Author Submission

Author's recent articles

Is the Old Testament Christianity?

Growing up in a Protestant Christian household, I have been unable to understand the emphasis/equal billing given to the Old Testament teachings at church. Christian teachings such as those mentioned get barely a mention in and out of churches while the vengeful god of the Old Testament is often quoted. “Eye for an eye”etc I see the big players in the Old Testament as the “Who do you think you are“ class. So often the real Christian, caring, sharing, non-judgmental people remain working hard, at the bottom, caring for the needy, wearing their old suits and dresses, never qualifying...

Limitation of 'physics emulating' economics

In connection with Ross Gittins important article Want more economics students? Drop the obsession with maths the more fundamental question is the utility of this approach in the social sciences to ape the gold standard for being a science — assumed to be physics — by describing the area under study via mathematical relationships. The blog of Real World Economics Review, as well as posting items on current economics matters, also has those that address the weaknesses in mainstream economic mathematical modes. Lars Syll is a regular and pertinent contributor on this issue; most recently How evidence is...

Exposing the IDF's AI-enabled barbarity

As background to Keith Mitchelson's timely alert about the recent NYT article, P&I readers will find a report from April 2024 by Yuval Abraham in +972 magazine (online) of great interest. Interviews with IDF members who had served in Gaza detailed the use of two software systems used to murder Palestinians. Lavender collated data from numerous sources to provide target lists, while Where's Daddy? provided location detail for the actual attack. As with the NYT report the full article should be read by all.

The elephant in the nuclear room

The fate of nuclear energy in a hung parliament is just one more article that fails to address the forever problem of nuclear waste. Until such time as nuclear proponents can 100% guarantee safe and forever disposal of nuclear waste, they shouldn't bother to leave their drawing boards.

Do economists know anything about economics?

Watching a variety of economists on a variety of TV shows, I have my doubts if economists know anything about the economy or if any two economists or politicians agree on anything. None of them seem to understand even the most basic concept that if you don’t have an income you can’t build / do / supply / repair anything. Take it as a given that nobody wants to pay taxes and everybody wants services . No matter how you dress it up, whatever you promise has to be paid for either by taxes, loans or substandard services....

NYT were not the first

Like almost all your articles, this one deserves a much wider readership than it will probably get. However I'd like to mention that it is in error in its claim that the NYT were the first to report this. It may be true they were the first to interview those particular anonymous IDF soldiers but the claims made have been reported in a number of independent media outlets. In particular, I remember reading such reports in +972 magazine [www.972mag.com], an Israeli publication run as a co-operative with both Jewish and Palestinian staff and contributors, who were also the first...

What about Robodebt?

Your correspondent from Gladstone Park informs us that hackers got into his Centrelink account and stole his pension. He postulates that this would not have happened under a conservative government. We all sympathise with him and lament the stress this crime has caused him; but, has he forgotten Robodebt where the Conservative government itself did the stealing, leading to the suicides of far too many?

The biggest hoax of all is democracy

We don’t live in a democracy, we live in a capitalist society and have done since the beginning of the illusion of democracy. There have been short-lived periods of democratic waves of revolution barely tolerated by the old money. The climate revolution is drawing to a close as the oligarchs take back control to defend their mega money income streams. The old money media and mining moguls of the past have integrated the modern day Internet and tech moguls. We are yet to see which tech billionaires will survive . The rapidly emerging Trump dictatorship is all part...

Our human footprint

In 1969, those who watched the “one giant leap for mankind” witnessed the end product of America’s determination to outsmart the Russians. Exactly how did “mankind” benefit from making that eternal shoe print on the moon? It was a huge engineering undertaking, but as Peter Sainsbury points out, nothing like the feat we must pull off to keep Earth habitable. With no adversary to compete against except our greed, Rupert Murdoch suggests those living in areas of coastal erosion and rising seas simply retreat. Musk has given up on Earth and is going to live on Mars. Trump promises...

Are the right questions being asked?

It is politically expedient to argue children should be punished for their crimes. But more needs to be studied on the reasons those children behaved they way they did. Too often those studies are dismissed for being soft on those kids – that more discipline is needed. But the environment in which they begin life may hinder social development and the acquisition of goals (not gaols). More studies could gain knowledge on their family life, community life, education that reaches out to them, inclusively, and health services that also ensures they eat well. Were any of the children belted...

Labor government achievements

Reading Jenny Hocking’s article about positive achievements of the Labor government, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps one of its positive achievements has been to make it easier for criminals to hack into the my.gov.au site and steal the money of pensioners. Last year on 7 November, my Centrelink account was hacked and my aged pension was stolen. By contrast if I were to take an extra dollar from Centrelink that I was not entitled to, I could be certain that I would be caught. But the hacker can be sure that he will never be caught ....

Time for compassionate change

I agree with Sue Barrett's article. I have felt for some time that we seem to be approaching an apocalypse such as was seen in the Great Depression: a tiny majority controlling the world's wealth (spoken a a whitey who is comfortable!). I have been saying for years that there needs to be another compassionate change in society such as was seen during the ´Flower Power´ revolution of the 1970s. During that time, we established Medicare, free tertiary education, and many other social reforms that since seem to be openly derided (whilst the commentors still accept the largess of...

DeepSeek challenges US capitalism

In their article on DeepSeek, Wanning Sun and Marina Yue Zhang fail to understand the most important aspect of DeepSeek – it is open source. They repeat the irrelevant criticism that as it stands, politically sensitive words and questions seem to be no-go areas. As it is open source, its source code is available for anyone and the updated versions will simply remove this problem. What terrifies the American elite most is that DeepSeek yet again shows that the Chinese economic model can out-perform the American proprietary form of capitalism. DeepSeek is the latest example but the writing...

Let's all agree to survive

I just read Sustainable Population Australia's latest newsletter which aptly included a repeat of Julian Cribb's climate information in P&I, on 30 December 2024. Cribb's list of 10 catastrophic risks ranged from forest loss to misinformation. He summarised the list essentially as too many humans wanting too much from our planet Earth. He also urged us to specifically agree to survive; and to consider updates on the Earth System Treaty which will be issued in P&I during 2025. How wonderful to have such help; it may be our very salvation.

The impact of colonisation: A couple of not so minor points

1. The author says: ... the taking of [Aboriginal] children from their parents by governments [continued] into the 1970s.] If only that were true. It continues to this day. 2. Jacinta Price (for so she called herself when she sent me a text during the referendum) proves that every group has fools in its midst. How she can think British colonisation has had no lasting negative effects. is beyond me. I'd have thought the numbers of Indigenous children in out of home care and jail and having a shorter life expectancy than their non-Indigenous counterparts might have...

The Trump way?

This analysis by Brian Lawrence puts Labor's position on the lowest paid workers in a clear light. They don't seem to care about them. This is disturbing for 2 reasons. Firstly, Labor seems to have abolished roots, i.e. the low paid workers for the more lucrative middle class. I suppose: Labor no more. Secondly, this looks exactly why the Democrats got such a flogging in the USA. Apart from being immoral it also seems to be utterly stupid. With an attitude to its former base like this Labor doesn't deserve to win.

If only First Nations had guns

Some time ago, author Jarred Diamond wrote a book about why colonialism worked. The books title is Guns, Germs and Steel. If indigenous people in Australia had their own guns then Phillip would have sailed back to England. It was the guns, germs and steel that enabled white people to colonize others and to feel superior to all other indigenous peoples around the world. The only time colonizing did not work was when the invader went to a new country only to discover that another white colonizer was there before them and could put up a fight with...

Foul and repeat, foul and repeat

It is for me, and I imagine for many, many others, a matter of by now well-matured grievance and anger that we are STILL having this same discussion after so many months. That Dutton and the LNP and also the Zionist Lobby continue to screech invective at every opportunity and at ever-increasing volume, is a given - this is part and parcel of the socially divisive and politically opportunistic Eretz Israel industry. No doubt, dividends would be paid from grateful investors in prime beachfront development of the Gaza Strip when those pesky Palestinians have been eradicated forever. Business...

Public servants are there to support the community

Jack’s articles are informative, but In the end, I would hope that public servants are there to support the community, or public or society rather than the state. Following “the state” just allows people to say “ I was just following orders”, don’t you think? I appreciate, also, that if you accept that point, it gets complicated because different people have different ideas of what makes up a community, and what sustains it. Andrew Hitchman

The third possibility

At last, someone has mentioned the unmentionable - the third possibility. I have been astonished and irritated that, till now, nobody else has dared to mention it, but now, finally, Paul Heywood-Smith has put his head above the parapet. It has been seven weeks since the Adass synagogue fire, and at least according to the public record, the AFP and VicPol have made no arrests and appear to have few clues as to who was responsible. Or if they do, they're not willing or able to say. If the perpetrators had been either bumbling amateur neo-Nazis, or bumbling amateur...

Support for Sarah Schwartz

I was shocked to read in yesterday's Australian a fierce diatribe by Marcia Langton against a recent event at the Queensland University of Technology. Ms Langton took aim in particular at the presentation by Sarah Schwartz, using terms including shocking, deluded and anti-Semitic. I thank the Jewish Council of Australia and Pearls & Irritations for giving readers some background to this sordid story. I urge readers to hit the keyboards, and to add the Australian's letters page to their list.

Welfare: cheaper than perks given the uber-wealthy

If The Voice campaign taught me anything it's that Indigenous people aren't listened to. Consultations were/are brief FIFO visits with virtually no say in solutions imposed from afar. I'm reminded of Another Country narrated by David Gulpilil (SBSon-demand), graphically showing every white-man do-gooder intervention taking a community backwards. It should be compulsory viewing for every non-indigenous Australian. Perhaps annually - on Australia Day. As for sit-down money .... Indigenous people are no more lazy than the rest of us. Referencing the Gulpilil film, I wonder did compulsory training programs lead to anything satisfying or meaningful for Indigenous people? If...

Why are we so easily conned?

How depressing that Greg Latemore has thrown in the towel just before the election. With Albanese doing nothing to lift his game and his chances, are we going to let Dutton, aka Trump 2.0 Lite, walk away with the prize? Labor has been a huge disappointment on the big ticket items: climate change, gambling, tax reform, neutering the NACC. But it has done quite well on important but nevertheless second-tier issues. Googling Albanese and Labor's achievements produces a quite impressive list. But the attributes that made Albanese Leader of the Opposition are not ones that have made a good...

Wokism

An excellent article Sue. Wokism is about the essential an best human values, but they construe it as weakness, a mistake to be despised. But you do not identify the fundamental cause of the problem, and so many good critics of the system fail to do so. That is simply capitalism. It is a system driven by self interest and greed, the quest for limitless wealth via processes that cannot do other than drive out compassion and concern for the other, accumulate wealth in the hands of the winners, thus empowering them to increase control of the political system, and...

Join your local chapter of TA

It was going to join my local chapter of TA Trump Anonymous until I found PA Politics Anonymous they seem to be affiliated with AA Alcoholics Anonymous as they all have the same prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change , the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference I heard there was a DA Democracy Anonymous but it was found to be an illusion.

The Hollow man

Thank you Peter Henning for your superb article (The Hollow man seeks to Lower the Temperature 24 Jan). The analytics of the US election are quite clear. More people voted for someone not named Trump, than someone named Trump. His victory was 1.5% - one of the smallest in US history. He won by 3 million votes. Harris lost 6 million Democrat voters that could not bring themselves to vote for her due to the Gaza war and her government’s complicity. Those 6 million voters, that voted for Biden last election, would have won her the election. With these...

Refaat, the death toll may be even higher

Dear Refaat I am not sure if you saw the recent data recalibrated by the Lancet, one of the worlds most eminent medical journals. They calculated the death toll has been underestimated by 20%, and more likely to be 64,000, most of which are women, children and elders. That constitutes war crime. The Lancet also concluded that the number is set to rise drastically as bodies are brought out of the rubble. Also not counted as we cannot predict how many will be effected are respiratory failure caused by asbestos and silica. The IDF use specially designed tank...

The Christian right in Australia

It is excellent to again see Lucy Hamilton’s investigative work, this time concerning the rise and rise of the Christian Right and, specifically, that of Moira Deeming in Victoria. We should be alert and alarmed, given its enormous influence in American politics, from abortion and LGBTQI+ rights to the war on Gaza. Moira Deeming, mentored by right-wing commentator Peta Credlin, is the latest example of the intersection between church and state. The ‘culture wars’ have been waged for decades, not by the ‘woke’ left but by activists seeking to bend the arc of a moral universe towards their...

Future generations need a flourishing ecosystem

Climate tipping points are imminent. Climate extremes will overwhelm us with increasing frequency as politicians continue to shirk the challenge of addressing their underlying causes. We live in a world of eternal growth, where standards of living are expected to rise unfailingly. But growth comes at the expense of the environment: old-growth forests depleted for agriculture, mammalian extinctions, fish stocks depleted, and ever-greater pollution – carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, plastics choking the seas. Humanity may be our planet’s dominant species, but we are just one element of its ecosystem. We are changing the balance of that ecosystem...

how stupid is America's ruling class?

Trump's election has made the role of the ruling class even more obvious but there is the danger that we may see that as a Trump abberation rather than a feature of western democracy. Both Democracts and Republicans are beholden to plutocrats; Hilary Clinton's throwaway line referring to Trump supporters as 'deplorables' reveals that attitude. Throughout the West politicians routinely invoke the social contract but one of the arguments for that contract is that the parties to the social contract ‘must be situated reasonably, that is fairly or symmetrically with no one having superior bargaining advantages over the...

Say NO to "mutual obligation" - in any guise

That unemployed people are burdened with mutual obligation 'work' is an abomination. To suggest that volunteering be part of that coercive package is an oxymoron that adds insult to injury. A small number of people are either incapable or simply don't want to work. The truth is, the vast majority of unemployed people do want a job. These people are forced to jump through so many time-consuming Centrelink hoops. Adding mutual obligation eats into job search time and energy of the majority merely to satisfy a lust for vengeance towards the few. If there's real work to be...

Jews are not responsible for the war in Gaza

The article in today's P&I, Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide by David Lockwood, is a quite appalling article that essentially holds Jews in Australia who support Israel as bearing some responsibility for the war in Gaza. It also trivialises the antisemitism that is occurring almost daily in Australia. It even manages to trivialise the labelling of the fire-bombing of the Adass Synagogue as an act of terrorism. Conflating the antisemitism in Australia with the war in Gaza isn't simply political comment, it gaslights the lived experience of Jews in Australia and discounts the seriousness of what...

David Lockwood is making assumptions re attacks

David Lockwood, in his article on the anti-semitic attacks against synagogues, says, we can assume that both these incidents of vandalism (sorry, ‘terrorism’) were misguided attempts to protest against the Israeli genocide against Palestine. That assumption may be correct, but it is also possible that the extreme right or nazis were responsible, hoping to encourage disharmony in the community. All the anti- semitic attacks must be condemned and certainly don't help the Palestinian cause. Not completely out of the question is that some may have been done by zionists or their supporters, hoping that Palestinian supporters will be...

The Genocide will Continue if Morale Improves

Alison Broinowski's prediction is a statement of the inevitable rather than a possible future scenario. Everything we have seen coming from the Netanyahu government / the IDF since 07/10/2024 is primary evidence for her forecast. Netanyahu's entire future depends upon his retaining the political leadership of Israel and by that, avoiding the Damoclean sword of almost certain guilty verdicts in regard to his personal corruption - let alone his status as a designated war criminal by the ICJ. Almost as a side note to the news coverage of the first release of Israeli hostages was a mention that...

It's always the Palestinians' fault... Not!

I've always respected Jack Waterford's writing but this ... the war on Gaza ... was consciously started by Hamas, which ... has long been provoking Israel, … brought me up short. Hamas consciously started this genocide? (It's not a war.) Please show me the proof. Long provoking Israel? How convenient to ignore almost a century of provocation by Israel itself and its predecessor terrorist groups. Compared to the combined Israel-US might, anything Hamas could inflict is an irritation in comparison. The Palestinian death toll has always far exceeded Israel's. There were, and are, thousands upon thousands of Palestinian hostages,...

We need to look in the mirror

No wonder China looks at us with contempt. ... the PRC has a dark history of human rights abuses. Before criticising China, and not justifying Chinese abuses, maybe we should get our own house in order. Australian abuses include our treatment of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, the way we treat refugees and asylum seekers, our jailing of people with mental health issues rather than providing medical care, and, most recently, clamping down on those protesting Israeli genocide. Just for starters. I concede that our journalists aren't muzzled by the government. The Murdoch press has its own 'useful'...

Balanced coverage of hostage release

We celebrate the release of hostages, be they Israeli or Palestinian. But watch the MSM to see if they give the same granular coverage to both. So far I have seen 33 released Israeli hostages and their pictures and one Palestinian. We know the length of captivity for the Israelis, but what are the most and least lengths for the Palestinians? And Israeli troops are reportedly still murdering people in the northeast part of Palestine. That must stop.

Into the neoliberal darkness

We are seeing the dying days of the USAmerican empire. But don't blame Trump... or those who voted for him. They are the natural end-point of neoliberalism which could have and should have been seen and warded off decades ago. But everyone went along with Gordon Gecko: Greed is good. Au contraire, greed is death. We are staring it in the face. Countries like Australia should cut the apron strings while we've got a chance. But given the state of the politicians of our two major parties, our chances of going down with the US ship are high. Proof?...

Gaslighting Australian Jews

This article is really offensive. It’s gaslighting Australian Jews. The writer offer little understanding of the diversity and debate within the Jewish community, seemingly reducing those who oppose what is going on to a few thousand people, and then making claims about what we are supposed to believe or be.  The phraseology used is awful. The writer asserts that there is  “[No] identity between Jews (and those of Jewish origin) and the Israeli state. By attacking the former, goes the argument, you are attacking the latter. But there is no such identity”. What right does the writer...

History as a starting point

Kari McKern's contribution (https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/a-garden-of-civilisations/) is the latest in a long line of excellent contributions to P&I advocating for a sensible and promising way forward for the world society, a society of civilisations cooperating and developing for mutual benefit.  However, we are not starting from scratch, and if I may make an analogy with mathematics, it is one thing to find a general solution to a differential equation describing the time dependence of a variable; a specific solution depends on the initial condition.  What practically all of the laudable proposed solutions for the evolution of the world society ignore is the...

MUCH TO BE DONE NOW

The sight of the Palestinian people returning to see what is left of their shattered homes is heartbreaking. The priorities now must be to make sure the people are fed, clothed, accommodated and their kids go to school. This must start now, even it only goes on for 6 weeks. But it's important to be optimistic. Talks are ongoing in Oslo on a 2 state solution. How long they will take no one knows. The first trucks with food and medical aid are already rolling into Gaza. The ceasefire is a start, and a good start. There is much to...

The One Day of the Year

In the 60s Alan Seymour's iconic play, The One Day of the Year, depicted the unease many Australians felt about the way in which Anzac Day was marked, with remembrance and camaraderie being overshadowed by widespread drunken over-indulgence. Since then we have matured significantly with Anzac Day now accorded the respect and solemnity the occasion deserves. However as our One Day of the Year, January 26th, approaches, once again, feelings of disquiet, unease, even shame, persist amongst a significant section of the Australian community. This contentious issue continues to metastasize, a cancer eating away at social cohesion. And now...

Stop the talking. Start the action.

The US is very happy putting other people’s children in the firing line to defend its empire. AUKUS is not about an independent defence policy for the Australian people, it is about locking Australia into US war plans with China. There is widespread criticism of government short-termism, largely because the two major parties only ever fix their eyes on winning the next election. But criticism is all it is. When is wailing going to turn into action? This is particularly necessary re AUKUS and all it entails because long term could well be only a small number of electoral...

Not dead yet

Thanks for your article, Neil. It brought back memories of growing up in Housing Commission in Moe, I'm now a proud owner/co-builder of what some people call a 'substandard shed' in my rural area of the Top End NT. You're right, we're a dying breed. We're proud, strong and committed to using re-used, recycled and repaired materials from landfill and second-hand building suppliers and - we're finding it harder and harder to find what we need to repair and maintain our beloved homes. We don't want to use new materials, especially when they're made from pollutive, synthetic materials....

Sanctity of Sovereignty - Ukraine

Dear Pearls and Irritation, The common use of war, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whitewashes the profound sanctity of sovereignty. An invasion, the only term that can be used about Ukraine, trashes the sanctity. The sanctity expresses the territoriality of all people. All of humankind has a vested interest in no invasion succeeding. Because of the sanctity, for the safety and security of all, geopolitical reasons, of an invader, are irrelevant. The starting point for resolution, there is no other, is the return of all territory, to Ukraine, before the taking of Crimean...

Pyrocene perception and the politics of Palestine

Chris Hedges records the selective and avoidant behaviour of humanity related to the consequences of the petrolium age and the march South of the pyrocene from Siberia and Canada to Los Angeles. Sadly this selective perception and behaviour extends well beyond climate into our relations and political reactions at this time. Consider global reactions to the climate driven fires in Los Angeles with 100,00 displaced, at least 25 dead at this time and victims sifting through donations of food and water. Australians for its part offered firefighters and materiel support almost immedately through our federal government. By contrast...

Has UN ceded responsibility for aid to Palestine?

Re Chris Gunness’s article UNRWA’s expulsion from Jerusalem will seal Israel’s illegal annexation: Whilst I sadly agree with the substance of this article, I cannot agree with this statement which seems to be based on this hyperlinked article: ‘the senior UN leadership has adopted the position that the responsibility to deliver aid is Israel’s as the occupying power’. This statement might be seen to be loosely aligned to the title of the UN article but not to its contents - intriguing.

Mature debate on nuclear health risks is essential

Margaret Beavis is a recently retired GP and Melbourne University educator on nuclear energy and ill health. She would like a really true 'mature debate' on nuclear. Here are her four main health arguments against the Coalition's nuclear hope. One, there is clear evidence that children living within 5 km of a nuclear plant doubled their rate of developing leukemia. Two, workers near a nuclear plant also risk dying from cancer. Three, in Australia, radiology is actually limited to avoid causing cancer. Four, the reality of continuing fossil fuels when they are the main cause of the climate crisis,...

Opening our eyes

With every [Israeli war crimes] case, Israel will learn that the decades-long US vetoes and blind Western protection and support will no longer suffice. And the US and all countries that went and still go along with the US position will be forced to accept that they are responsible for the start and continuation of this genocide. That every bit of Jewish/Israeli violence leading to and since the establishment of Israel was provoked by Palestinian 'terrorism' , as presented in all our news media, will be shown to be the lie that it has always been. We will...

<