Les MacDonald
Les MacDonald has been a CEO for more than 40 years. Prior to this, he held executive positions in both the Commonwealth and NSW governments. He was previously Executive Director Uniting Care Ageing. Les has an extensive leadership history including board positions in public hospitals, health insurance, the maritime industry, public transport, cancer medicine and the Council for the Arts amongst others.
Recent articles by Les MacDonald
3 April 2025
The West and inconvenient memory: The destruction of history
“Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past and historians are the people who produce it.” – Eric Hobsbawm
19 March 2025
The West’s 'international community' and the other 85% of humanity
A leader leads by example, not by force. Sun Tzu, The Art or War
13 March 2025
Who's who in the war business
“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire
11 March 2025
Trade and tariffs: Reality and fantasy
Donald Trump's recent actions with respect to the use of tariffs as a weapon to re-industrialise America demonstrates not only an utter failure to understand the economics of that move but also the geo-economic realities of the world in which those actions are being taken.
17 February 2025
Caligula's horse and Washington
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.” Marcus Aurelius
9 February 2025
America and the forgotten memento mori (remember you are mortal)
In recent decades, the West has witnessed a growing trend among increasingly hubristic US leaders to proclaim the United States as indispensable. This rhetoric reflects a mindset often seen in declining empires: the belief that their peak is yet to come, despite mounting evidence of decay.
7 February 2025
Antisemitism as a morally repugnant excuse for genocide
It is not widely appreciated that the term antisemitism is a relatively modern one, originating in 1879 when the German agitator Wilhelm Marr used it to describe the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time. The term is a misnomer since Semitic peoples include members of any group that speaks or historically spoke a Semitic language, including Jews and Arabs. According to Oxford Reference, the term “Semitic” derives from the biblical figure Shem, son of Noah, from whom these groups were traditionally thought to descend. Therefore, antisemitism, in a literal sense, would imply hostility toward both Jews and...
20 January 2025
Humpty Dumpty and the Rules Based International Order
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.” Lewis Caroll-Through the Looking Glass.
4 January 2025
The Hannibal Directive and mainstream media's organised forgetting
Aeschylus (525-456BC) was, as current circumstances in the Middle East and in Ukraine amply demonstrate, entirely accurate when he observed that “In war, truth is the first casualty.” At no time in history, including his own, is that observation more accurate than it is today in the digital age. Mark Twain famously noted that “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Today the truth would not have even risen from its sleep before the lie had travelled around the world.
23 December 2024
Facts about AUKUS
A very good summary of the facts, as opposed to the propaganda, about AUKUS. I would also recommend the recent book by Andrew Fowler entitled NUKED. It comprises a really excellent detailed look at the fraud and hype generated by politicians and the armaments industry to substantiate the vast theft from Australians that this shonky Morrison project represents!
21 December 2024
Western Media: an echo chamber for the US "Uighur Genocide" narrative
Let me directly address the narrative pushed by the United States and its allies regarding the alleged genocide of Uighurs in China's Xinjiang province. This narrative is not only riddled with inconsistencies but reeks of the same imperialist strategies the U.S. has employed for decades to destabilise dozens of nations and advance its own geopolitical ambitions.
5 December 2024
For whom the bell tolls: The rise and fall of the US empire
“No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.” (John Donne - For Whom the Bell Tolls)
22 November 2024
A new global economic order
Over recent decades, the Western economic system has undergone a profound transformation, veering increasingly toward financialisation—a framework that privileges speculative gains and the accumulation of paper wealth over tangible economic output. This shift reflects a structural prioritisation of elite interests, as financial markets serve as mechanisms for wealth extraction rather than wealth creation for the broader population. The consequences are stark: staggering disparities in wealth distribution, stagnation in living standards, and neglect of critical infrastructure, all symptomatic of an economic model driven by concentrated power rather than broad-based development.
11 November 2024
The "Rules based International order"- illusion and reality
US and Australian politicians frequently refer to the rules based international order when attacking the actions of “official enemies”. Most Australians think that they are referring to the UN Charter and the basis of international law that it personifies. For those in the know international law also incorporates the binding resolutions of the UN Security Council, decisions of the International Court of Justice as well as Treaties entered into between nation members of the UN.
7 November 2024
Western Democracy is not the only option
We in the West have a propensity noted by the rest of the world, to be rather self-congratulatory about our political and economic systems and our accompanying wish to pressure the rest of the world to try to be more like us.
15 October 2024
BRICS and the end of the dollar
The upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan on October 22nd to 24th may well accelerate the beginning of the end of the dollar as the world currency.
8 October 2024
Israel and Iran: Orwell's 'memory hole' and the origins of the present situation
The propensity of the West, and Israel for that matter has been to impose a forced forgetting on the rest of the world. Each event that occurs in the present day is taken as a beginning and not a consequence of what went before. We have willingly adopted Orwell’s “memory hole” as our way of simplifying events and allocating blame to those we have chosen as the less than worthy scapegoat inferiors for our own failures.
30 September 2024
Building a new global economic order: The role of BRICS
Over the past few decades, the Western economic system has shifted increasingly towards financialisation, prioritising the creation of paper wealth through financial markets rather than real economic output. This trend has led to significant imbalances, with wealth accumulating disproportionately in financial assets, rather than contributing to tangible improvements in living standards or infrastructure.
23 September 2024
Delusion and defeat in Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine heads into its third winter, Western leaders appear to be sinking further every day into a delusional belief in the success of their hydra-headed attempts to first defenestrate Russia before moving on to do the same to China.
10 September 2024
The truth at last about the record of the US
I have always remained an admirer of John's willingness to speak truth to power. This article confirms my belief.
7 September 2024
AUKUS could be the biggest Ponzi scheme in history
Much of the angst being generated by Australia's worst foreign policy decision since joining the American invasion of Vietnam may well be misplaced. It is unquestionable that the former prime minister and two former foreign ministers have been correct in their assessments of the decision by the Albanese Government to proceed with the AUKUS deal, as being nothing short of disastrous for Australian sovereignty and for our economy, but the question arises, will it ever happen?
19 August 2024
Returning to a democracy where strength of conviction shapes policy
We may be beginning a return to the original Athenian democracy where strength of conviction and argumentation shaped policy rather than outdated party loyalty and subservience to a party machine.
22 July 2024
Silos are for grain, not for National policies
One of the characteristic features of modern western democracies is, as John Ralston Saul has pointed out, that it has focused on the development of narrow forms of expertise and then used reason to apply that narrow expertise to addressing specific social, cultural, economic and political issues. This is particularly true of the proliferating management elites produced by the also proliferating Business Schools in Universities across the West.
20 May 2024
Are our policy makers Voltaire’s illegitimate children ?
Aged care and disability services bureaucratic elites seem increasingly to work in ways that are divorced from morality and common sense and removed from the everyday reality experienced by older people and their families.