Keith Windschuttle UPDATE 26/7/11: It is apparent that Breivik was pretty committed to lifting material straight out of other far Right tracts. His praise for Howard and Pell appears to to have originated here and the Windschuttle comments here. Thanks to David Brophy for pointing out the former reference. As with all the links to far Right sites […]
25 Jul
Comments Off on Terror in the eye of the beholder? Norway, the far Right & the state-media complex
This weekend was a salutary lesson in how terrorism is treated by the media and political establishment. The lesson may surprise you, because there are two narratives constructed: Firstly, with outrage, linking of associations on the basis of zero evidence, calls for continued military action and tightening of domestic security (read: curtailing civil liberties) to […]
22 Jul
Comments Off on Beyond the age of austerity, a new pattern of resistance and revolution emerges
In apparently “normal” times we Marxists are given a hard time, derided for our economic determinism about the crisis-prone nature of capitalism, scoffed at for suggesting that revolutionary movements could possibly occur in modern times, and accused of totalitarian impulses if we suggest that conscious revolutionaries should try to cohere their forces. Often the most […]
11 Jul
Comments Off on Where is the alternative? The Tasmanian Greens join the deficit hawks
Nick McKim faces protests over school closures Political debate in Australia seems firmly hinged on a cognitive dissonance over questions about the economy. Setting aside the ever-present obsession of discussing economic questions as if they are somehow separate to political ones, we have a federal government simultaneously arguing the economy is strong and we are […]
09 Jul
Comments Off on Carbon pricing — even the Right admits it’s really all about neoliberalism
This is what the climate movement, the Greens and sections of the Left have staked their futures on: [I]n Australia, the push for carbon pricing originated from the Treasury as a pro-market economy-wide reform whose great advocates were Ken Henry, Martin Parkinson and Ross Garnaut with their ideas holding sway with John Howard, Rudd and […]
06 Jul
Comments Off on John Quiggin, ‘Marxism without revolution’ and Left strategy: A response. (Part 2)
John Quiggin recently ran a series on “Marxism without revolution”, with posts covering Marx’s ideas on class, crisis and capital. I began a response here. In this post I look at his claims about Marx’s theory of crisis and his approach to Left strategy. John’s attack on Marx’s crisis theory, specifically the “law of the tendency of the rate […]
04 Jul
Comments Off on John Quiggin, ‘Marxism without revolution’ and Left strategy: A response. (Part 1)
Thanks to @liz_beths for her helpful comments and suggestions. The economist John Quiggin — whose valuable book Zombie Economics I reviewed last October — has just completed a three part series on “Marxism without revolution” at his blog. The three posts cover Marx’s ideas on class, crisis and capital. In responding it is difficult to know where to start because the case he mounts […]
26 Jul
Comments Off on Australia’s Islamophobes & right-wing ideologues praised in Breivik’s manifesto