Author: Dan La Botz

DAN LA BOTZ is a Brooklyn-based teacher, writer and activist. He is a co-editor of New Politics.

In Defense of Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin

Peter Dreier’s vicious attack on Bhaskar Sunkara in The Nation is an embarrassment to that publication. The Nation editors should be ashamed of having allowed Dreier to lambast the editor of Jacobin in such a venomous piece because Sunkara said he would vote for presidential candidate . . .

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An Evil King Rules an Afflicted Land: Coronavirus and the Depression in America

This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, la revue, the monthly journal of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
We in America live in what resembles some medieval fairy tale. An evil and maniacal king rules the plague stricken land. The . . .

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Political Struggle Amidst the Pandemic in the United States

Following over a month with large parts of the United States shutdown, the coronavirus hospitalization rate peaked last week, and the principal debate now is over when and how to restart the economy.

In the Tempest of Coronavirus: Racism and Class Struggle

This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the weekly newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
COVID-19 is now in all U.S. states with 530,026 cases and 20,614 deaths (as of April 12). Statistics suggest that the virus has peaked for . . .

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Lashed by the Storm

This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the biweekly newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.

The Coronavirus Strikes and their Significance, So Far

Across the United States we are seeing workers walk off the job in wildcat strikes in response to the employers’ failure either to shut down the workplace or to make it safe. The strikes are too few to call them . . .

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The Storm Is Now Upon Us

This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the weekly newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
Like the front edge of a furious storm, the coronavirus pandemic has reached and begun to ravage the United States, which now has the . . .

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America Faces the Deluge

This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the weekly newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
The United States stands before the deluge. Coronavirus is spreading, the economy is collapsing, anxiety is everywhere. Federal and state government responses were slow . . .

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The American Working Class, Coronavirus, and the Recession

This article was originally written for Viento Sur, a political magazine published in the Spanish state.

Why is Biden Winning?

Joe Biden turned out to be the big winner on Super Tuesday. While not all of the votes have been counted, Biden seems likely to end up with a majority. He is now positioned to do well in the rest . . .

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From the Editors

We are in interesting times. Across the globe a new wave of social protests has erupted. They stretch from Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon to Hong Kong; from Algeria and Sudan to France and Catalunya. They have taken place . . .

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Doug Henwood Has It Wrong This Time

Doug Henwood, who often has so many intelligent and useful things to say about economics and politics, has it wrong this time. A few days ago on his Facebook page he commented on an article that I had written about . . .

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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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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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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.

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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DSA Convention 2019—Overcoming Divisions—Votes to Maintain Strong National Organization, Takes up Ambitious Organizing Agenda

Some 1,056 delegates to the Democratic Socialists of America convention, representing some 55,000 DSA members, met in Atlanta over the weekend and voted to adopt a series of resolutions that will continue to build a strong national organization capable of . . .

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Fortieth Anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution; Twenty-Ninth Anniversary of the Counter-Revolution in Power

I can only outline here the complex history of the Nicaraguan revolution and counter-revolution, but cannot do them justice in a short article. I have given a more detailed account in my article “Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s Nov. 6 Election, and . . .

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Against the GrayZone Slanders

A recent article in the GrayZone viciously slanders the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jacobin magazine, and Haymarket books, accusing these sponsors of the Socialism conference in Chicago last weekend of hosting paid government agents engaged in attempts at regime change in several countries. . . .

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From the Editors

Pessimism and optimism vie for our feelings as we survey the world and national scene. We are deeply disheartened by the continuing reports on climate change, driven largely by the coal and oil industries, most recently a report . . .

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The Socialist Manifesto of Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin: Socialism without Revolution  

Bhaskar Sunkara, the young, left, entrepreneurial genius who founded and publishes Jacobin, has written a book, The Socialist Manifesto, in which he puts himself forward as the spokesperson for his generation’s socialist movement in America. He is certainly in a . . .

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