Figureheads like the Guardian’s George Monbiot have wrecked the left’s ability to think critically, encouraging an analysis of power politics more suited to the playground. One of the biggest problems for the left, as it confronts what seems like humanity’s ever-more precarious relationship with the planet – from the climate emergency to a potential nuclear Continue reading »
politics
In 2023, an American economics firm, Brattle, provided its reparation calculations to a symposium on Transatlantic Slavery Reparations chaired by international judge Patrick Robinson. Brattle calculated that the USA and slave-trading European countries owed the Caribbean and Americas US$130 trillion for wrongs done over a 400-year period. The reparation numbers are shocking but the symposium’s Continue reading »
The recent P&I article by Chris Douglas featuring Glencore and the Great Artesian Basin raised many genuine concerns, especially regarding the sophism of corporate social responsibility. These included Glencore’s predatory culture and rapacious deeds and the egregious conduct of many other extractive mining brigands across Australia and elsewhere around the globe. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Continue reading »
Recent figures show that around 30% of Australian school children do not have adequate reading skills. This 30% of Australian school children need vocational knowledge and skills to find a productive place in Australian life, but some will have their reading tested by TAFE then told, without a hint of irony, “You need to go Continue reading »
The ACT Labor-led Government might lead the nation in many worthy ways and it might, too, you might think, especially six months out from an election, be vigilant to avoid what many might see as an embarrassing own goal. But no… This is a column I never thought I’d write. In my last stint in Continue reading »
I think if I hear again, in some attempt at a supposed even-handedness an interviewer ask a representative of the Palestinian people in this terrible time, ‘do you also oppose the actions of Hamas on 7th October?’ I will puke. That is not a pleasant prospect. There it was again the other day on ‘our Continue reading »
The UN Human Rights Report of August 31, 2022 says what’s happening in Xinjiang constitutes “crimes against humanity”. In plain English, this is saying it is not genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. It confirms an earlier Amnesty International report in 2021 to the same effect. Both are clear implicit rejections of unsubstantiated genocide claims. Continue reading »
The sponsored pass system for lobbyists to access Parliament House opens the door to undue influence and potentially corrupt behaviour. Facilitating such opportunities is both unwise and inappropriate. Lobbying can be an important means of informing Ministers and other parliamentarians about issues and the perspectives of particular groups in the community. It involves political communication Continue reading »
Liberal democracies remain shamefully complicit with Israel, despite its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. Students of world politics have long understood that when it comes to the strategic interests of leading states, international law is marginalised unless it is useful in waging a propaganda war against adversaries. Indeed, the United Nations was designed in Continue reading »
We need journalism that is committed to accurate and uncompromising investigation and not a spurious “impartiality” that hides brutal facts of occupation and genocide. Issues deemed by UK media to be too controversial to be made visible are simply not being covered in Israel’s war on Gaza. Since 1 February, there has not been a Continue reading »