I’m reposting a recent piece I wrote for Overland Journal’s blog, in response to the debate over the contentious Enterprise Migration Agreement negotiated between the Gillard government and Gina Rinehart to allow the mining billionaire to import up to 1700 skilled workers from overseas. It was written as an open letter to Paul Howes after […]
22 Apr
Comments Off on With our minds & bodies on the line: Democracy v fascism in Breivik’s shadow
Later this week Left Flank will be looking at the controversy over the reporting of Breivik’s trial in a post at our regular blog at Overland, asking if the media has handed him an effective platform for his fascist ideological arguments. In the meantime, today we post the second of two parts of an extract […]
20 Apr
With Anders Breivik’s trial underway, Left Flank will be analysing the politics both here and at the Overland website. Below we reprint the first of two parts of an abridged extract from the e-book that Guy Rundle, Elizabeth Humphrys and I edited last year, On Utøya: Anders Breivik, Right Terror, Racism and Europe. The chapter […]
13 Apr
Comments Off on You are not who I thought you were: Race and ‘The Hunger Games’
This post was first published at Overland Journal earlier this week. In high school my English teacher gave advanced reading to students who were keen, and the first novel was To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s book is a story of racism in the American South, as everyone knows, but it also included a salutary lesson […]
08 Apr
Welcome to the first post of the new Left Flank. We’ve moved from Blogger to WordPress, hosted at the lovely http://nuttify.com/ As you can see we’re still working on porting all the old comments from Disqus to the new platform. Time to change your RSS feed or subscribe by email (see the sidebar on the […]
26 Jan
Comments Off on Invasion Day
A number of myths have shaped Australia’s national identity in profound ways. The possibility of a vast inland sea saw many early settlers search the interior of the country unfruitfully, often meeting an untimely death. The kernel of this myth was a 1798 report to the Colonial Office by First Fleet botanist Joseph Banks: It […]
14 Aug
Comments Off on ‘Mama said there’ll be days like this’ — The UK riots, the labour movement and the Left
Special guest post by KEVIN OVENDEN* What did people expect? Just over a year ago, during the general election campaign in Britain, I remember George Galloway on the stump warning that the last time the Tories came in to replace an already dead Labour government and pursue full-blooded, class war policies, Britain’s cities went up […]
13 Aug
Comments Off on Intended or not, the consequences of riots are not always negative
Watts Riot of 1965 — how the rioters treated ‘their’ community then This is the original text of an article commissioned by ABC’s The Drum, which was published yesterday and can be found here. The riots in the United Kingdom, mainly involving school age and unemployed youth, have provoked a backlash that seeks to paint them […]
11 Aug
Comments Off on Whoever expects a ‘pure’ revolution will never live to see it: The UK riots in perspective
Mark Duggan, whose killing by police sparked the riots Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but for mine the most depressing thing about the UK riots is how some on the Left feel the need to loudly proclaim their lack of solidarity with some of the poorest and most oppressed people in society, instead resorting […]
26 Jul
Comments Off on Australia’s Islamophobes & right-wing ideologues praised in Breivik’s manifesto
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 […]
24 Jun
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