December 10, 2023

Kissinger, me, and the lies of the master

Off off the record with the man who secretly taped our telephone calls.

February 24, 2023

Arms control: the only road to peace

The world was a very dangerous place in the late 1960s. It is again. This time the danger is in Asia as well as Europe, as highlighted by John Lyonss recent two-part series on the ABC.

January 26, 2025

War and climate change: the carbon footprint of a genocide

The International Court of Justice heard, last month, that after reconstruction is factored in Israel’s war on Gaza will have emitted 52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. A figure equivalent to the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.

March 14, 2024

Phoney secrets and scares about foreign powers

One thing is certain about espionage agencies. They are not averse to creating alarm in order to give the impression they are protecting us from threats by ideological fanatics internally or by hostile foreign powers. There is always a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy about their pronouncements and the most recent panic about an unidentified former member of parliament is typical. They expect us to be naive enough to believe their inventions and to feel grateful for them.

January 8, 2024

King Donald duck Trump

The 60th presidential election is less than a year away and if polling is correct a second Donald Trump presidency is likely. If you dont believe the polls, the January 6 Prison Choirs Justice for All single, casting Donald Trump, has hit No. 1 on iTunes, might be a hint. Politicians and voters in thrill or fear can all agree that his second coming may be permanent.

December 15, 2023

Damaged climate: Australia must learn from deadly Northern Rivers floods

“What happened here in the Northern Rivers [in 2022] with Lismore as the epicentre has to be recognised as one of the worst disasters the nation has ever seen, says Lismore City Councillor Elly Bird. The scale of the floods was immense: Australias biggest natural disaster since Cyclone Tracy in 1974, the second-costliest event in the world for insurers in 2022, and the most expensive disaster in Australian history__.

February 26, 2023

The death of Hong Kong?

In 1996, I was offered an untenured post in the department of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. What made the offer particularly attractive is that I could live in a large subsidised flat on Hong Kong Island, with a balcony overlooking the ocean. The main reason I was offered such beautiful accommodation, I came to realise, is that I am a white man from Canada.

January 2, 2023

Wake up Australia! A new constitution, not a new war!

What are the Australian people doing about their archaic and undemocratic Constitution?

November 10, 2022

No such thing as an objective journalist: Notes from the edge of the narrative matrix

I feel like we haven’t been talking enough about the fact that US government agencies were just caught intimately collaborating with massive online platforms to censor content in the name of regulating the “cognitive infrastructure” of society.

March 20, 2025

Homeless shelters are needed urgently

Governments are not grasping the urgency to provide immediate relief in temporary accommodation for those caught up in homelessness. Political discourse is almost solely focused on providing affordable and social housing. But making good on these promises will take years.

March 1, 2025

Donald Trump’s axis of authoritarianism

Even for those of us who feared the worst about a possible second coming of Donald Trump, the pace and nature of the changes his administration is undertaking are astounding and alarming in equal measure. We can’t say we weren’t warned, though.

January 24, 2025

Democracy promotion, regime change and US foreign policy: the case of Bangladesh

The deeply entrenched authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina was toppled by a student-led movement on August 5 2024. The global community cheered the moral courage and the phenomenal organisational skills of the student leaders. The redoubtable Economist magazine voted Bangladesh as ‘the country of the year’ (2024) because students led a movement that ‘toppled a tyrant’ and paved the way for a brighter future.

January 2, 2025

Global order in flux: What Trump's return could mean for trade, allies, and the Middle East

The re-emergence of Donald Trump in the American political landscape has reignited discussions surrounding his “America First” policy, a hallmark of his leadership. This policy, which initially focused on reshaping America’s economic and foreign priorities, has evolved and could have deeper global implications. Trump’s tenure as president and his current campaign suggest that his approach, particularly in terms of trade, immigration, and military strategy, would be significantly more stringent in his second term.

October 8, 2024

John Olsen's gift to the nation

My dear friend, the great Australian painter John Olsen was, at 77, the oldest artist to win the Archibald Prize.

March 15, 2024

How to fix capitalism in Australia - Weekly Roundup

With fuel emission standards Toyota Land Cruisers to cost more than Lamborghinis, economic advice from a wise lady for Treasurer Chalmers, consumer advice from a Minnesota Lutheran. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

March 13, 2024

Six peculiar Peak China myths we all should question

In recent years, there has been a notable shift among certain Western politicians, media outlets and think tanks regarding their perspective on China’s developmental trajectory. The once popular theory of an imminent collapse of China, famously asserted by Gordon G. Chang over two decades ago, has finally begun to lose traction.

November 23, 2023

Why are so many Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?

Four in 10 Palestinian men spend time in Israel jails. Hamas says it wants to exchange captured Israelis for them.

November 16, 2023

US and Israeli exceptionalism and the exception of humanity

Both The US and Israel have turned out to be exceptionally brutal, exceptionally authoritarian and exceptionally unjust. The zeitgeist is peace, and Israel and the U.S. will be left behind when the world moves towards humanity and cooperation. Meanwhile they are going to dig in, stand firm on their use of blood curdling violence against their prisoners and send us all to hell unless the general public resist with every ounce and fibre of their humanity.

November 10, 2023

Optus, Reserve Bank compete to slow Australia's economy: Weekly Roundup

Green shoots in renewable energy; Optus and the Reserve Bank in a contest to slow the Australian economy; and the Trumpisation of Australian politics. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

October 19, 2023

The Crumpled Heart and the role now of wounded healers

The scars from mean words and actions can last a long, long time. After the outcome of the Voice Referendum, and as the suffering in Israel and Gaza intensifies, can the choice to heal rather than to reciprocate harm take us out of a spiralling set of retaliations which just cause more suffering? Perhaps we can all learn from an exercise called the ‘Crumpled Heart’.

March 20, 2023

Here we stand: Twenty years after our first war of aggression

HERE WE STAND: We are standing here, as people were in Melbourne yesterday, to recall one of Australias worst days: the start of our first war of aggression.

February 21, 2023

Why history does not disqualify Japan as an ally: a reply to Richard Cullen

Richard Cullen’s article, ‘Why Japan is not an acceptable military ally’, published in Pearls and Irritations (5 Jan. 2023) is an unfortunate piece of historical muck-raking.

December 3, 2022

Four myths about Pandemic preparedness

We are assured by the World Health Organization(WHO), theWorld Bank,the G20, andtheirfriends that pandemics pose an existential threat to our survival and well-being. Pandemics are becoming more common, and if we dont move urgently we will have ourselves to blame for more mass death of the next pandemic.

February 21, 2025

The political pragmatism of Angela Merkel

Since her autobiography “Freedom. Memoirs 1954 - 2021” appeared on the world stage in late November last year, many reviews in the Western media were negative, and quite critical of Angela Merkel’s politics, especially the way she dealt with the refugee crisis. Long admired for her role as Germany’s first female Chancellor, and hailed as a leader of the free world, her departure from office was accompanied by disapproval – as often happens with political leaders.

February 5, 2025

Seeking hope through humanity's voice

Intelligent and compassionate people can change the world, so let us get on with this.

January 17, 2025

How the West destroyed Syria - Interview with Former UK Ambassador to Syria

Peter Ford served in the UK Foreign Ministry for many years including being UK Ambassador to Bahrain (1999-2003) and then Syria (2003-2006). Following that, he was representative to the Arab world for the Commissioner General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency. He was interviewed by Rick Sterling on Jan 6, 2025

December 14, 2024

Before 1770, produced, written and directed by Sheikh Wesam Charkawi

In 2019, I was Australia’s Consul-General in Makassar, and I remember meeting a group of Muslim Australians from western Sydney: they were planning to make a film about the Makassar-Northern Australia relationship. Their leader was Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, a tall, bearded man of middle-age, in haji cap and long white robes.

December 12, 2024

Saving the greater glider from extinction, one den tree at a time

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A juvenile greater glider explores an area about to be logged in Badja State Forest. Image: Wilderness Australia.

Government inaction has prompted conservation groups to apply citizen science and sleepless nights to find greater glider den trees and use the NSW logging industry’s own rules to prevent logging and save 3,000 greater gliders.

November 2, 2023

In the lion's den

Waverley Council in Sydney recently voted to remove Greens councillors from their positions as Deputy Mayor and Committee members due to their position on the Israel/Palestine conflict. I was terrified of the deep irrationality and over-powering hatred and anger on display at the meeting. How can we usefully engage with such trauma and stop the horrors now being perpetrated against the people of Gaza?

October 22, 2023

Biden and Xi should follow their generous instincts

President Joe Biden last June showed his ignorance and arrogance to the world, when he called President Xi Jinping a dictator. Apparently he does not realise the weight of his remark. As the leader of the worlds most powerful country, President Biden should understand that the responsibility of a leader must be to serve the countrys best interests. Given this imperative, no decent leader can be a dictator, because a leader, to be effective, must follow the dictates of the laws of nature.

February 26, 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.

February 18, 2025

Snouts in the trough

Ah! Peter Dutton loves the past when sheilas knew their place, blokes were blokes and boozy lunches were a key characteristic of the business environment.

February 16, 2025

The politicisation of casting actors: Policy versus common sense

Casting for stage plays should be sensible, but right now in Australia sense has been diminished by sensitivity policies. An actor inherently appropriates his or her character’s culture. She or he must. That’s the job. But now “cultural appropriation” policy and procedures have some actors fearful of damaging their careers if they stray from the current dictates. A straight woman fears playing a lesbian. A man listing his Spanish accent on his CV turns down the role of a Spaniard.

March 25, 2024

Overcoming the national tendency to blame migrants for all our woes

On Palm Sunday, diverse refugee activists were literally running rings around reflexive fear mongering politicians.

March 18, 2024

Putin warns the West: Russia is ready for peace in Ukraine

On the eve of the Russian election, Vladimir Putin exudes confidence, discounts nuclear war, but warns West on the dangers of escalation. Meanwhile the mainstream western media obfuscates and misleads as usual.

February 20, 2024

Vatican - Israel rupture over Gaza

The invasion of Gaza, described by Pope Francis as terrorism, is causing strained relationships between Israel and the Vatican.

January 21, 2024

American elites may fear Trump return, but the rest of us need not

The US has become a more dangerous nation and Donald 2.0, with his instinctive aversion to war, may even be less threatening to the world.

March 30, 2023

Australia is an important Quad partner that India cannot trust

Despite flourishing relations, Australia is governed by a ruling elite whose commitment to a rules based order is suspect, selective and risks dragging India into a catastrophic conflict with China.

February 28, 2025

Just how bad can Trump 2.0 get?

Even those of us who feared the worst have been astounded by the Trump administration’s attack on the rule of law, democratic principles and even morality – not to mention America’s long-suffering allies, of course.

February 27, 2025

Jerry Cohen: An inspiring scholar

The leading US journal Foreign Policy has just published an extended profile, written by Jonathan Landreth, of Professor Jerome A. Cohen, entitled: “The Last China Hand. Jerry Cohen will be 95 in July this year. The article lucidly explains how he “has spent a lifetime trying to understand the People’s Republic of China".

February 7, 2025

The situation – and why we can’t fix it

Many are drawing attention to the alarming state of things. Within Pearls and Irritations, David Spratt and Julian Cribb have recently provided clear and powerful summary statements of the trajectory we’re on, heading towards catastrophic global ecological and social breakdown. But they proceed as if the problems could be solved. They’re wrong about that.

December 23, 2024

Asian Americans also shifted to Trump this November: Afterthoughts

On November 5, Donald J. Trump was widely reported to have won a big U.S. presidential election victory. A key factor was his success in attracting more of American minority voters than usual: Latinos and Blacks. Indeed, this made a difference.

December 2, 2024

Trump’s tariffs are a fool’s game

US President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies — marked by high tariffs — have been a major economic setback for the United States. The costs of these policies have harmed domestic buyers and caused job losses in sectors related to the targeted industries. Rather than resolving the trade imbalance issue as Trump intended, his administration’s fiscal expansion and subsequent reactions from affected countries have led to a major surge in the US trade deficit._

February 19, 2024

The odds of China using nuclear war to resolve the Taiwan issue

Recently the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank in Washington, DC, did a survey asking U.S. and Taiwan Experts if China might use nuclear weapons in a conflict with or over Taiwan. The results were astonishing to most who read the study. Almost half of U.S. experts reported they thought China would. Only one quarter that number of Taiwan experts, 11 percent, so opined.

November 21, 2023

The world needed the Xi-Biden meeting

Western media reports about China are of tensions and animosity, restrictions and sanctions, balloons and drugs. So, its easy to believe the China-US relationship has fallen apart. However, look beyond the headlines and political rhetoric, there is a different picture.

October 1, 2023

The news has nothing to do with newsworthiness

I dont mention it often but I actually have a degree in journalism. I graduated with distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2003, and while it would be another 13 years before Id ever put my degree to any use, the experience played a massive role in forming my opinions about the mainstream press.

March 19, 2023

Diplomacy in Beijing, war pact in San Diego whos the belligerent?

Under the Aukus military accord, Australia and Britain are committing serious self-harm to defend the American empire in the Indo-Pacific.

November 9, 2022

Of Shahid and Ghazees Spin and the explaining of Islam

Spin in all its forms is dangerous. Spin linking Islam with terrorism has become a part of everyday life for us and it is difficult to recognise it as spin precisely because of that fact.

March 21, 2025

Democracy and our avoidable crises: Politicians disingenuous or undeterrably self-interested

Home ownership has almost become an impossible dream in Australia and other Western capitalist countries. Governing authorities struggle in vain to stem the unrelenting increase in prices of land for domestic dwellings. It is probable that the struggle is unable to succeed as long as capitalism is uncontained; as long as the rules of the so-called “free market system” are accepted as inviolable.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal