Letters to the Editor
Most certainly, we hold no sympathy for Hamas....
June 14, 2024
Please, please, there is no need to highlight the so-called atrocities Hamas is accused of committing on October 7th - very, very few of them are proven or substantiated. If 1200 died, there is now ample evidence via Al Jazeera and the Electronic Intifada, Haaretz, and various other Israeli sources that many, if not most were murdered by Israeli fire. The Hamas incursion is a pimple on Mount Everest in comparison to the thousands of such incursions and slaughters committed by Israel since 1948. To single out Hamas is a classic case of blaming the victim for...
Dieter Barkhoff from Box Hill North
In response to: Australia and the Israeli-Hamas War
Poor policy results in poor outcomes
June 14, 2024
There has been much ado about the so-called Reserve Bank of Australia’s modus operandi, but most of all, it overlooks the fact that the RBA is an instrument of the Federal Government, independent or otherwise. The Feds make policy, the RBA doesn’t, and it’s this policy which governs the fortunes of Australia and the RBA. Policy governs everything we do whether we like it or not and 30 years of poor policy has created mounting inequality and poverty. We are now reaping what we have sown! As we have seen with the pandemic, we can afford to do...
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Reserve Bank has squeezed us like a lemon........
Why is the US waiting for Hamas?
June 14, 2024
That is a good call by a very distinguished body of us Australians. After all, twice in five weeks Hamas has accepted a ceasefire proposal guaranteed by the US, Egypt and Qatar. Yet Biden and Blinken keep saying they are waiting for Hamas to accept? Why? Isn’t the onus on Israel to accept the deal?
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Australia and the Israeli-Hamas War
Stigmatising dementia
June 14, 2024
Dear editor, I too have a close friend diagnosed with younger onset Alzheimer's disease. She is in an excellent care facility, and every day I see photos of her smiling face, despite her advanced memory loss, and inability to walk or talk. To describe her life as one of 'intolerable suffering' is completely untrue. Dementia is an umbrella term for many diseases, including Alzheimer's, so it is inaccurate to say dementia or Alzheimer's. Whilst I understand the viewpoint of the author, and do not necessarily disagree with euthanasia in general, I think unfortunately the focus is on...
Helen Jones from Sydney
In response to: Time to change the law
The Hypocrisy on Gaza is widespread indeed
June 14, 2024
As most Australians are reviled by the Gaza war, seeing, as always, it is the innocent civilians who suffer in war, not the politicians or generals, it is interesting to compare the expressed Australian outrage over Gaza, the horror over Australian support for Israel, in articles such as this one, with the complete lack of interest expressed in what is happening, has happened, in other war zones around the world, where the international community watched and did nothing. Sudan, 150,000 murdered, 10 million displaced. Egypt, 35,000 illegal arrests and ‘disappearances’, 15,000 homes destroyed Syria, 500,000 gassed & murdered, 6...
Marcus May from Ocean Grove
In response to: Hypocrisy and deceit Down Under: Australia is a Zionist stronghold
Russia’s nuclear threat
June 14, 2024
I generally like Caitlin’s take on things especially criticism of the US for just about everything but regarding Russia she has, to my mind, a blind spot. Whatever justifications Putin uses, NATO expansionism or whatever, the fact is Russia, led by a dictator, invaded the Ukraine led by a democratically elected president (quibble about that but it’s a fact) . Putin complains about weapons from the US and other countries being used against Russia but I see no equivalence about him using weaponry from China and Iran to wreak havoc on the Ukraine and it’s people. I...
Richard Creswick from Northern territory
In response to: The reckless brinkmanship with Russia keeps on escalating
Religion and the Census
June 14, 2024
Paul Collins, the problem with your position is that the ABS HAS BEEN LISTENING to people of faith for far too long. Given that in all statistical probability there are closer to 50% of 'non faith people' rather than the reported 39%, it seems very reasonable to me that we try to get this accurate. So much feather bedding for 'people of faith', exemplified by Scott Morrison, goes on that it is about time we tried to demonstrate its irrelevance to modern Aust society.
Max Bourke AM from Campbell, ACT
In response to: Religion and the census
Labor's climate failures
June 14, 2024
Ketan Joshi concludes that over the past two years Australia’s total emissions have all but stopped falling and we won’t reach zero emissions until 2207 (“Environment: Government delivers climate rhetoric but not emissions reductions” Pearls and Irritations, 2/6). As climate impacts swirl around us, this is a shameful truth and bitter pill for future generations. Like many, I had hoped that the 2022 change of government would result in policy that would actually shift the pollution dial. But since native forest logging continues, environmental law reform has been deferred, coal mine expansions are still being approved, and Labor announced...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Environment: Government delivers climate rhetoric but not emissions reductions
Political hypocracy
June 14, 2024
So, those United States Study Centres are pushing political policy support for AUKUS, amongst others past, present and future, I'm sure. And crickets from those who object to interference in our political system. But, if it was a similar event from a Confucius Institute or other Chinese bodies supported by the United Front Work Dept, the media would be all over it, shouting from the roof tops. I don't want to see ANY political interference by any nation, but the hypocracy shown here is just appalling. AUKUS needs to be killed off as any manned sub, in...
Leigh Bunting from Adelaide
In response to: Serious concerns about the AUKUS submarine deal are not going away
Critical thought - Culturally Determined Mediation
June 14, 2024
The deep complexity of the considerable issues facing the Human Species over the coming years, will not be solved by thinking that adheres to the confines of 'acceptable' - culturally determined mediations. Characterizations of 'independence', that appear on the surface to sit outside of them, included. The Author of this article, the Authors linked within it, and P&I as a publication, are yet to cross this Rubicon.
Andrew Stretton from Tasmania
In response to: Raising the Bar
Can the Albanese Govt be trusted with Australia?
June 14, 2024
Since the loss of the 2019 Election the Labor party has been shell shocked , a rabbit caught in the head lights . It has been dealing with the mess left behind by the ONE minister Morrison Govt, unable to even get the Dutton chickens (refugees and immigration) home to roost. Albanese should have in his victory speach announced a review of the Public Service and of the AuKuSA submarine deal as the beginning of his bold agenda to fix the Morrison mess . Instead he has been wasting time and energy ensuring the Morrison/ Dutton mud doesnt...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SĄ
In response to: Can Scott Morrison be trusted in America?
Finally, the facts on Chinese growth
June 14, 2024
Congratulations Michael Keating on the brilliant article laying out the facts about Chinese growth and strategic development over the past 40 years. I began seeing with my own eyes 15 years ago the rate at which China was rapidly going green while the west was mostly in denial. Julia Gillard was right - this will be the Asian century - and hopefully we can still tag along. Neil O'Keefe
NEIL O'KEEFE from HEATHCOTE VIC 3523
In response to: Clutching at straws: America will not maintain its economic dominance
Dangers of Neutrality
June 14, 2024
Those politicians who may be inclined towards Australian neutrality pursue that inclination at the risk of their careers or worse as the experiences of Gough Whitlam and Imran Khan prove. https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-us-toppling-of-imran-khan/
John Curr from Brisbane
In response to: Neutrality would keep us out of a U.S. – China war
Doomsday clock
June 14, 2024
I was surprised at how much the doomsday clock had varied since 1947. The Sachs article gives the US presidential timeline but not the Russian or Chinese equivalents. So much depends on leaders. I wonder if as well as the UN building in NY there was an equivalent United People's building across the road how different the years since 1947 would have been. Are the ICC and the ICJ the beginnings of people power as opposed to leaders' power?
Gary Barnes from mosman nsw
In response to: Presidents who gamble with nuclear Armageddon
We must recover the common good
June 14, 2024
In the minds of those concerned for the salvation of life on earth the focus has been on securing an urgent transition from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy. This is certainly critical. Our government is supporting this transition, for good immediate reason, as a great commercial opportunity. Geoff Davies has identified that the energy transition alone will be insufficient to achieve a truly sustainable society. The other, at least as important, is to make the transition back from our market-based, neo-liberalism enhanced society to the more socially cohesive and caring society which reclaims the commons, and prioritises the...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Death machine: striking at the heart of the planetary problem
A spade is a spade, (unless it's Israeli . . )
June 14, 2024
The analogy Gillian Cowlishaw makes with domestic violence’s insidious control mechanisms is a perfect analogy for the truth manipulation that Israel has quietly been building and cementing into political structures worldwide over decades. The real victim, Palestine is repeatedly over-written by well-funded and loud false narratives. Australian Zionists, under the umbrella of the Jewish faith have been allowed to heckle and harass any truth tellers with information from that beautiful, ancient country of Palestine, by dismissing the teller and insisting that they alone control the story and the Jewish people must always be seen as the victims. Appallingly the...
Glenda Jones from Carlton
In response to: Coercive control — by country
Brave voices should be applauded
June 14, 2024
The Jewish Council of Australia is to be commended and applauded for their brave and principled stance on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's far-right national government insults our intelligence and compassion by continually seeking to dilute their murderous actions by calling them 'unintended' or 'a tragic mistake', or that such outrages are 'under review'. The Jewish Council of Australia quite rightly, and unequivocally, calls for Australia to hold Israel to account in the same way that Russia and some of its citizens are held responsible for the illegal invasion of Ukraine....
Robert Harwood from West Hobart
In response to: Rafah massacre demonstrates urgent need to cut ties and sanction Israel
Biden’s bombs burn babies
June 14, 2024
Biden’s bombs burn babies. There have been further murders by Israel in the day since. But so far, the reaction from the US and Australia and the world is not “enough is enough” as it was when Kim Phuc ran down a Vietnamese street with her back covered in flaming napalm. Buddhist monk Thich Tri Qang self-immolated to try to stop the Vietnam War, and US serviceman Aaron Bushnell has done the same this year over Gaza. Yet as of today Antony Blinken is still telling us that the “red line” for decisive US intervention hasn’t been crossed....
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: American-Israeli bombs incinerate women and children in Gaza’s ‘safe zone’
We need leaders who rise to the climate challenge
June 14, 2024
‘Lifestyle’ has been the major gain for the great majority of people since 1945. This has led the rampant consumerism which has us ‘using more resources than the world has to offer’. It is the political risk of compromising this lifestyle that prevents populist democratic governments from reining in our changing climate. This inability threatens to destroy the world which has evolved over the past sixty million years; this is the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. Violet Coco is intelligent, informed, passionate and provocative. She sees the critical state of our climate and environment, and...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Full spectrum resistance: we need militant teams who are willing to destroy the death machine
Bias in the Letters pages
June 14, 2024
... the denying of Israel’s Gazan starvation strategy (a longstanding affair) may have been too much for the normally acquiescent letters editors to bear. I wrote letters to The Age from 1999 until 10 May, 2024, and agree 100% with author Evan Jones's comment. It was extremely difficult to get any letter published that refuted outright errors of fact previously published in the letters pages on the Voice to Parliament, or that expressed alternative views on China, defence or Gaza. I still don't know why the anti-Voice brigade got such a free run. But for the rest, if you're...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn, VIC
In response to: The AIJAC propaganda machine
Daniel Duggan
June 14, 2024
Thank you to Mary Kostakidis for spelling out some of the injustice being inflicted on Dan Duggan and his family. With the name Dreyfus there is a cruel irony that the federal Attorney General seems unwilling to put a stop to the inhumane treatment. Yours sincerely, Bill Holley
William Holley from Mayfield NSW
In response to: Living in fear: Can Australia protect its citizens from our dangerous American a
We cannot leave transition to our children
June 14, 2024
Andrew Glikson highlights once again how humanity is facing an existential crisis as our environment decays. Too many are either ignoring these imminent threats or denying the need for substantial, uncomfortable actions to prevent them. These attitudes are likely rooted in the comforting words from successive governments – either that climate science is ‘crap’ and must be ignored, or that they accept the science and have the issues in hand so don’t worry. But actions are not being taken fast enough. The Climate Change Minister seems to be making some progress, but his colleague in the Environment Ministry...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: Tracking toward a greenhouse atmosphere and acid oceans
Biden Administration Stands Self-Indicted
May 29, 2024
There can be no more definite proof that for the USA, any claim of upholding 'the International Rule of Law' is utterly and shamelessly a complete and arrogant falsehood than the recent responses to the Gaza situation. Within a few hours of the ICJ announcing a decision to determine the legality - or otherwise - of the actions of the leaders of the Israeli government in the context of war crimes and genocide, Joe Biden frothed his opposition, calling it 'outrageous'. Eminent international justices trenchantly disagree, and the international community increasingly protests strongly the Israeli government/military matrix genocide being...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Horrendous images of burnt children after Israel bombs Rafah refugee camp
The degree of obedience of a soldier
May 24, 2024
Thank you for the article. Inevitably there would be a confrontation between the legal system, the tenants of mission command and the degree of obedience required of a soldier in a democracy. As you pointed out the Nuremburg Trials rejected slavish obedience to orders as the reason for behaviours and actions. For the Germans each soldier is now obliged, continuously, to reassess their decisions, behaviour and actions on the constitutionality, legality and morality of their mission or task. A soldier does so to avoid the abuses of human rights that have been repugnant features of the past. They...
Thomas Basan from Canberra
In response to: Justice miscarried: The unanswered questions of the McBride verdict
The role of the Greens
May 24, 2024
In their excellent podcast, Allan Patience and Joe Camilleri paint a bleak picture of the state of Australian politics. Rightly, they bemoan the inability of the second-rate politicians within the two major parties to address the ravages of forty years of neoliberalism, and respond to the challenges of climate catastrophe and social inequality. Rightly, they recognise that the machinery of government is controlled by powerful corporate and security interests. Yet they mention the Greens and Independents only cursorily, to dismiss their possible roles and never return to them. I cannot understand this. Patience and Camilleri want people with ideas,...
Richard Barnes from Canterbury, Victoria
In response to: The bleak picture of Australian politics: this is how we change
Dien Bien Phu and Vietnam war protests
May 24, 2024
The excellent article re the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu, is illuminative. Those who would seek more information are recommended to read Lucien Bodard's 'The Quicksand War'. Of great import is the information that it was an American military officer who drove Ho Chi Minh into Hanoi, in an American Jeep, proclaiming through a bullhorn 'Here is your new leader' ( paraphrased.) Bodard chronicles the vast corruption serial south Vietnamese governments, supported by - guess who - the USA. Just as today we see the USA flagrantly ignoring any semblance of the 'International Rule of Order'...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Ðiên Biên Phú at 70: The best journalists report from “the other side”
Finally, facts against the almighty Hasbara b.s.
May 24, 2024
It was very heartening to read Evan Jones' brave article, pushing back against the overwhelming media deluge by the pro-Israel community. The propaganda (Hasbara) that they spew out is extremely well-funded and quite ruthless. AIJAC’s decades-long pronouncements highlight that its personnel dwell in a parallel universe. It is a record of high-class charlatanry. How can AIJAC personnel, all well-educated, construct a fabulous version of a subject on which they devote their waking hours? The media has been generally happy to oblige AIJAC’s threadbare homilies. A commentator with the experience and intellect of Evan Jones reveals the shallowness...
Glenda Jones from Carlton, 3053 Victoria
In response to: The AIJAC propaganda machine
It's just the budget to win the next election
May 24, 2024
More members of the Coalition are likely to be replaced by 'teals' at the next Federal Election because the Coalition is largely irrelevant. Labor just needs to stay in office, hence the budget that just tinkered but did not make big changes. They did commit to building more housing which is good news. Murdoch's News Limited is being brought down to size. In the UK's investigators have found that the News of the World's illegal behaviour was much more than they initially realised, and more people are going to be held accountable, which will damage them further. This...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: Jim Chalmers’ 2024 budget ignores that humans are social beings
The US has lost key states
May 24, 2024
Thanks to Israel's genocide in Gaza, the Saudis are not doing a normalisation agreement with Israel. The US tried to do a Plan B with the Saudis, which was an AUKUS type deal, but they have also walked away from that as well. This is of major strategic importance. The Saudis have signed up with the BRICS. Looks like India is refusing to sign an AUKUS deal as well. They currently buy around half of their military weapons from Russia and are refusing to change on this. Being a 'QUAD' member is largely meaningless. The US Petrodollars...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: America's geopolitical position
Peacekeeping force for Gaza
May 24, 2024
Blinne Ni Ghralaigh’s plea for more action by the ICJ is backed by a current call from the 22 state Arab League for a multilateral peacekeeping force in Gaza. As Algeria is a member of both the League and the Security Council, it is to be hoped that Algeria’s Foreign Minister, Ahmad Attah, proposes setting up such a force by the Council. Our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, should encourage him to do so urgently.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: As 700,000 civilians flee Rafah, our shared humanity compels the indication of further ICJ provisional measures
Gaza genocide
May 24, 2024
Thank you for telling the true, whole (for this period of our lives) story. I have heard/read snippets of these but not the concise whole. I did not know about Marwan Barghouti (for me more to learn). In connection to his story, John, mentioned Nelson Mandela. I would put the very sad story of Navalny here too.
Judith Gamper from Kambah ACT 2902
In response to: Gaza genocide protests by students shame the elites in the Westen world
We must break the power of lobbying and donations
May 17, 2024
The fossil fuel industry will never cooperate to bring about their own demise. Rather they seek to prolong and maximise their fossil fuel production, disregarding the ever-more-apparent risks that their emissions are producing. They cloak the need for emissions reduction in the panacea of carbon capture and storage – a technology with limited application and little proven success. The IPCC made clear, in its final report, that no new fossil fuel projects can be authorised. This decree, in Australia, seems to have energised the industry to push for authorisation of major new gas projects. The Future Gas Strategy is...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Labor’s Future Gas Strategy: The greatest capitulation of any Australian gover
Pushers of war for corporate gain
May 17, 2024
While always showing us corporations who benefit from the spoils and even threat of war, why not expose the real pushers of war for corporate gain…..the weapons industries. Oil gains feature but without weapons industries having war, where would they get profits for jobs and shareholder gains? It seems the reliance on weapons production is too big to ever let it stop. USA UK produces and sells weapons far more than any other nation, and it’s hard to sell a product without a user, it seems the producer has needs met by ‘whatever it takes”. It’s not really...
Julie Hunt from Alstonville Plateau, NSW 2477
In response to: corporatocracy
The US hegemon
May 17, 2024
I absolutely agree with this article, however it is anethema to politicians of all colours and most of the populace because of their perceived need to hold hands with someone stronger, as it was with the UK at one time. It is sad that most think we need someone to 'have our back' when there has been no guarantees of that - ever. It is only the self interest of hegemons that gives the impression of 'support'. To be independent of hegemony would show other countries that we are confident of our place in the world and will...
Leigh Bunting from Adelaide
In response to: Three compelling reasons to exit ANZUS
Betrayal X 2
May 17, 2024
Labor has betrayed us on both climate and AUKUS/Defence. Send in more Teals to act on the former and please Teals act on the latter. As it currently stands, as climate catastrophe races towards us and we prepare for war as a puppet of the US, we are doomed without immediate action.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn
In response to: Future Gas Strategy is a betrayal of promised Climate and Environmental Policies
We should all support an Earth Systems Treaty
May 17, 2024
I first read about Julian Cribb's climate book How to Fix a Broken Planet- Advice for Surviving the 21st Century (2023) last year in P&I (July 22/2023). I was most impressed by how comprehensive it is. To solve the main threats to our world, it proposes ten globally agreed and legal solutions, the Earth System Treaty (EST), on which all UN countries should take action. The first action is to ban nuclear weapons. Cribb seemed ecstatic as he wished it well, It is a milestone to our becoming one people on one planet. So it is disappointing to read...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: To avoid human population collapse, We must transform Society
Yes, Minister. Listen to the kids
May 17, 2024
And now - it's back to the NT. A Labor government here is trying to pee higher than the CLP pretenders. 'Tough Love', More police, More prisons. And the next step for these retributive recidivists? Reintroduce mandatory sentencing?? The only thing that stops these kiddies' power games is that someone in their circle of friends and family is caught in the Act and sentenced mandatorily. The new police minister here wants all homeless people herded up and dumped in the bush. But then again, he's helping clear the bush so ... It's all sounding gaza-ish, isn't it?
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: No, Minister. It's you who should be in court
“Future Made in Australia"
May 17, 2024
The horrible thing about Albo's Future Made in Australia is the complete lack of imagination in lifting it from Biden's 2021 “Future Made in America”. Why are Australian governments so secondhand and second-rate?
Paul Andrew from Adelaide
In response to: Accepting reality: the future will not be made in Australia
A valuable contribution
May 17, 2024
Thank you. Thank you.
Patrick Widows from Margate. Tasmania
In response to: Negativity and the Budget. Philip Huggins
Cognitive dissonance over climate catastrophe
May 17, 2024
A Guardian survey of hundreds of top climate scientists indicates only six percent think the 1.5C goal is achievable. Nearly eighty percent warn of dire consequences, a “semi-dystopian” future of wider famine, mass migration and conflict driven by dwindling basic resources. An agreement signed last year between Tuvalu and Australia was a world-first bilateral agreement on “climate mobility” (The Conversation, 11/11). Australia has, commendably, created migration pathways for people from Tuvalu who face the existential threat of rising sea levels. Yet in the context of the Federal government’s gas strategy announcement, our commitments to the Pacific nations are sounding...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: 77% of top Climate Scientists think 2.5°C of warming is coming – and they’re horrified
Ceasefire guarantee or red line of blood?
May 17, 2024
The text of the Gaza ceasefire agreement published on Al Jazeera says that the US, Egypt and Qatar are the guarantors. Hamas has accepted it. So it is time the guarantors stepped up to the plate and took active steps to stop the continuing small mass murders and the Majdanek-inspired “900 calories per day keeps people quiet” approach of the Ben-Gvir Smotrich real government of Israel. The Biden red line, which is not a red line according to Blinken, is nothing but a trail of blood running across the sea from Gaza to Washington.
Geoff Taylor from Riverton
In response to: Israel’s willing executioners
Hope now rests on very thin ice
May 10, 2024
77% of IPCC climate lead scientists, as reported by the Guardian this week, see that we will, almost inevitably, be facing catastrophic global temperature rise within the foreseeable future. This news, together with the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group’s newly-published report “Too Hot To Handle”, underscores Adrian Glikson’s despairing preview of humanity’s seemingly inevitable demise in the Earth’s forecast sixth mass extinction. Thirty years ago we had the information that we needed, as a species, to recognise, accept, and overcome this threat. Regretfully governments, with fossil fuel industry encouragement, opted instead to focus on other pressing issues that allowed...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills , Vic
In response to: The Orwellian rules-based climate
EEZ rules
May 10, 2024
I was enlightened by this article as to the rules for entering an EEZ. The question begs as to why HMAS Hobart was in that particular area (enforcing sanctions on DPRK sounds a bit thin), so what were their orders and on whose authority. If the orders came from the UN, then China's reaction is overblown. If we are lapdogs to US orders then that is different. I can understand that the EEZ borders in the Yellow Sea are tight but maybe there are other factors at work such as the Chinese/DPRK at-sea goods transfers are being hindered...
Leigh Bunting from Adelaide
In response to: China dropped a flare near an Aussie copter in its EEZ. What’s wrong with that?
Blinken and the mote and beam
May 10, 2024
As the Chinese saying goes; for every finger the US points outward, three fingers point inward. This parallels the biblical story of seeing the mote in your neighbour’s eye but not the beam in your own. Which is very much the case with Anthony Blinken’s latest claim that Hamas is holding up a ceasefire in Gaza. The reality is that it has been possible since the early stages of this conflict for Joe Biden to bring it to a halt, with diplomatic, military and financial pressure. He didn’t, and the deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians lie squarely on him, as...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The State Department report on human rights
The US empires' Days are numbered
May 10, 2024
The US Government now spends more on interests payments to service it debt than on defence, which is the tipping point when an empire is finished. Every year the US Government continues to spend well beyond its means. Thanks to US sanctions, where over 50 percent of the world's population is living under some type of sanction, much of the world is moving away from using the US dollars and TWIFT for trade. Together the euro and yuan have the ability to replace the US dollar, and many countries are trading in their own currencies. In the near future...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: Australias-national-defence-strategy-where-ideology-trump
Australia's American lenses
May 10, 2024
ABC Nightlife between Phil Clark and Michael Pascoe mid-week discussed the 'nest of spies' reported in 2021 by ASIO DG Mike Burgess, who is happy to cast shade on China and Russia, but which was reported this week via the Washington Post to have been from India. The MSM seems to have made virtually nothing of it with government and opposition spokespeople quoted on the good relationship Australia has with the world's biggest democracy and defence partner India - everyone has moved on. But imagine the response if the spy ring turned out to have been from China. As Pascoe...
Ka Ma from Australia
In response to: Our Biggest China Lie
Avani Dias and The Australian
May 3, 2024
Sam Varghese makes a cogent argument for exposing News Corps' white blindfold approach to journalism. I'd suggest the fact that she's a woman would also be a factor. And then there's the potential for The Australian (or any of the other rags that News Corp - I hesitate to say - publishes) to aggravate Modi and News Corps' potential for making any money there. Nothing like ethical standards.
Erik Hoekstra from Leura
In response to: If Avani Dias had been white, would Murdoch media have ignored her India ban?
Lest we forget -- Who should we commemorate?
May 3, 2024
What should we commemorate? The quest for peace in our lifetime. Those who champion alternatives to war. The right to want the commemoration of war money to go into mental health services, which are desperately needed due to, in part, the continuation of war at all costs. Those who champion the rights of children, especially those on the fringes, the victims of war, and First Peoples. Those who stand up for the countless women tortured daily, and all too many killed by those who know them. We should commemorate the women who stood up and aired the need for...
Jessica Perini from Everleigh
In response to: ‘Impactful projection’, 1915 style: Lest we forget Anzac Cove
Lest we forget -- beyond ANZAC
May 3, 2024
6 am and I can hear them gathering. Every year since COVID began, our neighbours have insisted on an ANZAC Day service in our street. The bugles blare at the rising of the sun. New Zealand and Australian anthems are sung. “For those who’ve come across the seas ...” And I turn over in my bed and rage. My adopted grandpa, he was one of them. I do not denigrate his years of service. Nor the beliefs he held. It is the sanctification of the period that irks me to the core. This act has been made saintly. An...
Jessica Perini from Everleigh
In response to: ‘Impactful projection’, 1915 style: Lest we forget Anzac Cove