After more than 500,000 people signed a petition launched by former prime minister Kevin Rudd raising concerns about the influence of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the Senate is to hold an inquiry into media diversity.
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John Menadue
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There’s a term for what happened at the Capitol this week: ‘whitelash’ (Politico 9.1.21)
The whiplash from the Georgia elections to the storming of the Capitol mirrored a familiar pattern in US history of Black advancement followed by white backlash. (more…)
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What do our political leaders stand for?
Good government must be based on broadly shared values that inspire and enthuse us. (more…)
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Words matter: Was the attack on the Capitol a rally, protest or insurrection? (Center for Public Integrity)
What happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6? Depends on whom you ask. To some, the attack by hundreds of mostly white men and women was an insurrection. To others it was a coup. (more…)
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Drug policy reform series – a repost
Attached is a collection of articles on drug policy reform, which were published as a series on Pearls and Irritations between 6 and 11 August 2018. This series is designed to draw attention to this important issue, and to the failure of our current policies. (more…)
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The Confederacy stormed the Capitol. The unfinished civil war.(The Nation 7.1.20)
And then, because the rioters were white, they were allowed to walk away. But just imagine if they had been Black…Authorities would remove and arrest Trump—if he were Black. (more…)
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Asian language learning in Australia was a disgrace 40 years ago. It is now much worse.
An important issue we worked on in the Department (of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs) was foreign language learning. We set the pace in the early 1980s, with not many supporters. I felt quite lonely. (more…)
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Blending electoral democracy with political meritocracy: Michael Lyons
“Democracies” come in many shades of grey, from liberal to illiberal, authoritarian to “managed”, and more. A convergence of East and the West towards something akin to “post-democracy” might bring a much-improved world order, and a safer planet. (more…)
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Ian Robinson: Changing one word doesn’t fix the National Anthem but makes it worse
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is deluded if he thinks changing one word can fix our deeply flawed National Anthem. There are too many things wrong with it. Tinkering around the edges cannot save something that is rotten at the core. (more…)
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The perils of outsourcing (privatisation) – a repost
In Pearls and Irritations last year we posted articles about the serious erosion in the quality of care and services in many fields – disability care, vocational education and training, child care and particularly aged care, where more than 650 older people have died in private, for-profit “homes”. All too often service quality has been sacrificed for profit. Political ideology has become more important than quality services for the public.
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The shabby treatment of nurses by medical doctors.
A collection of recent articles about the dismissal of the key role of nurses by the Medical Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce. The doctor dominated Taskforce is determined not to understand that nurses hold the health system together (more…)
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How Murdoch extracts concessions from governments. Consider how he got control of Foxtel!
Rupert Murdoch claims, falsely, that he has never asked a Prime Minister for anything. Yet his whole business career in three countries has been founded on threatening or seducing politicians for privileged commercial access or opportunities.
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The smoko continues
In April 2012 the late Greg Dodds and I posted an article on this blog ‘The Australian Century and the Australian smoko’. We argued that while we responded well to the opportunities in Asia for over a decade in the 1980s, we went on ‘smoko’ from the mid-1990s. There was widespread complacency and fear of Asia was promoted. The result has been two decades of failure by business, universities, schools and the media in equipping ourselves for the region. That complacency is still with us and the fear of Asia and particularly China is cynically promoted by Scott Morrison. (more…)
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Our aggressive and violent ally. An updated repost. Part 2 of 2
Declining empires never decline gracefully. And neither will the US empire – addicted as it is to a belief in its ‘exceptionalism’ and its grounding in aggression both at home and abroad. Add to the mix that 70 million people voted for Donald Trump and 70% of Republican supporters believe that the election was stolen by the Democrats. A sick country! Joe Biden will smooth a few rough edges but won’t do much more. (more…)
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Our aggressive and violent ally. An updated repost. Part 1 of 2
Declining empires never decline gracefully. And neither will the US empire – addicted as it is to a belief in its ‘exceptionalism’ and its grounding in aggression both at home and abroad. Add to the mix that 70 million people voted for Donald Trump and 70% of Republican supporters believe that the election was stolen by the Democrats. A sick country! Joe Biden will smooth a few rough edges but won’t do much more. (more…)
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Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Memo: To Biden: Don’t be suckered on Russia
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) hopes President-elect Joe Biden will avoid the mousetrap being laid for him to make it more difficult for his administration to deal in a sensible way with Russia. (more…)
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Things you learn along the way
Occasionally friends suggest to me that I should write my autobiography. Ruefully I explain that I wrote ‘Things you learn along the way’ 20 years ago. The book sold about 8,000 copies but as far as I know is no longer available.
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The US blatantly ignores international laws and rules in Diego Garcia (Repost 3 July 2020)
China is rightly criticised for building islands for military purposes in the South China Sea while ignoring an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by the Philippines. But what of the US in Diego Garcia?
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Central Banking’s Green Mission (Project Syndicate Dec. 8, 2020)
Since the 2008 global financial crisis, central banks have shown time and again that they have the power to maintain the economic status quo. Now, they must use that power to support a timely green transition. (more…)
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The Hong Kong student bubble
This is a very humble response from a University lecturer of many years in Hong Kong. It’s a response to various analyses to the Hong Kong protesters. Who are they and what motivates them to protest?
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Partners in crime – disadvantage and our criminal justice system
Australia’s criminal justice systems compound disadvantage. Why should Australians be troubled by this, and what we can do about it. A summary of report by the Centre for Policy Development. (more…)
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Brereton’s comments which gave rise to the Chinese tweet on Australian Afghanistan war crimes
The Brereton report sheds light on the tweet posted by a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry of a digitally altered image depicting an Australian soldier holding a knife to a veiled Afghanistan child.But I have not seen any of our mainstream media do the obvious, publish the relevant extracts on alleged killing of Afghan children by Australian soldiers. (more…)
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Robodebt was a Morrison fiasco at every stage (Peter Van Onselen, The Australian, 21.11.20)
The buck should stop with the PM, but he won’t be held to account. With summer just around the corner, this week’s $1.2 billion settlement of the Robodebt class action has shone a light on government failings. (more…)
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Hong Kong is part of China. Our media fails to grasp this basic point.
Hong Kong was seized by Britain to facilitate its opium trade. After a century of humiliation for China, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under a complex arrangement. Foreign countries should keep out of what is a domestic issue for China. CIA, take note. (more…)
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Have your say: Senate inquiry into media diversity in Australia
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Podcast ABC ‘The Eleventh’, February/March 2020
At the bottom see an edited transcript of an interview I conducted with the ABC for a podcast series The Eleventh
It also includes some more recent articles on the Dismissal. (more…)
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The election and the US military empire (Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch, 6.11.20)
When examining the activities of the US military it is essential to maintain the long view. In other words, despite the practice of looking at Pentagon activities in four-year spans that approximate the terms of the US president, the reality is that the military operates on its own timeline. (more…)
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We now know what America is. (Andrew Mitrovica, Al Jazeera, 4.11.2020)
After four years of Trump, millions of Americans have still chosen to vote for him. The biggest lie is not about Trump,but America.
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Growth of Pearls and Irritations
The past six months have been very encouraging for Pearls and Irritations. (more…)
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Open letter to the Prime Minister from more than 70 Australians opposing the $498m redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial
The Australian War Memorial development project will have major heritage impacts on the Memorial, a place that has deep meaning for all Australians. The intervention by the Australian Heritage Council, the government’s principal adviser on heritage matters, shows that reconsideration of the project is imperative.