We have a major problem with the damage that Rupert Murdoch has done to newspapers in Australia, and any self-respecting government should take steps to correct that as soon as possible. (more…)
John Menadue
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China and Australia once were allies
With QUAD and maybe JAUKUS, Japan is anxious to recruit us and others as spear carriers against China. The anti-China cause is long standing in Japan. (more…)
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The future will be decided by economic influence, not military dominance
America is falling into a trap. It thinks the future will be decided by military dominance, despite losing one war after another. China, on the other hand, recognises that the future will be decided by economics. (A repost from October 2023). (more…)
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On China/Australia relations the language has improved but there has not been much change of substance
A major problem for a settler society like Australia is to reconcile our history and our geography. In the last 10 years we’ve lost ground in reconciling the two. (more…)
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China’s EV boom has caught Japan, South Korea and Germany asleep at the wheel!
China will need Australian iron ore and coking coal for its booming EV industry. (more…)
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The alternative to the Worship of Death
A central characteristic of narcissistic sadists according to the great psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, is their desire to reduce all living matter to dead matter. Fromm describes these narcissistic sadists as necrophilious characters. -
The US cherry picks international laws that suit it
Defence Minister Marles, always singing from the same tired US song book, fails to recognise the difference between international law and ‘a rules based international order’ (RBIO) that the US preaches. And there is a big difference. RBIO is code for US rules. (more…)
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Suffer the little children to come unto me…
Well, not so if they are Palestinian children that Israelis keep killing time and time again. It is part of what Israelis calls ‘mowing the grass’. (more…)
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Colonies of the US empire: Will the Cocos Islands become the new Diego Garcia?
The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base. Will the same happen to the Australian residents on the Cocos Islands that lies south of Sumatra in the Indian ocean? (more…)
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White Man’s Media: The Chinese warship sonar incident
What a feast of anti-China stories we have had again from the Coalition and our media over the incident between HMAS Toowoomba and a Chinese PLA-N destroyer. (more…)
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Apology to Bob Carr
Last week we reposted an article about anti semitism by Bob Carr that was first posted by Pearls and Irritations on June 6, 2022. We highlighted that the article was a re-post.Some readers however did not notice that it was a re-post.The re-post was poorly timed. It was a mistake on my part. The re-post has been taken down.I have apologised to Bob Carr. -
Our national failure to equip ourselves for Asia
Very few of the people briefing Anthony Albanese have much knowledge or experience of Asia. Many are Austral Americans as Paul Keating rightly calls them. (more…)
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A briefing for Prime Minister Albanese for his discussion with President Xi
You will receive briefings from many of your advisors, including from the Office of National Intelligence. My experience is that intelligence agencies have a lot of information but they often have poor judgement. The framing of issues by our intelligence agencies very often reflects the views and habits of the US and the Anglosphere. (more…)
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The US doesn’t “hold the world together”. It breaks it apart
The US is the ‘essential nation’, the ‘indispensable nation’, its leadership ‘holds the world together’. This is the boastful humbug that President Biden gave us on his return from Israel, where he again affirmed his complicity with Israel in its decades of occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine. The US assumes a moral superiority it denies to others. (more…)
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The future will be decided by economic influence, not military dominance
America is falling into a trap. It thinks the future will be decided by military dominance, despite losing one war after another. China, on the other hand, recognises that the future will be decided by economics. (more…)
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Murdoch stepping down – Don’t believe it!
Rupert Murdoch is addicted to media and politics. He will be continually looking over Lachlan’s shoulder. (more…)
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Health ministers maybe in office but seldom in power
The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers or at least their assumed power. (more…)
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Australian multiculturalism: Our greatest achievement?
In a broad sense ‘Australian multiculturalism’ describes the cultural and ethnic diversity of Australia. Over a half of Australians were born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas. I contend that Australian multiculturalism is our greatest achievement, but it has always been fraught with tension. The challenge of immigration and multiculturalism has been and remains, do we stay comfortably as we are or do we risk something for a better future for ourselves and others? (more…)
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A growing string of Pearls and just as many Irritations: P&I needs your support
In 2017, Pearls and Irritations had a half a million views. By the end of 2022 we had more than 5.3 million views and we have already surpassed 3.3 million views heading into the second half of 2023. We receive more than 400,000 monthly views, and frequently many more. (more…)
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A Human Rights Act for Australia
In 2005 we commenced a campaign for a Human Rights Act for Australia. In 2009 as part of our campaign a Bill was drafted to ‘respect, protect and promote Human Rights for Australia’. This model Bill formed the core of our group’s submission to the National Human Rights Consultation, chaired by Frank Brennan SJ OA. Unfortunately the Rudd Government rejected the proposed Human Rights Act.
Will Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and the Albanese government once more take up the challenge of reform? (more…)
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Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki end the war?
In 2016, President Obama visited Hiroshima. He was the first US President to do so since the bombing in 1945. He said that he would not be apologising for the dropping of the bomb and would not try and second-guess President Harry Truman’s decision. (more…)
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Who started the trade war with China?
There is a sharp contradiction at the heart of the Albanese government’s attempt to stabilise trade with China, whilst at the same time preparing for war with China in support of the United States. (more…)
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White Man’s Media: Anti-China media beat ups continue…
This time over possible Chinese naval bases in the South Pacific. (more…)
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Will the Albanese Government revive the values that underpinned Medicare?
Or will it fiddle around the edges like the Rudd/Gillard Governments? (more…)
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We are being seduced into war again by the US, this time over Taiwan
The US must be told that we will not be involved in any way in a war with China over Taiwan. (more…)
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Why dental care was excluded from Medicare and why it should now be included (an edited repost)
In 1974, the Whitlam Government decided to exclude dental care from Medicare for two reasons. The first was cost. The second was political. Whitlam felt that combatting the doctors would be hard enough without having to combat dentists as well. Forty-six years later, with Australia much richer and the proven success of Medicare, it is now time for dental care to be progressively included in Medicare. (more…)
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A tainted Defence Strategic Review
P&I Editorial:
Conflicts of interest at the heart of AUKUS and the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) – including the principal author of the DSR benefitting from US State Department funding designed to build support for AUKUS and the US alliance – demand independent investigation. (more…)
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AUKUS: a collection of views not found in our Washington dominated media
AUKUS: signed and sealed by the Liberal government when it joined the pact in September 2021, the spoils of which have been delivered by the Labor Government in March 2023. The Labor Government and Australia will pay a heavy price for what is being done in our name. We are being humiliated by our own government. (more…)
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The Iraq war, the Murdoch war and media culpability: Twenty years on…
The media here thought the terrorism over past decades in Australia fell from the deep blue sky and had no relationship to the help John Howard gave to George Bush in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. Twenty years after that invasion, the Australian media continue to fail us badly over its coverage of the Middle East wars, China, terrorism and the continuing human disaster and political and sectarian confusion. (more…)
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AUKUS and the drive to war with China: Special Issue
A Labor government has puts guns before butter… how extraordinary! Today, Pearls and Irritations has taken the unusual step of devoting our issue line up entirely to articles on the drive to war with China and the disastrous commitment of $368 billion dollars of Australia’s public funding to nuclear submarines. (more…)