From the perspective of a 1960s and 1970s protester, the domestic and international scenario looks worse than grim. Following the 2016 US election cycle, a campaign worker for a moderately liberal Congressional candidate working from an upstate New York campaign headquarters told me after that candidate’s abysmal loss to a far right-wing Republican, “I refuse Continue reading »
politics
Under Australia’s Constitution, the people of Australia have no way of binding the parliaments and governments they elect to be loyal to them. This is because once parliaments and governments are elected the members must take an oath that obliges them to give their loyalty solely to a foreign monarch who has no reciprocal obligation Continue reading »
“The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them,” said the Pope in his Christmas Day blessing. “And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?” Pope Francis condemned the global arms Continue reading »
It is the urgent task of the American people to overhaul a foreign policy that is so broken, corrupted, and deceitful that it is burying the government in debt while pushing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another — Continue reading »
If the gloves are off from the blood-soaked hands of Israel and the United States, then the gloves should come off for the rest of the world to tell them what they think of their genocidal actions and brutality. There’s no longer any pretence, no false humility, no drawing of the veil from either country. Continue reading »
A central characteristic of narcissistic sadists according to the great psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, is their desire to reduce all living matter to dead matter. Fromm describes these narcissistic sadists as necrophilious characters. We are currently witnessing the genocidal actions of a necrophilious duo of Netanyahu and Biden. The first claims to be Jewish, the second Continue reading »
Following Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel that caused more than 1,200 fatalities, there was a barrage of injunctions from Western mainstream media, politicians, and pundits insisting that anybody wishing to express an opinion on the events and the ensuing Israeli war crimes and genocide in Gaza, first denounce Hamas before expressing any other view. Continue reading »
One of the most memorable tales from Tony Birch’s 2006 debut collection, Shadowboxing, is The Butcher’s Wife. In this short story, the titular wife sensationally murders and dismembers her husband after he beats her in full view of everyone in the street. The physical distress of regular beatings is almost to be taken for granted in Continue reading »
As the New Zealand coalition government backs closer alignment with US geo-strategic interests, critics warn of instability and loss of sovereignty in a region militarisation is dividing. Concerns are rising for peace and sovereignty in the Pacific after strong signals from New Zealand’s new government that it wants to swiftly join the US-led military alliance Continue reading »
In the mid-1980s when I was at Boston College, a Jesuit university, one of the lecturers commented that the Catholic Church hierarchy was fearful of a schism in the church. Too late, he remarked, it is already here, informally. He pointed out that the majority of students at that Catholic university no longer believed the Continue reading »