A worrying development in Australia (courtesy of the… Greens): Minister Joe Ludwig, representing the Attorney General in the Senate, confirmed in Question Time today that the Australia Federal Police monitors coal seam gas protesters and that the government outsources some intelligence gathering to private consultants. “Farmers in Queensland trying to protect their land from coal seam…
Category General
Disaster capitalism alive and well in USA
Via the Guardian: It’s almost as if… Rahm Emanuel… was lifting a page from… Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine… – as if he was reading her account of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” as a cookbook recipe, rather than as the ominous episode that it was.… In record time, Emanuel successfully exploited the fact that Chicago will host the upcoming… G8… and… Nato… summit meetings to…
What we aren’t hearing about Syria (apart from goodies vs baddies)
Nir Rosen, one of the finest independent journalists around, sends the following message to the essential Angry Arab: so media accounts of yesterday’s fighting in Homs are not exactly accurate. they make it seem as if this is Hama in 1982 all over again and Homs has fallen. In fact the armed opposition controls more…
How Wikileaks must be supported and why
Mainstream support for Wikileaks is often far removed from the daily news cycle. Many journalists seem to feel uncomfortable backing Wikileaks (and Julian Assange) because of his ongoing legal issues, forgetting the key miracle behind the site; the profound challenges to the established information order and exposing the sycophancy between journalists and corporate power. I…
NYTimes discusses future US role in Afghanistan but magically ignores mercenaries
This is typical corporate media reporting on “our” wars. Ideologically embedded New York Times reporters in Washington DC are handed information from the White House and essentially write a press release for the Obama administration. Any mention of the huge role of private contractors in Afghanistan, a group that will continue to grow, like in…
What Australia needs is a “proper dose of free market thinking”
Fox News style TV brought to you by billionaires. That’s real “democracy” (and the inspiration is that glorious lover of free debate, Rupert Murdoch):
Anyone can make a revolution (but the web won’t be enough)
Last last year I was invited to chair a panel at the Sydney Opera House’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas called, “Anyone Can Make A Revolution”. It was an attempt to understand the reality of the Arab revolutions and the influence (or not) of the internet: In Egypt and Tunisia we have seen ordinary people come…
On the road with disaster capitalism
Just a short note to say that postings will remain very light until the 3rd week of February. I’m currently travelling overseas researching a forthcoming book (out 2013) on disaster capitalism. Let’s just say I’m learning much about mining, human rights, local communities being shafted and Western multinationals colluding to stir the pot. Welcome to…
What White House press corps need to hear; you suck
Michael Hastings, author of the stunning new book The Operators, talks to Harpers: 4. Your book pays at least as much attention to the Pentagon press corps and its relationship with power as it does to Stanley McChrystal and his team, and you write that after your article ran, you found that you had few…