It was not entirely unexpected that two prosecution-appointed psychiatrists would find Norwegian fascist mass murderer Anders Breivik insane and unfit to stand trial, diagnosing him with Paranoid Schizophrenia. The diagnosis — so far only backed by a few, unconvincing details from their as-yet unreleased report — runs counter to the voluminous information, available in the public […]
27 Nov
Comments Off on The Greens & Palestine: confronting inconvenient truths of the party’s right of return policy
Guest post by TONY HARRIS — cross-posted from his blog, Watermelon. In March last year, 35 prominent Jewish Australians signed a petition renouncing their automatic right of return to Israel, labelling such a right a “racist privilege” while Palestinians, ethnically cleansed from Israel in 1948, are denied their rights of return under international law.
19 Nov
Comments Off on End times for democracy? How the 1% staged a coup & why worse is yet to come
‘Don’t forget who runs your economy now.’ For the 1 percent who rule society, democracy seems more than ever a hindrance to ensuring that the most calamitous economic crisis since the 1930s is paid for by the 99 percent below them. The most obvious expression of this is the installation of unelected technocrats as prime […]
10 Nov
Comments Off on A Left Flank dispatch from Europe: The ‘descent into chaos’ begins
If the last week’s bizarre political contortions in Greece — first a referendum, then not, then a government of national unity, now more uncertainty — were not enough, the spread of contagion to Italy threatens even greater turmoil. As we arrived in London we were greeted by the Financial Times informing us that Silvio Berlusconi had (finally) […]
07 Nov
Comments Off on Left Flank in London
Tad and Elizabeth are both presenting conference papers at this year’s Historical Materialism conference, held in Central London later this week. UK readers can register for the conference here.
04 Nov
Comments Off on Australia’s #occupy protests: When ‘politics’ is no longer just a game played by elites
Occupy Sydney: photo by Kate Ausburn This week ABC’s The Drum published an article by Tad on the Occupy Movement and the demand from many that it list its ‘demands’. Below is the article in full. Tad was also interviewed on ABC Brisbane about this question. It’s been remarkable to see the sheer number of public lectures and admonishments – delivered […]
30 Nov
Comments Off on Rewind: Depoliticising Utoya — Anders Breivik as ‘madman’