It’s been less than 12 months since the last federal Budget, yet it seems like an eternity since Clive Palmer managed to break through the Right-Left partisanship that usually accompanies post-Budget discussion. This was the apex of Palmer’s influence on politics, a world away from the report in today’s Fairfax newspapers that then PUP senator […]
12 Jul
On July 22, 2011, Anders Breivik, a Right-wing writer and activist, killed more than sixty young members of the Norwegian Labour Party on Utøya island. Captured alive, Breivik was more than willing to explain his actions as a ‘necessary atrocity’ designed to ‘wake up’ Europe to its betrayal by the Left, and its impending destruction through […]
22 Jul
One of the most striking things about the mainstream media coverage of Kevin Rudd’s “PNG solution” is how the discussion is mostly framed by ideas, policies and language that are increasingly relics of a past phase of the interminable “border security” debate. By outmanoeuvring opponents to both his Right and Left on this issue, Rudd […]
03 Jun
Comments Off on SlutWalk: Not the right ‘kind’ of women’s movement?
It seems each day there is a new item in an Australian newspaper or online forum about the nature, intention and value of SlutWalk. My lunch breaks of late have been reduced to reading articles and poring over the comments. The related discussion on Twitter seems equally unstoppable, and just when I think the […]
22 Mar
Comments Off on Barack Obama: How Mr. ‘Change You Can Believe In’ became Mr. ‘More Of The Same’
> Last time at Left Flank we noted that key neoconservative ideologues had encouraged the Obama administration to take action in Libya so that the United States could outflank the Arab revolutions by spreading its particular version of democratic reform. Stephen Walt, one of America’s most prominent realist foreign policy thinkers*, has suggested we shouldn’t […]
20 Mar
Comments Off on ‘Humanitarian intervention’, the international community and Libya: The leopard has not changed its spots
> Many people have reservations about the UN Security Council authorising the use of “all necessary measures” in Libya. But in spite of this, many also think that something must be done and it would be much worse to do nothing. Leaving aside the more particular question of intervening in response to a call for […]
17 Mar
Comments Off on Guy Rundle, the ‘anti-imperialist Left’ and the calls for a no-fly zone in Libya
> Friends no longer It’s important to give Guy Rundle credit for being one of the few mainstream commentators who still has interesting things to say from a genuinely Left perspective. But his intervention in the debate over whether the Australian Left should back calls for a Western-run no-fly zone in Libya — to save […]
11 Dec
What is the nature of elite rule and how can it be challenged? This is the real question behind the political crisis caused by the WikiLeaks revelations. Compared with other leaks, the scale and breadth of the information being released makes it impossible not to reassess how state and citizens interact. Despite the attempts at […]
23 Sep
Comments Off on Adoption by male same-sex couples, or ‘The peculiar logic of Guy Rundle’
It was a bit of a shock to read Crikey last week and find that Guy Rundle, usually reliable for a left-wing view of the world, had descended into railing against adoption by male same-sex couples. Rundle’s piece can be found here. My reply was paywalled, but the text is copied below. Rundle then replied […]
18 Apr
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