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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Keep up with the campaign!"
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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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.
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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
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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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Middle East Resources

Web Resources from Groups Based in the Middle East:

Al-Haq
www.alhaq.org
Al-Haq is a Palestinian human rights organization and West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. It conducts and disseminates legal research, monitors and documents human rights violations, provides free legal services to the Palestinian community and houses the only West Bank public library specializing in human rights.

Alternative Information Center
www.alternativenews.org
The AIC is a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization that prioritizes critical analyses, political advocacy and cooperation based on social justice and respect for the national rights of all Palestinians. The center publishes News from Within, a monthly magazine, as well as a series of economic pamphlets, on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.

B'Tselem
www.btselem.org
B'Tselem is The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories conducts research, serves as a resource center, publishes pamphlets, produces videos to accompany its written reports and attempts to generate greater commitment to human rights principles among the Israeli public.

Coalition of Women for Peace
http://coalitionofwomen.org
This website leads to several Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian women's organizations, including Bat Shalom, The Fifth Mother, Machsom Watch, New Profile, TANDI, WILPF, Women in Black that work on human rights issues.

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
www.icahd.org
ICAHD, a non-violent, direct action organization, opposes the matrices of Israeli control (through land expropriation, settlement expansion, construction of exclusively "Israeli" roads and economic closure) over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Jeff Halper, ICAHD director, is the author of Obstacles for Peace.

Gush Shalom
www.zope.gush-shalom.org
This Israeli organization holds antiwar, anti-occupation demonstrations places ads in Israeli newspapers to educate the population against human rights violations. Also see the newsletter, The Other Israel, and Uri Avnery's articles.

Health Development Information and Policy Institute
www.hdip.org
This institute is an independent Palestinian organization specializing in policy research and planning in the West Bank and Gaza. It has a number of fact sheets on water, health, children and the apartheid wall as well as other materials. It also publishes The Palestine Monitor.

Palestine Monitor
www.palestinemonitor.org
This is an informational clearinghouse created by the Palestinian Nongovernment Organization Network, in which the Health Development Information and Policy Institute is delegated the responsibility of disseminating information from Palestinian civil society.

Stop the Wall Campaign
http://stopthewall.org
Stop the War is a grassroots campaign coordinated by the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON).

Taayush
www.taayush.org
Ta'ayush is a grassroots organization, bringing together Jewish and Arab Israelis to oppose the Occupation, work with Palestinians to protest the Apartheid Wall, and bring supplies to besieged Palestinian villages.

Yesh Gvul
| www.yesgvul.org
Founded in 1982, during the Israeli war on Lebanon, Yesh Gvul is the oldest group dedicated to supporting Refuseniks-soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories.

U.S.-Based Web Resources:


Ad Hoc Coalition for Justice in the Middle East
www.mideastjustice.org
Organized in 2006 in response to the escalation of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and subsequent attacks in Lebanon, the coalition is a strategic alliance in New York area of organizations opposed to U.S./Israeli aggression in the Middle East.

Amnesty USA
www.amnestyusa.org
AI publishes extensive reports on human rights issues.

Electronic Intifada
www.electronicintifada.net
The EI publishes news, commentary, and reference materials about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective.

Human Rights Watch
www.hrw.org
Issues reports on human rights issues.

Jewish Voice for Peace
www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
This is the largest, left-wing Jewish anti-Occupation organization in the United States. Not in My Name www.nimn.org, founded in 2000, is now the Chicago Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Jews Against the Occupation
www.jatonyc.org
This is a New York-based organization composed of progressive, secular and religious Jews.

Institute for Policy Studies
www.ips-dc.org/projects/newinternat.htm
The Institute for Policy Studies is a multi-issue think tank with the New International as devoted to the Middle East crisis as manifest in Iraq and Palestine/Israel. The IPS opposes the Israeli occupation and publishes materials analyzing Israeli policy.

International Solidarity Movement
www.palsolidarity.org
Committed to resisting Israeli occupation, this Palestinian-led movement organizes non-violent and direct action campaigns. Current on-going campaign is against the construction of the apartheid Wall. The ISM organizes delegations to the West Bank.

Iraqi Veterans for Peace
www.ivaw.org
This group is composed of vets and active-duty servicemen and women who are working to bring their brothers and sisters home.

Middle East Research and Information Project
www.merip.org
MERIP publishes Middle East Report, an authoritative quarterly.

Military Families Speak Out
www.mfso.org
This website is particularly designed for families of soldiers. Military Families is against all appropriations except for those to bring the troops home. They suggest the following videos: "The Ground Truth," directed by Patricia Foulkrod, and "Sir, No Sir," directed by David Zelger, about troop resistance during the Vietnam War. Also see "Eyes Wide Open," an exhibit on life and death in Iraq www.afsc.org/eyes/.

The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
www.al-awda.org
Al-Awda supports the unconditional right of Palestinian return and "a single democratic state for all its citizens in all of Palestine."

Refuser Solidarity Network
www.refusersolidarity.net
A U.S.-based portal to find information about the various Israeli refuser groups.

United for Peace and Justice
www.unitedforpeace.org
This is a national coalition of antiwar and peace organizations. It is sponsoring the January 27th March on Washington.

US Campaign to End the Occupation
www.endtheoccupation.org
This is a diverse coalition of over 200 member organizations based on human rights and international law. Its current national priority is divestment from Caterpillar.

USLAW (U.S. Labor Against the War)
www.uslaboragainstwar.org A network of labor organizations that advocates, educates and mobilizes for a just U.S. foreign polcy, an end to U.S. occupation, and supports U.S. troops and their families by bringing the troops home now. Brings Iraqi trade unionists to speak in the United States. Works closely with Military Families Speak out and veterans' groups. Recommends "Meeting Face to Face," directed by Jonathan Levin (www.MeetingFacetoFace.org).

Veterans for Peace
www.veteransforpeac.org
Veterans for Peace workers for peace and justice through nonviolence.

Vietnam Veterans for Peace
www.vvaw.org
Vietnam Veterans for Peace are veterans from the Vietnam War working for peace.

Some Additional Resources-Books:

Israel/Palestine:

Beinin, Joel and Stein, Rebecca L. (editors), The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005. (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006).

Bennis, Phyllis, Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis. Forward by Noam Chomsky (Institute for Policy Studies, 2002).

Carter, Jimmy, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
Important and controversial for former President Carter's use of the A-word.

Chomsky, Noam, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians (Boston: South End Press, updated edition 1999).

Finkelstein, Norman G., Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict (London: Verso, 2003).

Flapan, Simha, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997).

Halper, Jeff and Younan, Michael (illustrator), Obstacles to Peace: A Reframing of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (ICAHD publication, 3rd edition, April 2005).

Khalidi, Rashid, The Iron Cage. The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).

Khalidi, Rashid, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

Massad, Joseph, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism the Palestine (London/New York: Routledge, 2006).

Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Middle East Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Morris, Benny, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 (New York: Vintage, 2001).

Pappe, Ilan, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications, 2006).

Peteet, Julie M., Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

Reinhart, Tanya, The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003 (London: Verso, 2006).

Reinhart, Tanya, Israel/Palestine: How to End the 1948 War (Seven Stores Press, 2002).

Shahak, Israel and Mezvinsky, Norton, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (London: Pluto Press, 1999).

Shlaim, Avi, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).

Sternhell, Zeev and Maisel, David, The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism and the Making of the Jewish State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

Warschawski, Michel, On the Border. (Cambridge: South End Press, 2005).

Warschawski, Michel, Toward an Open Tomb. The Crisis of Israeli Society. (New York: Monthly Review, 2004).

Marxist Critiques of Zionism:

Draper, Hal, Zionism, Israel and the Arabs (Berkeley: Center for Socialist History, 1997).
Miliband, Ralph and Liebman, Marcel, The Israeli Dilemma, a debate between two left-wing Jews. Introduction and epilogue by Gilbert Achcar (London, Merlin Press, 2006).

Rodinson, Maxime, Israel, A Colonial-Settler State? (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973). Also see Israel and the Arabs, Islam and Capitalism, Mohammed, Cult, Ghetto and State, and The Persistence of the Jewish Question.

Weinstock, Nathan, Zionism: False Messiah (London: Ink Links, 1979).

Iraq:

Al-Ali, Nadje Sadig, Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present (London: Zed Books, March 2007).

Ali, Tariq, Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq (London: Verso, 2003). See Christopher Phelps' review from ATC 119.

Arnove, Anthony (editor), Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War (Boston: South End Press, 2002).
Also see his Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal (New York: New Press, 2006). See David Finkel's review in ATC 122.

Batatu, Hanna, The Old Social Classes & the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Definitive history of Iraq.

International Crisis Group, In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency (Amman/Brussels, 2006).

Parenti, Chrstian, The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Iraq (New Press, 2004).

Middle East/Southeast Asia:

Achcar, Gilbert, Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002).

Achcar, Gilbert, Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004).

McAlister, Melani, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media and US Interests in the Middle East Since 1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

Nouraie-Simone, Fereshteh, (editor), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era (New York: Feminist Press, 2005).

Rashid, Ahmed, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2002). See Dianne Feeley's review of Jihad and Taliban in ATC 99.

Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban: Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). See Dianne Feeley's review of Jihad and Taliban in ATC 99

Said, Edward, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (London: Vintage, 1997).

Said, Edward, edited by Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin, The Edward Said Reader (Vintage, 2000).

A Few Films:

Battle for the Holy Land, originally a segment on PBS's Frontline, the film offers candid interviews with both the IDF and Palestinian fighters. (www.shopPBS.com)

The Bedouin of Israel, 2-hour documentary by Ron Kelley on the displacement of Bedouins from the Negev. Americans for Middle East Understanding also publishes The Link (www.ameu.org)

Citizen Bishara, tells the story of Azmi Bishara, a leading Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset, by Simone Bitton. (www.frif.com)

Divine Intervention, by Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, is a fantasy response to the media-generated images of Palestinians as terrorists. (www.avatarfilms.com)

Gaza Strip, feature-length documentary completed before 9/11, by James Longley. (www.arabfilm.com).

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers directed by Robert Greenwald reveals the privatization that has accompanied the war and occupation. (http://iraqforsale.org)

Paradise Now, a story of two Palestinian suicide bombers and what makes them tick. (www.arabfilm.com)

People and the Land, a documentary. (www.arabfilm.com)

Wall, a documentary about the building of the Separation Wall. (www.arabfilm.com)

 Americans for Middle East Understanding has a number of videos that can be purchased from $10-25 each. (www.ameu.org/videos.asp)

First Run/Icarus Films have a number of films/videos on the Middle East available for sale or rental (www.frif.com)

Both Al-Haq (www.alhaq.org) and B'Tselem (www.btselem.org) have made videos to go with their various reports. For example, Al-Haq has a 47-minute DVD, In the Spider's Web, is a documentary focusing on two women in order to illustrate Israel's use of collective punishment.