The John Howard era of Australian politics is over. Kevin Rudd is the new Australian Prime Minister (though after last night’s acceptance speech, it’s hard to get too inspired by our “dentist” leader.) After nearly 12 years in office, Howard’s reign has been characterised by a desire to drive a wedge through Australian society, between…
Showing all posts in June 2019
Changing of the guard
Guy Rundle, Arena Issue 91: Australian intellectual life changed when Murdoch — Rupe or Lachlan (remember Lachlan?) — sacked Paul Kelly as editor of the eponymous national broadsheet, and moved him sideways to be editor-at-large. Under Kelly’s editorship, the one-time left-liberal publication had moved to a position on the Centre-Right — hardly strident, but committed…
Control is sweet
How the Zionist lobby controls vast areas of American political and media life. An explanation.
Among the maddening traffic
Iran is constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons. As a welcome change, the following music video is from underground band, Kiosk. Filmed in Tehran, it gives viewers a taste of daily life in the Iranian capital (and sounds like Dire Straits, massively popular there):
Priorities, people
Americans are regularly accused of living in a ghetto and rarely caring what happens in the outside world. This is a gross exaggeration, of course, but rings true for many. So what about China? Danwei’s founder Jeremy Goldkorn explains: There has been some discussion on several China blogs recently about a statistic that only six…
Time for a change of government
The Australian federal election is tomorrow. I’ve deliberately not commented greatly about it – aside from this piece about the possibility of a Labor government supporting a US-strike on Iran and the occasional article about the major parties’ slavish attention to Israel – so a few words are in order. The nearly 12 years of…
More fundamentalism, please
Aside from the Western presumption and arrogance that “we” have the right to control Afghanistan – despite spending decades funding an insurgency or supporting the Taliban – it now looks like our supposed concern has been futile: The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of…
The futility of yet another meeting
Laila El-Haddad, Guardian Comment is Free, November 22: Even in the worst of times, there’s one thing we’re never short of in our troubled part of the world: another conference, meeting, declaration, summit, agreement. Something to save the day, to “steer” us back to whatever predetermined path it is we are or were meant to…
Welcome back, Stalin
The Soviet Union used propaganda to sell its futile wars around the world, especially in Afghanistan. But surely the Western media wouldn’t use the same tricks to sell similarly bogus adventures? Think again.
Iraqis hate us
Under the headline, “Foreign Fighter in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of US”, the New York Times shatters more than a few myths with this story: Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came…