Leading Australian academic Scott Burchill offers thoughts on the current financial crisis: It is amazing that… S&P and Moody’s are still in business after their contribution to the GFC, let alone able to trigger GFC2 by downgrading the US’s credit rating. Ha-Joon Chang is absolutely right about the desperate need for structural reform in the financial…
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Remembering what Chomsky does to help people in countless places
As Noam Chomsky prepares to arrive in Australia later in the year to receive the Sydney Peace Prize, haters routinely forget the tireless work by the American intellectual behind the scenes on behalf of those persecuted by governments. This campaigning is rarely acknowledged and it often comes at some personal cost. Below is one case…
What “right to exist” as a Jewish state?
Leading Australian academic Scott Burchill (we like his thoughts here) on specious Zionist claims: Since the 1970s, Israel’s leaders have insisted that their Palestinian interlocutors acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist” as a pre-condition for negotiations on a settlement of the conflict. Amongst other concessions, the governments of Israel and the United States insist that Hamas…
Serbia 1999 vs Libya 2011
Leading Australian academic Scott Burchill has some thoughts about Libya: 1. Military intervention like this can make the humanitarian crisis worse, as it did in Serbia in 1999. Milosevich’s attacks on Kosovars only escalated after NATO’s bombing campaign begun. So even though the West controls the skies over Libya, expect ground attacks by Gaddafi loyalists…
Australians have the right to know how our leaders “lead”
Scott Burchill, in an ongoing series dedicated to the issues surrounding Wikileaks that the media is ignoring, reminds us of the various ways Australian governments over the last decades have attempted to keep information secret that we have the right to know. Note how few journalists today are leading this kind of charge: Asserting the…
How Australian foreign policy establishment mouths State Department lies
The following points by leading Australian intellectual and academic Scott Burchill is published here exclusively: Below are edited transcripts of two interviews with Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove about WikiLeaks, both from ABC TV’s The 7.30 Report. The first is dated 30 November, 2010. The second is from 7 January, 2011. I have removed contributions by…
Perhaps journalists should just take government money and stop the illusion
I’ve written regularly about the mainstream media’s love of being close to power. Ooh, look over there, Hillary in a red pantsuit! How charming. Sorry,… distracted by a very important news story. Deakin University’s Scott Burchill tackles the same issue, challenging corporate reporter’s desire to be players: To say that the WikiLeaks imbroglio has not…
Chalk one up for intellectual strength over Wikileaks
Academic bravery does happen. But how few in the academy are willing to seriously challenge the state itself? There’s no need for the entire DVD collection of James Bond films when there’s the unfolding intrigue of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Deakin University’s senior lecturer in international relations, Dr Scott Burchill, is keeping a close eye…
Open letter to Julia Gillard and the Australian government over Julian Assange
I was honoured to be called by Overland editor Jeff Sparrow on Sunday to discuss the possibility of launching a petition in support of Julian Assange. I offered a little advice and was one on the first signatories. Released publicly today (and lead story on ABC) and already garnering more than 2000 comments, this issue…
What’s hundreds of thousands dead to a Murdoch columnist?
Earlier this week we were reminded of the Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan years ago dismissing the Burmese “dissident” Aung San Suu Kyi. Sheridan is back at it today (thanks to Scott Burchill): For nearly 20 years, good hearted Indonesians have been telling the Burmese to study the New Order regime that prevailed in Indonesia…