Instead of focusing on building bridges and finding common ground for peace, the West has increasingly sought to shore up support among its allies and castigate or demonise its enemies. The West has an unenviable track record of repeatedly failing to use diplomacy to resolve geopolitical issues The charge for peace should be led by Continue reading »
politics
Fighting in Ukraine continues, sometimes fiercely, sometimes spasmodically. So do the unending appeals from Vladimir Zelensky for more and better weapons from the West. He is now to get from Britain anti-tank shells made from depleted uranium, which will increase radiation and chemical pollution where they are used. Depleted uranium (DU), is basically the isotope Continue reading »
There is a profound irony in the current Voice debate – could Dutton be one of the Yes campaigns significant vote winners? Dutton is deeply unpopular and deeply distrusted. Given this could Dutton’s opposition to the Voice actually persuade more people to vote Yes than vote No? The data suggests it’s more than possible. There Continue reading »
The term ‘jobseeker’ needs to be dropped – it is Orwellian in nature and has no place in a civil society. It’s fairly standard practice for economists especially of the Left to decry the RBA’s obsession with the nonsense that is the Non-Accelerating Inflationary Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) – the theoretical concept in macroeconomics that Continue reading »
Federal governments have been winding back administrative law reforms for 30 years, largely ignoring serious commitments (as signatory to Open Government Partnership (OGP) since 2015), to more open government. Secrecy has become the fallback in Australia with over 800 secrecy and non-disclosure laws. Commercial in confidence is overused, as is legal and professional privilege, national Continue reading »
Multinational weapons companies could end up more deeply integrated into Australian military operations if Defence gets its way with legislative reforms. This comes on top of significant public unease about Australia’s ability to act independently as a result of AUKUS. Activity in the defence domain has reached peak overload. On top of AUKUS and the Continue reading »
Orchestrated components are coming together to enable the US to recruit Australia in future wars of choice. Our media must begin to ask questions about the crude but successful ways the Australian people are being groomed to provide passive or enthusiastic consent. A version of the long awaited Defence Strategic Review for public consumption will Continue reading »
How the government enables drug company grifting via giving them the store while funding reserch.
Matt Bruenig does the unthinkable and investigates the quetion of whether National Public Radio is state media.
What kind of bipartisanship do we want? Smooth-as-silk to grow our Pentagon and Praetorian Guard? Or disruptive to fight against all that?