Matt Gonzalez & San Francisco's Green Earthquake

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...

Matt Gonzalez & San Francisco's Green Earthquake

— Rich Lesnik

PERHAPS THE LABEL "upstart" isn't quite appropriate for Matt Gonzalez, who was narrowly defeated by a Democratic Party artillery/bombing campaign late in the campaign for Mayor of San Francisco.

Gonzalez, the son of Mexican immigrant parents from Texas, became a member of the Green Party some three years ago when campaigning for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (SF's name for city council). He'd become increasingly fed up with the ineptness and lack of will of Democrats to confront the increasing blight of corporate power in the nation's cities, and around the world.

Over the course of three years as a Supe, his clear voice and uncompromising stand on such important issues as corruption, nepotism and cronyism in commission appointments, and the problems of the city's homeless population, gained him popularity and ultimately the presidency of the board.

Gonzalez announced his campaign for mayor relatively late in the general election (a mere three months before the vote), and in a field of nine candidates (three of them self-proclaimed "progressives") came in second, forcing a runoff against J. Paul Getty protegee Gavin Newsom.

Newsom had announced his intention to run for mayor a year earlier, and raised $3.8 million against Gonzalez's $450,000, for the runoff. Late in the drive, as Gonzalez's popularity became increasingly clear, the Democrats pulled out all the stops, with campaign visits by Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and a media blitz against Gonzalez accusing him of being a communist, a Marxist, a "radical" and, worst of all, "unwilling to cooperate with big business."

Newsom: Remove the Homeless

A major issue of contention between the two campaigns was how to address the problems of SF's homeless population. Newsom had earlier sponsored a ballot measure, entitled "Care Not Cash," which would have stripped welfare benefits from homeless people, with no promise of the "care" the measure supposedly would substitute.

This was nothing more than a bald-faced move to sweep the homeless off the streets of SF, so the city's image of "America's most beautiful city" could be maintained or restored, and millions/billions of tourist dollars to stoke the coffers of the city's wealthy ncreased.

Gonzalez's approach seeks to address the problems of the homeless community, through a series of measures designed to help the helpless overcome emotional and substance dependency problems, and find permanent low-cost housing alternatives.

Newsom is a landlord. Gonzalez is a renter. Newsom is a "car freak," Gonzalez doesn't own a car and rides his bicycle to work. Newsom's career and business have been bankrolled by the Getty family. Gonzalez, who graduated from Columbia University and Stanford Law School on scholarships, has had a lifetime of service in the public defenders' office and as a member and president of the city's board of supervisors.

Activist Groundswell

Essential to the Gonzalez campaign was a groundswell of active support from thousands of youthful (and some not so youthful) volunteers during the last month of the campaign. The Newsom campaign was virtually invisible, while the Gonzalez campaign had parties, meetings, benefits, public events, and lots of distribution of literature and information throughout the city's neighborhoods.

This was an important element in forcing the media to cover the campaign a little more fairly, though the pro-Newsom bias was clear from the tone of most of the coverage in the city's major corporate media.

The proof of Gonzalez's popularity was a relatively high turnout, and a big margin at the ballot box (Gonzalez won by 10,000 at the polls). What proved insurmountable was Newsom's early advantage in the early- and absentee-vote, where his margin was 20,000.

Gonzalez and the Green Party garnered 48% percent overall, despite the major Democratic Party onslaught, proving that a real third-party alternative to both parties of big business can capture the imagination of the electorate, and even might win an election one day soon.

The election is over, and almost all the Newsom signs have disappeared from the house windows. But all over the city, Gonzalez for Mayor signs remain posted in neighborhood homes, leading me to believe that the next four years are going to be difficult for Newsom, and an exciting time of preparation for the next Democratic-Green confrontation in San Francisco.

ATC 108, January-February 2004