Last Friday I featured on ABC 702 Sydney’s Afternoon program with James Valentine and ABC Radio National’s Jonathan Green. We talked about my new book with Jeff Sparrow,… #LeftTurn, what being Left means in 2012 and responsibility of the people to hold power to account in relation to war, media and the economy:
Showing all posts tagged Australia
ABCTV News24’s The Drum on refugees, #LeftTurn and Obama’s “kill list”
I appeared last night on ABC TV News24’s The Drum (video here) alongside ABC’s Stephen Long and The Australian’s… Adam Creighton. We talked about asylum seekers – I argued that keeping refugees for longer in detention will only benefit the private contractor Serco and worsen the mental health of both staff and detainees. Regarding austerity in…
Canberra Times review #LeftTurn
Co-editors of the book, Jeff Sparrow and yours truly, will be speaking Wednesday night at the Australian National University in an event co-sponsored by the Canberra Times. Contributor Wendy Bacon will be joining us. On Thursday night Jeff and I will be appearing at Gleebooks in Sydney along Tad Tietze and Larissa Behrendt. Next week…
Canberra not exactly building a Blackwater army (is it?)
This is an interesting story in Melbourne’s Herald Sun but is the Australian government really hiring foreign mercenaries, men who operate beyond the law? Australia is boosting its ranks with foreign soldiers by offering cash bonuses of up to $200,000 and fast-tracked citizenship. Veterans have hit out at hiring “mercenaries” from countries such as America,…
#LeftTurn receives friendly embrace
Here’s a great review of #LeftTurn by Simon Butler in Green Left Weekly: Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left Edited by Antony Loewenstein & Jeff Sparrow Melbourne University Press, 2012 RRP $32.99 In the past few years, the world economy has fallen into its deepest crisis for eight decades with no end in…
Blood on British hands; sending Tamils back to be tortured
These serious allegations are horrific. A government’s duty of care is paramount and yet in this case it seems that the desire for Britain (and indeed, Australia, who says very little about war crimes in Sri Lanka) to have a good relationship with Colombo is central. Also note the use of a private, chartered plane,…
#LeftTurn talk on Byron Bay radio
I was interviewed earlier this week by Sarah Ndiaye for Bay FM in Byron Bay all about my new book with Jeff Sparrow, Left Turn:
On Australian Zionist establishment trying to squash any talk of pesky Israeli occupation
This article in Haaretz is interesting, not least because a) the story it tells about Limmud Oz banning a session of dissident Jews was not about BDS (full details here) and b) because it calls the group I co-founded Independent Australian Jewish Voices “far-left”. I’m offended. I mean, surely further left than “far-left” would be…
Australia to take best lesson possible from indulging Zionism since 1948
A friend in Israel sent this to me today. We’ve been warned: Australian politicians, senior bureaucrats, journalists, academics, military and business leaders have for many years been taking paid-for trips to Israel to observe the Israeli model in action, how it works, and to take home lessons that could be applied by Australia. After many…
My #LeftTurn chapter on media complicity in war post 9/11
This appears in Crikey’s Pure Poison blog today: Following is an extract from “Media War Junkies Unite”, an essay by Antony Loewenstein from… Left Turn: Political essays for the new Left… which is edited by Loewenstein and Jeff Sparrow, and which was released last week. *** The decade since 11 September 2001 has seen a litany of…