John Queripel
John Queripel is a Newcastle-based historian, theologian, social commentator and published author of four books. His latest book, ‘In Wisdom and in Passion: Comparing and Contrasting Buddha and Christ’ has just been released. His blog may be found at www.johnqueripelblog.com.Substack / https://johnqueripel.substack.com
John's recent articles
31 March 2025
Time to call it. The US doesn't give a stuff for us
Despite 80 years of Australian unwavering loyalty, as expected the US, our closest ally, is now screwing us on tariffs, with a hefty 25% tariff placed on Australian steel and aluminium exports.
26 February 2025
China: Still ahead of the curve in the global economic game
US President Donald Trump’s decision to first place, and then delay, a 25% tariff on goods from neighbouring Canada and Mexico, along with his hitting China with an additional 10% tariff increase has made quite a splash in the news.
3 February 2025
Australia: a large land thinking small
At 7,688,287 square kilometres Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. It is the oldest continent, also home to the oldest continuing civilisation, the history of Aboriginal people reaching back some 75,000 years. Why then, has such a large nation, with such long existence and a civilisation, become so small in its thinking?
20 January 2025
Another BRIC in the wall: Indonesia joins BRICS+
Indonesia has just become the 10th full member nation of BRICS+, the first nation in South East Asia to gain such membership. The announcement was made, 1st January, by Brazil, currently holding the revolving chair of BRICS+.
23 December 2024
Christmas: Beyond the fantastical
One of the fondest memories we carry is of how when we were young, the world was infused with magic, especially at Christmas. We would wake on Christmas Day surrounded by the gifts Santa Claus had mysteriously placed there.
9 December 2024
The AUKUS delusion just got worse
Much has been written in these pages about the AUKUS delusion: Of how it was haphazardly and secretly put together by Scott Morrison to wedge the then Labor Opposition, about the elasticity of its costings, the improbability of Australia ever acquiring any of the proposed submarines, the enormous cost of the project, the effectiveness of it as best means of defence, indeed whether defence is actually its raison d’etre, and the loss of Australian sovereignty it brings.
8 November 2024
Does Australia really want to be the "tip of the spear", projecting Western power?
AUKUS, increasingly seen as a dud deal, though an expensive one, with a $368 billion price tag, stands as the clearest example of the cognitive dissonance besetting the Australian body politic.
16 September 2024
We're right behind you: The AUKUS delusion
The series Blackadder, set in World War 1, was full of farce built around black humour. In the final episode it has been determined by High Command to send those involved to go over the top in a hopeless race toward German machine-guns. The night before they are visited by their commanding general who pompously informs them that when they go tomorrow, High Command will be right behind them to which their captain replies, yes, about 30 miles behind us.
19 July 2024
NATO 'sabre-rattling' at the gates of Asia yet again
It has been said, ‘the barbarians are at the gates,’ but with NATO they have already stormed the citadel, and having done so they now want to spread their madness to Asia.
29 June 2024
The Assange non-verdict: the threat remains
The champers toasting the release of Julian Assange was delightful after many years of struggle against his clearly unjust indictment and years of imprisonment. I am sure we all enjoyed sipping it. After the excitement and sweetness has assuaged however, a certain bitterness still remains, a cold realisation just what his plea bargaining signifies.
24 June 2024
The US and Western allies commit to another forever war
Ho hum, the US has just committed itself to another ‘forever war.’ Its faithful obedient Western allies, like puppies wagging their tails, have fallen in behind. One would think they would tire, or at least learn lessons from, the game. Seemingly not.
7 June 2024
Western decline: Denial and anger at China’s vitality
In her work, ‘On Death and Dying’ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote of the stages one goes through on being told one is dying. She called these ‘Five Stages of Grief,’ of adjusting to reality: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
16 May 2024
Australia abandons Nuremberg principles as post-war international order crumbles to ruin
A legal ruling in Australia this week sentencing military whistleblower David McBride to 5 years imprisonment for disobeying orders to expose war crimes has stood the principles established at the Nuremberg trials on its head.
15 April 2024
Even-handed? No. Just inane
I think if I hear again, in some attempt at a supposed even-handedness an interviewer ask a representative of the Palestinian people in this terrible time, ‘do you also oppose the actions of Hamas on 7th October?’ I will puke. That is not a pleasant prospect.
26 March 2024
Russia: A steel wall against the West
In 1942, a Finnish sound engineer Thor Damen, secretly recorded 11 minutes of a conversation between Finland's Commander-in-Chief, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim and Adolf Hitler, without the latters knowledge.
3 March 2024
Zionism Judaism
The collapsing of the two categories, Judaism and Zionism to become synonymous seems to me to be a very dangerous, even foolish thing to do. Yet, to my amazement it seems many Jews are doing precisely that. It would be fair to say that such is representative of the deeply conservative Jewish establishment in Australia.
22 February 2024
Two boats and hysteria is unleashed
According to the evening news, Australia stands on the precipice of one of the greatest security threats to Australia since World War II, with the Imperial Japanese Army in the Owen Stanleys overlooking the lights of Port Moresby. A few dozen impoverished, bedraggled refugees right up there with the Imperial Japanese Army as threat! It is a joke isnt it, except that this stuff is taken seriously.
28 January 2024
China: learning from Canute
Regularly, Western media claims that Chinas run is near an end and that collapse is just around the corner. So constant has this become, it is like a broken gramophone record. Recently predictions of this collapse have been couched around the indebtedness of some major players in the Chinese property market. The inevitable collapse, however, never comes.
23 January 2024
Genocidal Israel, condemned by words and actions
In the indictment brought against Israel by South Africa in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Blinne N Ghrlaigh KC asserted it was, the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something.
14 January 2024
Western democracy: failure of system
Western nations are always ready to proclaim their system of governance as superior, particularly in regards to China, dismissed as being authoritarian. Increasingly however, western liberal democracy finds itself under scrutiny with trust in government falling.
22 October 2023
UN Secretary General throws support behind G77 and global multipolarity
The meeting of the Group of 77 developing countries (G77) plus China, held last month, 15-16 September in Havana, Cuba, passed with little note from our mainstream media, despite being attended by more than 100 countries, with thirty-one heads of state and 12 vice presidents present. That such should pass largely unnoticed by them however, hardly surprises.
29 September 2023
The referendum: So little asked, so graciously, but seemingly too much
Why do so many of my fellow non-Indigenous Australians seemingly have such a deep aversion towards the Aboriginal peoples of this land? Sadly, I am compelled to ask that question as we approach a referendum asking for constitutional recognition of Australias First Nations and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to parliament.
20 September 2023
In the grim dark face of military madness
Increasingly I keep finding myself singing, even humming or whistling the old Graham Nash song, Military Madness, sometimes hardly aware that I am doing so.
28 August 2023
Resistance to Western geo-political order: building brick by BRICS
The just completed 15th BRICS Summit, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, has made some momentous decisions which will greatly effect the global geo-political order.
23 August 2023
A refusal to see: Blindness to the global order
The accepted norm of Western dominance of the global order is now over. The difficult matter for those in the West to accept is that the mantle of leadership is not being passed from one Anglo-Western power to another of the same ilk, but rather one neither Anglo, nor Western, and dare I say it, not caucasian.
12 August 2023
Hiroshima remembered: When will we ever learn?
To be here in Hiroshima, invited to perform at one of numerous peace concerts commemorating the destruction of the dropping on this city of the first atomic bomb, 6th August 1945, is somewhat special, though of course tinged with sadness that humanity could descend to such barbarism.
5 July 2023
The shuffling of the cards; the emergence of a new world order
Over the next two months, two crucial meetings, indicating the massive changes the geo-political order is undergoing, are taking place.
25 June 2023
The price of irresponsibility: irrational fear
The recklessness of Australian politicians and mainstream media and the damage which that has caused, is abundantly clear in the latest poll, carried out by the Lowy Institute on Australian attitudes to China.
2 June 2023
3 reasons why China is not a threat
The recent Red Alert series, along with statements by some U.S, and Australian military leaders would have us believe that Chinese military forces could soon in waves be running up Bondi Beach invading our erstwhile peaceful land. Strange then, given this immediacy of threat, our military preparations are increasingly linked to AUKUS, its central plank being Australias acquisition of nuclear powered submarines some 20 or more years hence. In an atmosphere of hyped up Sino-phobia I hope to allay fears by recourse to history, logic and military realities.
2 May 2023
ABC analyst Mick Ryans US government funded affiliations
It seems the automatic go to for the ABC on matters military is Major-General Mick Ryan. His opinion is usually presented as unbiased fact. Is that the case?
24 April 2023
ANZAC day: a call to honest examination
Commemorating ANZAC Day this year again under a shadow promises to be an interesting experience.
8 March 2023
Red Alert? Follow the money instead: ASPI is a front for US propaganda
What is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), what are its sources of funding, and why does it so consistently advocate for positions favourable to the United States and the weapons industry? Follow the money trail.
1 March 2023
"The gift of bombs": Wandering thoughts of a Hanoi sojourner
I sit in Hanoi, Vietnam, a friends 10th floor unit, from which the lights of the city gyrate before me. My mind wanders, ponders many things, my formative years having been enmeshed with the events of this country.
11 February 2023
Peruvian coup: the Australian connection
Pedro Castillo, the Peruvian president, overthrown in a coup 7th December 2022, and then sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, clearly represented a threat to some significant forces.
25 January 2023
Truth telling and lamentation before celebration
When one group of people takes the land of another by military force, invasion is the most accurate term. We would hardly speak of Germany settling France in 1940.
12 January 2023
Follow the money: ASPI is a front for US propaganda
What is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), what are its sources of funding, and why does it so consistently advocate for positions favourable to the United States and the weapons industry? Follow the money trail.
17 December 2022
A world divided
Not since the end of the Cold War has the world been so divided politically, ideologically and economically.
6 December 2022
Australia and the suspended U.N. Inspection
It always helps to have your own house in order before criticising anothers. With other nations, Australia has in recent times been a constant critic of the human rights record of numerous nations, particularly that of China. However, it was Australia itself who last month was subject to a critical report from the U.N. Committee Against Torture.
12 November 2022
A harmonious future: In loving our faith, appreciating others
The number of conflicts finding a basis in religion is unfortunately long, with these conflicts bringing much suffering to our world.
6 November 2022
U.S midterms: set against a fractured nation
The Irish poet W. B. Yeats could have had the upcoming U.S. midterm elections in mind when he wrote, Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.
12 October 2022
The changing world order with declining western influence
White Man's Media misses it again. The recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperative Organisation held 15-16 September 2022 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
9 October 2022
Western anti-China rhetoric reeks of hypocrisy
The direction from whence comes most of the anti-China rhetoric in the world today is hardly surprising. It reeks of hypocrisy.
29 September 2022
When facts are not necessarily facts. The Uyghurs and China
Repeat a supposed fact sufficient times and it will become assumed truth. That seems the case very much when it comes to claims about Chinas oppression of the Uyghurs in its western Xinjiang province. Supposedly one million or more Uyghurs have been imprisoned in vast re-education camps with the term genocide being frequently used. Even the charge of infanticide has been laid. Not all that is supposed however, is reality.
5 September 2022
In decline, can the US escape the Thucydides Trap?
Conflict is far more likely to be initiated by a United States under threat of the loss of its top status.