The West's campaign against China

 [Talk given at an online forum Behind the Cold War on China, July 27, 2021.]

Socialists are not the only ones who talk about a new cold war between the US and China. It is becoming a commonplace in the mainstream media.

But we have an explanation for it. All the endless propaganda and punitive measures against China are part of a campaign by Western imperialism, principally the United States, to isolate and contain China and reassert Washington’s hitherto uncontested hegemony — economically, militarily and politically.

Despite its enormous power, the US is in relative decline. Just compare its position now to that at the end of World War II. Then it was the unchallenged world superpower — the only one. Now China is a an emerging superpower. It is challenging the US, both economically and militarily. And the US is beset by truly massive, glaring social problems, obvious to everyone.

A Radical Life: A Memoir by Jim McIlroy

[Remarks at online launch of A Radical Life:  A Memoir by Jim McIlroy, July 18, 2021.]

It’s a pleasure to be helping launch Jim’s very readable and important book.

Perhaps Jim will say something about the development of his memoir project. I know he started putting it together some years ago. But once we committed to producing an actual book, things quickly escalated. Jim had about a third in reasonable shape but he came under great pressure to finish the rest — to boil it down from all the emails, flyers, reports and articles that he had assembled. A lot of the editing and polishing of the text took place after it was laid out with Coral and myself weighing in with comments and suggestions. That might not be how the big publishing houses do it but we had no choice!