafayette Street in downtown Detroit, the green light added to our anxiety and excitement.
The clock was...

Realities of Zionism

David Finkel — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:59:43 +0000

Israelis and Palestinians:
Conflict and Resolution
By Moshe Machover
Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012, 302 pages + notes and index, $24 paperback.
False Prophets of Peace
Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine
By Tikva Honig-Parnass
Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011, 212 pages + notes and index, $20 paperback.
THE POWER OF Marxist analysis lies not so much in sweeping generalizations, but in the application of basic principles to an understanding of concrete social formations and the...

The Feds' Vendetta Against Assata Shakur: Why Now?

By Barry Sheppard — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:46:45 +0000

In the aftermath of the bombing of the Boston Marathon, the Obama administration is broadening its definition of “terrorism” to include fighters for Black rights in the U.S.

The Changing Character of May Day in the US and Heterogeneous-Populist Movement Forms

by John B. Cannon — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:54:39 +0000

I am fascinated by holidays, how they are received, and how that changes over time. I suppose my interest lies at kind of a juncture of cultural studies and something you might call political theology. I first developed this interest in El Salvador, where I lived in 1997. There, the use of a calendar of holidays both Catholic and secular, broadly recognized in society and contested, was used there as something of a starting point for ongoing cultural / political debate. I suppose that happens in...

Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Choose Death Over Inhumane Conditions

by Barry Sheppard — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:04:09 +0000

Facing a massive hunger strike by desperate prisoners at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba, President Obama has acknowledged that the prison should be shut down. He has said that before over four years ago when he was running for his first term, but did nothing after he was elected.

Hong Kong Dockworkers Strike Continues into its Fourth Week

by Bai Ruixue and Au Loong Yu — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:54:33 +0000

Donate to the strikers' solidarity fund here!The strike by around 450 dockworkers at Hong Kong International Terminals (HIT) to demand for higher wages, which began almost one month ago, continues into its fourth week as management still refuses to offer the workers the pay that they demand. The workers, who earn less today than they did in 1995, are asking for a pay rise of 23%--an amount which does not even bring their wages back in line with what they were paid 18 years ago if inflation is...

A Reflection on the Ecosocialist Conference by an Organizer

by Andy Wojozen — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:15:08 +0000

On Saturday, April 20, at Barnard College in New York City, a coalition of Ecosocialists hosted a conference whose purpose was to call together [groups and individuals fighting ecological destruction from an anti-capitalist perspective]. The coalition evolved from a group of organizations originally calling itself the Ecosocialist Contingent, who held a public forum and rallied against the Keystone Pipeline in Washington on February 17.

Steps Toward Unification of Australian Socialist Groups at Marxism 2013 Conference

by Barry Sheppard — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:43:50 +0000

I attended a public socialist educational conference in Melbourne, Australia, over the Easter weekend, organized by Socialist Alternative. The conference, called Marxism 2013, featured three full days of classes and special talks, Friday March 29 through Sunday. Interwoven with the educational conference was an underlying theme of unifying revolutionary socialist groups in the country.
These two aspects of the weekend were evident at a Thursday night rally preceding the conference itself,...