For all of Buttigieg’s resumé stops—in Oxford, South Bend, Kabul, and Cambridge, Mass.—the only subject on which he can muster much passion is that of The Importance of Being Mayor Pete. (As Brooklyn advance man Walt Whitman said, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, …”)On Afghan politics, the in-fighting of the Democratic party, the budget deficit, or how McKinsey pads its billing hours, Mayor Pete sounds like a shy freshmen, someone who has yet to finish the required reading. But on the subject of himself, Buttigieg might well be a tenured professor. More

It is a commonplace in the western media that China’s spectacular economic rise began when it “abandoned” communism in order to espouse capitalism (the Thomas Friedmanite mantra).This line of argument is stupid and simplistic.China’s policy throughout the “reform” era has been to deal with the capitalist west in ways that benefit China. If this order in the west is neoliberal, China will engage in trade with the west in its neoliberal context.But what China won’t do is “internalize” this neoliberalism. More

As we know, big lies can run free across borders with few joining the dots.For example, no media reports that China’s growing dispute with Canada is based on Canada’s enforcement of the Trump administration’s unilateral and illegal embargo against oil-competitor Iran. A cynical reply is that this is predictable. Canada attacks any designated US Enemy in junior partnership with global corporate command.But this time there is a new twist. Canada is attacking itself without knowing it. More