Celebrating colonisation, demonising Arabs and making money in the process? Welcome to Israel 2012 (via Ynet): Like a frozen turkey plunged into boiling oil, a group of American tourists descend from an air-conditioned van into the scorching heat of the West Bank. Flashing smiles all around, they march into Caliber 3, a local shooting range.…
#LeftTurn photos from Canberra and Sydney events
Last week there were two events for #LeftTurn. One in Canberra, with co-editor Jeff Sparrow and Wendy Bacon and the other in Sydney, with Jeff, Larissa Behrendt and Tad Tietze. Here are the Canberra photos and the Sydney ones. Both events were interesting debates about the Left and what it means to expand its reach…
Our web future is censored unless we fight our own government’s secret demands
The sooner we adjust our thinking to understand that growing number of so-called democracies rather like the idea of censoring the internet, the better (via the Guardian): There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the… internet… in last six months, according to a report from Google. Since the search…
Murdoch’s Australian offers advice for #LeftTurn; go right, my blind followers
This was inevitable. Take a former speechwriter for Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, current columnist for the Australian and constant public advocate for more right-wing policies that are rejected time and time again at the ballot box and your insights are inevitably tres deep. But hey, maybe failure will be rewarded? It certainly has in…
Talking #LeftTurn on Radio Adelaide
This morning I appeared on Radio Adelaide discussing the main issues in #LeftTurn: What are your thoughts on global warming? Serious concern? Doesnt exist? Or perhaps you maintain a blissful state of confusion? ”˜Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left’ is a new book that offers passionate and challenging accounts from politicans, journalists and…
Think nukes makes Israel feel safe? As if
Joseph Dana, The National: For years, Israel has collected personal information about travellers to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And security officials intimidate travellers who are deemed problematic. It used to be that officials would rifle through people’s notebooks and journals. Even Israeli Jews involved in Palestinian solidarity projects are…
Parliamentary “debate” in Australia over Palestine is anemic and racist
There are barely any Australian politicians who speak honestly about Israel and Palestine. Instead, indulged and brain-washed by the Zionist lobby, they spout pro-Israel propaganda. They hear no evil and they see no evil. All the while Israel continues to illegally colonise Palestine, making their stated aim of a two-state solution an utter impossibility. History…
How Obama maintained torture and rendition, clearly inspired by Bush’s legacy
A startling if unsurprising extract from a new book by James Mann, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power: On December 9, little more than a month after Election Day, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency gave President-elect Barack Obama a rather astonishing demonstration. The CIA director, a bald-headed,…
Remembering Gaza; The World Around Us
A new documentary featuring two Al-Jazeera journalists, The World Around Us, who were inside Gaza during Israel’s onslaught in late 2008 and early 2009. They witnessed the horrors and won’t let the world forget: More here.
Feeling the Zionist hate
Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz: Israeli evil wears many faces these days. There are the rude, the crude and the thuggish, who still manage to generate some heat: When MK Miri Regev goes off on one of her jingoist, gutter-talk rampages – “the ‘infiltrators’ are a cancer” – some people are still shocked. The same…