This was enjoyable. On Sunday an extended interview with John Safran and Father Bob, hosts of Triple J’s Sunday Night Safran, was aired and we discussed detention centres, Serco, Palestine, Haiti, Afghanistan, private war, BDS, democracy and human rights:
Showing all posts in June 2019
How I became a German citizen (while maintaining the Australian passport)
My following article is published today by the Guardian (where I’m now a weekly columnist): It was hard to forgive the Nazis. The “1,000 year Reich” lasted a mere 12 years, and the German state was crushed under the weight of bloody streets, genocidal concentration camps and despotism. For this to happen in the heart…
US soldiers weep in Afghanistan at loss of KFC
With the war thoroughly lost years ago, American troops had to entertain themselves in the time-honoured, imperial tradition of completely ignoring local customs. Good story by McClatchy: There is nothing quite like coming off a patrol, your body-armor-shaped sweat stains still drying and ears ringing from grenades, only to have the hostess at T.G.I. Friday’s…
Congratulations America; you just love imprisoning your citizens by the millions
That’s quite a record (via Alternet): The United States imprisons almost three times as many Black people than were jailed in South Africa during Apartheid,… Rep. Spencer Bachus said Thursday… [3]… during a subcommittee oversight hearing on the Federal Bureau of Prisons. While games of comparison are rarely productive, the American prison industrial complex has seen cries of…
The Bourdain/CNN take on Israel/Palestine
Surely a healthy sign of the mainstreaming of Palestine. US chef Anthony Bourdain takes his TV show to Israel and Palestine (including the West Bank and Gaza) and shows humanity in Palestine and crass extremism of Zionist settlers:
Why Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four is my favourite work of fiction
I was asked to write a short column… on Australian novelist Annabel’s Smith’s website: ”¦in which I invite someone bookish to share one of their all-time favourite works of fiction and what it means to them. This week’s Friday Fave comes from journalist and political writer Antony Loewenstein. I remember first reading Orwell’s masterpiece many years…
While Zionist settlers thrive, Netanyahu talks about Arab "threat"
Welcome to “democratic” Israel. Last night here in Sydney distinguished international lawyer and UN expert Richard Falk explained how growing numbers of people globally are recognising the justice of the Palestinian cause and Israel’s continued belligerence. But we still a way away from holding the Jewish state to account. Here are two stories that highlight…
In conversation with indy journo and Manning trial stalwart Alexa O'Brien
The wonderful US independent journalist Alexa O’Brien is currently in Australia (she appeared this week at the Sydney Opera House with Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald and others). I spoke to her at a public event in Sydney about her coverage of the Chelsea Manning trial, dissent in America, Barack Obama’s war on whistle-blowers and threats…
Calling US Middle East "peace process" the farce that it is
Great piece by Bill Van Esveld, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch based in Jerusalem, published in The Hill: Twenty years ago, Israeli and Palestinian leaders signed the Oslo accords on the White House lawn, opening the “peace process” that the US is trying to reinvigorate. Yet the Obama administration has failed to…
Earth to New York Times; you don't have a monopoly on stories
The Guardian recently published a stunning story, via Edward Snowden, of overly close intelligence sharing between America and Israel. The New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan reveals a shocking lack of news judgement by the paper and a sense that unless big stories are found and broken by them, well, don’t bother looking to…