Showing posts with label People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label People. Show all posts

Jul 18, 2021

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!

Dec 16, 2016

With Fidel's death, an extraordinary revolutionary has gone

[Speech at Fidel memorial meeting, Trades Hall, Melbourne, December 16, 2016.]

With Fidel's death, an extraordinary revolutionary has gone. The imperialists and their hired guns hated Fidel. There is so much utter rubbish circulating online. In 2006 Forbes business magazine listed Fidel as one of the world's richest "kings, queens and dictators"! A recent News Corp article explained that "Western observers have long suspected that 'El Comandante' . . . was siphoning off the proceeds from state-run enterprises, including a small gold mine." And so it goes on . . .

Dec 3, 2016

Fidel lives on in the struggle

[Speech given at Melbourne rally in honour of Fidel, December 4, 2016.]

Fidel Castro was a towering figure in world politics for almost six decades. Now, with his passing, the hacks of the capitalist media have been gloating over the death of the "dictator". Of course, he was nothing of the sort. As he truthfully told director Oliver Stone in the movie Commandante, "I am a slave to the people"! His life is a monument of conscience and loyalty to principle.

Oct 25, 2013

In memory of Doug Lorimer

[These brief remarks were delivered at a memorial meeting for Doug Lorimer in Melbourne on October 25, 2013, organised by Socialist Alternative. The photo above was taken outside an Annandale polling booth in the 1975 federal election. It shows (from right): Joy Ecclestone, Dave Holmes, Doug Lorimer, (unidentified), Geoff Payne.]

The July 27 Green Left Weekly carried an obituary for Doug written by Pat Brewer. For comrades interested in the basic details of Doug's political CV I would recommend it.

Aug 18, 2006

Sixtieth birthday remarks

[Remarks made at a dinner in Melbourne to celebrate my 60th birthday, August 2006]

The card Andrea gave me for my birthday said that now I'm 60 I should make lists and offered one for today — first, check my zipper; two, make a wish; three, blow out candles; four, eat cake; and five, wipe my face. Well, I checked my zipper before I got up and I'll practice the rest later. But I did want to write down what I wanted to say tonight so it comes out right.

Jan 1, 1997

An introduction to James P. Cannon

[From Building the Revolutionary Party: An Introduction to James P. Cannon (New Course Publications: Chippendale, 1997)]

James P. Cannon was a pioneer of the Communist Party of the United States and one of its central leaders in the 1920s. Breaking with the Stalinised CP in 1928 he founded the American Trotskyist movement and played the decisive role in building it for over three decades.

Oct 21, 1992

Jim Percy (1948-92)

[This unsigned obituary article first appeared in Green Left Weekly, #76, October 21, 1992. While it was a collective effort, I was assigned to produce the first draft. I especially want to include it here in tribute to the enormous role Jim played in the development of our movement and in the political education of several generations of comrades, myself included.]

Jim Percy, national president of the Democratic Socialist Party, died quietly as a result of cancer, at his home in Sydney on October 12. He was 43 years old and had devoted 27 years of his life to revolutionary socialist politics.