On holiday last week I read the latest book by French philosopher Alain Badiou available in English, The Communist Hypothesis. Fittingly for the former Maoist, his book was smaller than your average paperback, bound in a red cloth cover and embossed with a gold star. Badiou is one of the few French thinkers of his […]
14 Sep
There has been much discussion in the left-leaning blogosphere about the stridency of the Murdoch media campaign against the “legitimacy” of the Gillard minority government. As Left Flank noted on the weekend, The Australian has editorialised that it is committed to having the Greens “destroyed at the ballot box”. In the AFR on Friday (paywalled, […]
02 Sep
If we are indeed going to witness the return of the state, and enhanced need for security and resources that only a government can provide, then we should be paying greater attention to the things that states can do. —Tony Judt, Ill Fares The Land, 2010, p198 Australia must tackle climate change and that reducing […]
15 Aug
Among progressive environmental thinkers it has become de rigueur to attack economic growth as the main problem leading to ecological destruction and runaway climate change. The argument is put with certain variations, but the central theme is always the same: economic growth is infinite while the planet is finite, and so we cannot afford to […]
14 Aug
Comments Off on Worse than the cure? The hollowness of Australia’s preventative health agenda
For too long the system has focused on treating people after they become unwell, and this has resulted in vast social and economic costs associated with chronic disease. —Commonwealth Government response to the Report of the National Preventative Health Taskforce, May 2010 “Prevention” has become the health reform buzzword du jour, accepted at all points […]
12 Aug
In recent weeks many political commentators have argued that what is missing in the current, dispiriting campaign is a serious debate on economic policy. But it is hard to see what real debate can be had given that both major parties share a near-identical obeisance to neoliberal orthodoxy: low taxes, balanced Budgets with an aversion […]
03 Aug
Comments Off on Welcome to the desert of the real: early requiem for our postmodern election
If postmodernism represents the philosophical and aesthetic logic of late capitalism, then we have certainly scored ourselves the ultimate postmodern election. Fragmentary policy announcements, a lingusitic turn on the messaging front and, of course, such self-reflexive narratives that it’s hard to tell what is “real” anymore. Actually, hold that thought, because there is nothing real, just […]
19 Jul
Comments Off on Flight from the centre
Call it a “disconnect”. Call it a “cranky electorate”. Or call it “political volatility”. Whatever name you give it, something peculiar has been happening to alienate ordinary people from official politics in a way that most commentators have found difficult to explain. The rapid destruction of Kevin Rudd is but the latest symptom of a deeper […]
28 Sep
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