With the weekend election of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister of Australia, we’re in for even rougher years of treating asylum seekers with cruelty and contempt. The Refugee Art Project challenges this trend, offering a voice and space for refugees to be creative while behind the razor wire. This new film, by Daz Chandler, movingly…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Use and abuse of the Holocaust to defend and support Israel
Interesting and necessary editorial in Haaretz: The flyby over the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp by three Israel Air Force planes 10 years ago was a significant event for the service. The air force’s commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, still keeps the flight’s documentation close by in his office. Four air force commanders at different times were…
Australia leads world in allowing private companies to warehouse people
What a record. My book Profits of Doom examines the desire by successive Australian governments to allow private firms to make a killing by locking up far too many individuals. And now this (via The Canberra Times): Australia has a higher proportion of prisoners in privately run jails than any other nation in the world…
Sydney launch event for Profits of Doom
My new book Profits of Doom was launched by independent journalist Wendy Bacon in Sydney in August at Gleebooks. The audio of this packed event is presented by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, where I’m a Research Associate:
How most Americans view the conflict in Syria
A far too accurate representation of how serious news is routinely viewed in popular culture: Alyssa Milano Sex Tape from Alyssa Milano
Triple R interview on Profits of Doom
It’s rare to get a chance in today’s media climate to have a long conversation about serious issues. This interview, about my new book Profits of Doom, was broadcast on Melbourne’s Triple R Spoke program, and we spoke in depth about the reality of privatised detention centres, privatised war in Afghanistan and challenging the seeming…
How vulture capitalism evolves in Afghanistan
A key theme in my new book Profits of Doom… are the ways in which corporations enrich themselves in times of war. Here’s the latest example, via the New York Times: Dollar for dollar, Mahmood Karzai may well hold the title for getting the least value out of his pricey American lawyers. Mr. Karzai, a brother…
Challenging US-led Dirty Wars
My book review appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Days after the Boston marathon bombings in April, the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reportedly told authorities that he and his brother, Tamerlan, watched online the sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born cleric who was killed by an American drone in Yemen in 2011. It was just…
Missing the biting wit of George Carlin skewering US men loving war
We need such comedians today, people unafraid to call bullshit on futile wars:
Right Now radio interview on Profits of Doom
The human rights group Right Now has strongly covered my new book Profits of Doom. I was interviewed on their radio station on Melbourne 3RRR on vulture capitalism and the dangers of outsourcing asylum seekers to private corporations: