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P&I Guest Writers
This post kindly provided to us by one of our many occasional contributors.
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DEAN BAKER. The Green New Deal is happening in China.
One of the Trump administration’s talking points about global warming is that we’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while the countries that remain in the Paris accord are not. Well, the first part of this story is clearly not true, as data for 2018 show a large rise in emissions for the United States. The second part is Continue reading »
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PETER SMALL. A Royal Commission on the Murray-Darling.
In response to an excellent article by Michelle Pini “Something stinks in the Coalition and its not dead fish” Pearls and irritations 18/01, I posted a comment. “Yes a Royal Commission with forensic capacity to peel away each layer of vested interest. Politician, scientist and industry”. Sounds a bit rough on scientists but let me Continue reading »
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JANE GOODALL. A plague of political idiots.
Increasing awareness of distortion and deception in news media is accompanied by rising levels of anger about what amounts to an intelligence crisis in public communication. People with opposing views accuse each other of being useful idiots for the propaganda merchants, and failing to see the realities. Politicians are caricatured as idiots and clowns, glove Continue reading »
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LISA NANDY. Patriotism and the Left (New Statesman).
A speech on the Left, patriotism and solidarity. Continue reading »
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MICHELLE ALEXANDER. Breaking the silence on Palestine (The New York Times International Edition).
Like Martin Luther King Jr. did, we must speak out about the grave injustices of our time. Continue reading »
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JOHN HEWSON. She won’t be right: the economic storm our leaders ignore. (SMH 18.1.2019)
It’s the economy, stupid” – a slogan and a focus that largely won the US presidency for Bill Clinton in 1992. He then went on to reap the benefits of Bush senior’s economic management, not yet evident at the time of the election. The issue of economic management is usually a significant issue at our Continue reading »
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JOHN QUIGGIN. Socialist utopia 2050: what could life in Australia be like after the failure of capitalism?
From four-day weeks to unconditional basic income to free education, it’s possible to imagine a future where society’s focus has moved from consumption to quality of life. Continue reading »
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VINCENT MAHON. Will the Greens learn from the Victorian election?
The Victorian Greens entered the State election with eight MPs. It ended with only four, losing fifty percent of its parliamentarians. The Greens prioritised lower house seats to the detriment of the five upper house seats it held where it exercised the balance of power. There was no net gain in the lower house retaining Continue reading »
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ALAN BOYD. Morrison misconnects across the South Pacific. (Asia Times 19.1.2019)
“I urged your predecessor [Malcolm Turnbull] repeatedly to honor his commitment to clean energy. From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over. “Consensus from the scientific community is clear and the existential Continue reading »
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MICHELLE PINI. Something stinks in the Coalition and it’s not just dead fish (Independent Australia 17.01.2019)
The sight of close to a million dead fish in one of Australia’s most important waterways may herald the end for the Morrison Government. For this is hardly the first time this Coalition Government, under its various iterations, has spat in the face of Australia’s precious resources. For now, however, let’s look at the Murray-Darling disaster Continue reading »
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MICHAEL NIMAN. Five Forces Driving the Rise of Fascism in 2019 (Truthout).
Immigration has become a weapon in the arsenal of fascists who work to sow fear of the “other” in populations they wish to control.There are four other forces behind the rise of fascism Continue reading »
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ANTONY GREEN. Why independents won’t matter so much at the next election (ABC News).
Despite predictions that independents will be an important factor in the result of the coming federal election, two important factors suggest otherwise. Continue reading »
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GRACE BLAKELEY. The Latest Incarnation of Capitalism (Jacobin, September 2018)
Financialization isn’t a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning system. It’s just capitalism’s latest survival mechanism. Continue reading »
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KAREN ELPHICK. United States Senate shows President a red light on war powers as Labor promises a war powers inquiry in Australia (Australia Parliamentary Blog 21.12.2018)
For several years, Yemen has been in a state of civil war between a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni Government and Houthi forces. The US armed forces are not directly engaged in Yemen but have been supporting Saudi military efforts with aerial targeting and intelligence sharing. On 13 December 2018, the United States (US) Senate passed Resolution Continue reading »
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JOANNE SIMON-DAVIES. Community attitudes towards violence against women. (Commonwealth Parliamentary Blog 5.12.2018)
The National Community Attitudes toward Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) is the world’s longest-running survey of community attitudes towards violence against women. Results from the latest survey are mixed; levels of awareness have generally risen but there are still areas of concern. Continue reading »
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JON FINER and ROBERT MALLEY. Trump is right to seek an end to America’s wars (The New York Times International Edition).
The president’s desire to disentangle the country from costly overseas conflicts must be encouraged. Continue reading »
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LORRAINE CHOW. Ten grim climate scenarios if global temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees celsius.
The (Northern) summer of 2018 was intense: deadly wildfires, persistent drought, killer floods and record-breaking heat. Although scientists exercise great care before linking individual weather events to climate change, the rise in global temperatures caused by human activities has been found to increase the severity, likelihood and duration of such conditions. Continue reading »
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PETER BROOKS. If specialists cannot be fair in their fee charging – should we not be supporting a Royal Commission into medical fees
Well done John Menadue for starting 2019 off with something that must strike at the heart of all Australians- out of pocket medical expenses. Some of the highest in the world and showing no sign of slowing and driven by – let’s be honest – greed on the part of some of our most highly Continue reading »
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RICHARD McGREGOR. We need the Five Eyes spy network, but with oversight (SMH 12.1.2019)
After Canadian authorities seized a top Chinese executive from the telecommunications giant Huawei at Vancouver Airport last month on a US arrest warrant, Beijing immediately set about retaliating. A couple of Canadians who, until then, had been working openly in China, were detained. Top-level meetings for Canadian diplomats dried up. And Beijing made clear more Continue reading »
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BOB BEADMAN. Financial Crisis in the Northern Territory.
Clearly, budget outcomes rely on two simple issues – income and expenditure. On the income side of the ledger, the Northern Territory is hugely reliant on our share of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). We have been gutted. On the expenditure side, the Northern Territory Government has been under enormous pressure to spend. The Continue reading »
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JAKE JOHNSON. Facebook let corporate partners read users’ private messages.
Just hours after civil rights groups called on Facebook’s top executives to step down from the company’s board for allowing “viral propaganda” and “bigoted campaigns” to spread on the platform, demands for CEO Mark Zuckerberg to resign intensified after a bombshell New York Times report late Tuesday detailed a “special arrangement” the social media behemoth had with tech corporations that Continue reading »
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ROBERT D KAPLAN. The case for leaving Afghanistan (The New York Times International Edition).
America is spending beyond its means on a mission that might only be helping its strategic rivals. Continue reading »
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SHIRO ARMSTRONG, PETER DRYSDALE. Navigating the new international economic policy landscape (East Asia Forum).
The United States under President Donald Trump is on a mission to add economic policy to the armoury of national security policy to deal with a rising China. The approach holds the global economic order hostage to the attempt to put China back in its box. The stakes are as high as they get. But Continue reading »
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DANIELLE WOOD. The case for an inheritance tax.
We all hope for an overflowing stocking on Christmas morning, but for most people, the biggest gift they will ever receive is an inheritance. Whether a house, a car, or a share portfolio, inheritances can change lives. And as wealth grows and inheritances get larger, these intergenerational transfers will also play more of a role Continue reading »
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PAUL KRUGMAN. The Trump tax cut: even worse than you’ve heard. (New York Times 1.1.2019)
The 2017 tax cut has received pretty bad press, and rightly so. Its proponents made big promises about soaring investment and wages, and also assured everyone that it would pay for itself; none of that has happened. Yet coverage actually hasn’t been negative enough. The story you mostly read runs something like this: The tax Continue reading »
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MUJIB MASHAL. Afghan units led by C.I.A. leave trail of abuse .Victims and officials say raids are pushing people toward the Taliban (The New York Times International Edition).
Razo Khan woke up suddenly to the sight of assault rifles pointed at his face, and demands that he get out of bed and onto the floor. Within minutes, the armed raiders had separated the men from the women and children. Then the shooting started. As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched Continue reading »
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GEORGE MONBIOT. Advertising and Academia are controlling our thoughts. Didn’t you know?
By abetting the ad industry, universities are leading us into temptation, when they should be enlightening us. Continue reading »
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PETER BAUME. Labor shifts on pill testing.
The Labor leadership has announced, if it wins government, that a drug summit will be held at which pill testing will be discussed. This announcement was made in the run up to a March State election and so is a political action– it will appeal to a lot of younger voters in many electorates. It Continue reading »
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RICHARD CHAUVEL. The Cycle of Violence in Papua.
The killing of construction workers in Nduga and the Indonesian security force’s subsequent military operations impact quite differently on the politics of the Papua – Indonesia conflict. It is contested whether the 16 construction workers were unarmed civilians or members of the security forces but the event on 2 December 2018 marked a departure from Continue reading »
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CLAIR WILLS. Prodigal Fathers (The New York Review of Books).
More than twenty years ago, writing about Roy Foster’s Modern Ireland, Colm Tóibín recalled what it was like to study history in Ireland in the 1970s—to be on the cusp of the revisionist wave, questioning all the old narratives. “Imagine if Irish history were pure fiction,” he wrote, “how free and happy we could be! Continue reading »