Author: Dan La Botz

México: Year One of the “Fourth Transformation”

This is an statement marking the first year in office of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO] published in Unidad Socialista, the publication of the Liga de Unidad Socialista, a socialist organization in México. The editorial refers to the “Fourth . . .

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The Socialist Position on the Latest U.S. Attack on Iran: The Assassination of Suleimani

President Donald Trump has virtually declared war on Iran with the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in an airstrike near Baghdad International Airport. The assassination of Suleimani will very likely lead to war, . . .

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The UK Election: A Car Crash on the Left Side of the Road

It was probably no surprise that Joe Biden announced that the huge victory for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives and the mauling defeat of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s radical leadership was a warning to fellow Democrats to shun the leftism . . .

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Mataron a Frank Ordoñez

El jueves 5 de diciembre de 2019, Frank Ordoñez, de 27 años de edad, un chofer de UPS y padre de dos hijas, fue matado en un tiroteo entre la policía y dos sospechosos que huían de la escena de un robo.

They Killed Frank Ordoñez

On Thursday, December 5th 2019, Frank Ordoñez, 27, a UPS driver and father of two, was killed in a shootout between police and suspects fleeing the scene of a robbery.

Corbyn’s Defeat and the Democratic Socialists of America  

We in DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, will have to be able to understand and explain this: Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won the British general election by a landslide, defeating Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn largely because they broke . . .

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Where Are the Teamsters Going?

The Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) held its 44th annual convention in Chicago in early November, where it endorsed Sean O’Brien for General President and Fred Zuckerman for General Secretary-Treasurer in the 2021 Teamster election. They will run on the “Teamsters . . .

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Explaining the 2019 Social Rebellion in Chile

The roots of the current social explosion in Chile can be found in the 17-year dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), who took power after a bloody military coup backed by Washington. The armed forces overthrew the democratic socialist . . .

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Book Review: Paradoxical Politics of Protest in China

Teresa Wright, Popular Protest in China, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2018
and
Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Teresa Wright’s concise but comprehensive overview, Popular Protest in China, has only become more relevant in the . . .

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French Unions, Yellow Vests Converge, Launch General Strike Today

(Montpellier, France) On the eve of an “unlimited” (open-ended) General Strike called for Dec. 5, more and more unions and protest groups are pledging join in.
Two things are unusual about this strike. The first is that it is open-ended, rather . . .

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Filling in the Rank-and-File Strategy

The rank-and-file strategy continues to be a topic of both debate and practice. This is enormously encouraging news. When I encountered the rank-and-file strategy as a young labor activist, the fact that activists were even talking about it offered a . . .

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The World Up in Arms Against Austerity and Authoritarianism

Much of the world at this moment is a laboratory searching for the cure for capitalism, and the social scientists running the experiments are in the streets.

Delving into the Current State of China’s Labor Movement

Editors’ note: This is the third of three articles providing analysis of what’s happening now in China – and why.
China moved towards creating a business-friendly environment for private enterprises in the reform and opening up period in the late 1970s. . . .

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Syria, Refugees and Solidarity

The recent Turkish offensive on north-eastern Syria and US withdrawal of troops from the region is unleashing yet another humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.
In the past few days over 130,000 Syrians have fled for their lives, in desperate search of . . .

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Ecuadoran Women Protest Government’s Economic Policies and Repression

We, the women who resist – in the streets, in our territories, from our spaces and communities – we are the feminist sisters from Abya Yala, those who combat with our bodies, and sustain life; We sympathize with the criminalized, . . .

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The Future of Black Leadership

What is the future of black leadership? In the wake of the Movement for Black Lives on the one hand and the “election” of Donald Trump (and the forthcoming presidential election) on the other, a range of intellectuals, pundits, activists, . . .

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The Class Struggle and the Yellow Vests: Where Are We Headed?

We have never seen so many upheavals in so few years in France.
Society has been turned completely upside down in a way that is totally unprecedented. The social programs won after the Second World War have been savaged and democratic . . .

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An Open Letter to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

In Resolution 62 of the Atlanta Convention of DSA you asserted your support for the Cuban government and condemned the U.S. policy of economic sanctions on that country.
I who write to you, a Cuban formed in the struggle by trying . . .

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New Film about the First Rainbow Coalition

Many young people are unaware that the Black Panthers sought out and formed alliances among Black and white, Puerto Rican and Native American working people. The first “Rainbow Coalition” was created in the 1960s in Chicago and became an example . . .

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How Should the U.S. Left Think about China?

Editors’ note: This is the second of three articles providing analysis of what’s happening now in China – and why.
[Interview with the author on Democracy Now.]
On the U.S. left, China is treated for the most part as an afterthought, an . . .

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‘A New Generation Rises’: Eyewitness to Hong Kong Revolt

Hong Kong Teachers in Protest
The people of Hong Kong are in the fight of their lives against their own government and the Chinese Communist Party. Carrie Lam, the enclave’s chief executive, appointed by Beijing, earlier this year attempted to rush . . .

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