So much for the Muslim’s world love of America and Barack Obama. Why the hell would they? (via IPS): Despite continuous assurances that the United States favours democratic rule during the 18-month-old “Arab Spring”, majorities or pluralities in six predominantly Muslim countries see Washington as an obstacle to their democratic aspirations, according to a new…
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Footage of my 2012 PEN Free Voices lecture
I was invited this year to give the 2012 Sydney PEN “Free Voices” lecture on free speech, censorship and war. It was delivered at the Sydney Writer’s Festival in May and in Melbourne in June. ABC published an extract recently. Film footage of the Sydney event is now available. May you be provoked:
Why does Australian join every bloody US war? To be tough, really tough
In a new report by the US Studies Centre at Sydney University titled, Australia, the US, and the Vietnam and Iraq Wars: “Hound Dog, not Lapdog”, the findings are interesting: In this article, Maquarie University’s Lloyd Cox and the US Studies Centre’s associate professor in American politics Brendon O’Connor refute the portrayal of Australia as…
My name is the US-led Afghan war and I am a farce
Via The Navy Times: The Pentagon has retained its top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan for $60 million over the next year even as the company remains under criminal investigation by the military’s inspector general and its co-owner has been suspended from receiving military contracts. The military has maintained its ties to Leonie because the company…
ABC Radio National on free online culture
I appeared on ABC’s Radio National’s Common Knowledge program this week talking about the concept of free music and online culture: …There’s been an online debate burbling way… in the music scene, unleashed by 20 year-old Emily White who recently completed an internship at the American radio network, National Public Radio. She’d been working on the…
Wikileaks reveals; US PR firm tells Assad regime how to improve image
Via Foreign Policy: The lobbying firm that brought you a… Vogue… story featuring the Syrian first lady was still trying to help the Syrian… regime improve its image abroad two months after the notoriously ill-timed article was published and then scrubbed, as the country descended into violence, according to a document revealed by Wikileaks. The international firm Brown…
What does “development” really mean for Haiti?
Tragically, often the true definition of disaster capitalism, such as this industrial park which is already causing controversy, and rightly so. The New York Times have produced a stunning report and short film about the project. This isn’t progress:
Private eyes are watching all of us
The idea that repression only happens “over there” is a myth that needs to be constantly challenged (my recent PEN lecture tackled this). Take this (via Pro Publica): Cellphone companies hold onto your location information for years and routinely provide it to police and, in anonymized form, to outside companies. As they note in their…
When “stopping the boats” is the worst refugee solution
Mark Goudkamp, from the Refugee Action Coalition, speaks to CNN and talks sense about asylum seekers: