Reading

I wish the Atlantic offered gift links because this is one I’d really love to share with you. Here’s a gift link to this article in the Atlantic. It’s from Mark Liebovitch and it’s about the invertebrate cowards in the Republican Party. Donald Trump had them pegged: In the summer of 2015, back when he was still talking to traitorous reporters like me, I spent extended stretches with Donald Trump. He was in the early phase of his first campaign for president, though he had quickly made himself the inescapable figure of that race—as he would in pretty much every Republican contest since. We would hop around his various clubs, buildings, holding rooms, limos, planes, golf carts, and mob scenes, Trump disgorging his usual bluster, slander, flattery, and obvious lies. The diatribes were exhausting and disjointed. But I was struck by one theme that Trump kept pounding on over and over: that he was used to dealing with “brutal, vicious killers”—by which he meant his fellow ruthless operators in showbiz, real estate, casinos, and other big-boy industries. In contrast, he told me, politicians are saps and weaklings.

As the Biden administration vows swift action against Hamas for killing an Israeli-American, the silence surrounding the death of American activist Aysenur Eygi at the hands of Israeli forces exposes a glaring double standard.

The post Aysenur Eygi: American Lives Matter… But Not All of Them appeared first on MintPress News.

To mark PPE@10 this post continues a series of posts to celebrate ten years of Progress in Political Economy (PPE) as a blog that has addressed the worldliness of critical political economy issues since 2014. 

From the beginning of February to the end of July this year the Past & Present Reading Group undertook a reading of Grundrisse. Meaning ‘rough plan’ or ‘draft’, Grundrisse is a series of seven notebooks written by Karl Marx between 1857-8. Unpublished in Marx’s lifetime, a defining feature of the work is its unfinished quality. Sprawling in nature at over 900 pages, any attempt to provide a precis of such a work would be a fool’s errand. So, given the acknowledged roughness of the text and, given also that the work formed the materials written in preparation for the more polished outcome of Capital, what is the value of reading this work? Why not just proceed directly to the finished product? In this short blog post I will provide a number of reasons why I think Grundrisse makes for compelling reading and should be read as part of a broader understanding of Marx’s work.

Before Capital and before Capital

Good. There’s no need to rattle him during the debate because he’ll do that to himself. Rattle him before the debate.

The Opposition’s shadow minister for home and foreign affairs, Barnaby Joyce, has demanded that all airlines, but especially Qantas, bring back the mile high club. ”Flying around the country is part of the job, so why am I prevented from... Read More ›

All of us who write about politics are writing these “what if he wins” pieces. It’s terrifying. I truly believe that his administration will implement as much of Project 2025 as he can get away with because he doesn’t ever have to face the voters again. (Either he will leave under the normal constitutional order or he’ll suspend elections and stay past his term under some BS emergency order.) He would also be unshackled by the rule of law now that the Supremes have given him immunity. Combined with his obviously degraded mental state and bitterness over his loss in 2020 and the legal consequences of his criminal behavior, he’s going to be on a mission. Rolling Stone’s entry into this genre has some chilling quotes that I haven’t head before: It was the second year of his presidency, and Trump was seething about gang members and drug lords. He wanted to see their bodies piled up in the streets.

That warning was 20 years ago, but in the years since, the US has continued in its violent and aggressive ways, cloaking its violence and aggression with bromides about a rules-based international order and defence of democratic values. If only that was true. The US is a far greater threat to world peace than China. Continue reading »

Last week the ABC carried a story about the death of many Israelis on 7 October 2023 as a result of firing by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships. The controversial “Hannibal Directive”, which Israel says isn’t named for the famous Carthaginian general who took poison rather than be captured by the Romans, was reportedly enacted Continue reading »

This week I was practising my argument about a feeling that Albanese Labor has by now left it too late to retrieve its position before the next federal election is due. This was after it was revealed that the economy is on life support and that Labor’s best argument about being a superior economic manager Continue reading »

On 3 July 2024, The Age’s Chief Reporter, Chip Le Grand, emailed, called and sent a text message to my phone, posing a series of bad faith, disingenuous accusations and loaded questions which cast me as a “holocaust denier” and anti-semite. “October 7 denial, like holocaust denial,” Le Grand wrote to me, “has taken many Continue reading »

While most Australians remain well-housed, few public policy experts would argue that our housing system is today in good shape. Homelessness continues to increase and both rental and mortgage affordability stress are widespread. But although compounded by post-pandemic market disruption, such problems have been mounting over decades. Perhaps the single most powerful indicator of dysfunction Continue reading »

The Labor Government’s handling of possible questions about sexuality and gender identity in the 2026 has been a debacle. It is also the latest in a series. Is this just part of Labor’s slide towards timidity, or is Labor also acting in bad faith towards the LGBTQI+ community? Continue reading »

What is the point of the International rule book of law and order? What is the point of UN treaties and conventions if justice is only dealt out to the chosen few? Why are they chosen and who chooses them? Continue reading »

Organisational management, especially when it comes to large entities, has little to recommend it. Arrange the schedules. Pamper sponsors and behave simperingly. Ensure a diet of pills to null the embarrassment. Mind the assets and fret over the brand. Sigh over ledgers and order spreadsheets. When it comes to the classical music industry, all of Continue reading »

California had a shot at making Big Tech pay for its stranglehold on local news — but instead it caved to industry pressure and strengthened tech firms’ grip.