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A new name for an old imperialist game. Proletarian writers Subscribe to our  channel Coercive diplomacy is a new name for an old game: might is right. Back in the 19th century, the British imperialists invented the term ‘gunboat diplomacy’ for their version of this game, when they were forcing opium addiction onto the Chinese people against their will but allegedly in the interests of ‘free trade’ (ie, British capitalist profit-taking). We sum up below the evidence presented in a report by our comrades in the Communist Party of China, to which a few of comments of our own have been added. ***** Diplomacy is the art, science and means by which nations, groups or individuals conduct their affairs, in ways to safeguard their interests and promote their polit...

BY REBECCA GORDON Photograph Source: Artsistra – CC BY-SA 4.0 One day when I was about six, I was walking with my dad in New York City. We noticed that someone had stuck little folded squares of paper under the windshield wipers of the cars parked on the street beside us. My father picked one up and read it. I saw his face grow dark with anger. “What is it, Papa?” “It’s a message from people who think that all Jews should be killed.” This would have been in the late 1950s, a time when the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews in Europe was still fresh in the American consciousness. Not, you might have thought, a good season for sowing murderous antisemitism in lower Manhattan. Already aware that, being the daughter of a Jewish father and gentile mother, I was myse...

BY NORMAN SOLOMON Photograph Source: Jamelle Bouie – CC BY 2.0 A recent Justice Department report concluded that “systemic” racial bias in the Minneapolis Police Department “made what happened to George Floyd possible.” During the three years since a white police officer brutally murdered Floyd, nationwide discussions of systemic racism have extended well beyond focusing on law enforcement to also assess a range of other government functions. But such scrutiny comes to a halt at the water’s edge — stopping short of probing whether racism has been a factor in U.S. military interventions overseas. Hidden in plain sight is the fact that virtually all the people killed by U.S. firepower in the “war on terror” for more than two decades have been people of color. Thi...