My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: THE NET DELUSION Evgeny Morozov Allen Lane, 408pp, $29.95 As people in the Middle East have been protesting in the streets against Western-backed dictators and using social media to connect and circumvent state repression, it would be easy to dismiss The Net Delusion as almost…
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My book news for those who still like to read anything longer than an article
My first book, the best-selling My Israel Question, has just been released as an e-book and is available via the Kindle, iBook and other formats. The title is currently being updated and translated into Arabic and Indonesian and will be released in various nations over the coming 12 months. My second book, The Blogging Revolution,…
Just how many Western “security” firms helping repressive regimes?
In my book The Blogging Revolution I document a range of companies that sell equipment and software to dictatorships to help them monitor mobile phone calls, text messages and web traffic. I’m currently updating the book in light of the recent Arab revolutions – it’ll be released in Australia and a new overseas edition later…
Why Israelis can’t just lie back and think of Arab democracy
From a young age, the vast majority of Israeli Jews are taught that Judaism is a superior religion and treating Arabs badly is a necessary price to survive in the Middle East. Hence a nearly 45 year old military occupation of Palestine. Here’s an interesting perspective from Eyal Press: Shortly after the democratic uprising began…
Internet freedom globally isn’t coming and never was
Brilliant (the animation, that is, and I partially agree with the message, too, something I’m contemplating as I’m currently updating my second book, The Blogging Revolution, for an Australian and international publisher. Just how influential is the internet during the current Arab revolutions?):
The “we must do something in Libya” brigade too keen to launch war
They’re everywhere at the moment. Hawks and so-called doves eager to show that butcher Gaddafi a lesson. How dare you massacre your own people (er, with Western-supplied weapons, but let’s not focus on such details)? Tonight’s ABC TV Q & A program featured five guests who all backed war against Libya. They all spoke in…
Israeli blogger documenting his country’s descent into fascism
Haaretz reports: “It’s important for me to say that personally I love this country,” Shaltiel says. “I would not be doing all this if I didn’t love it.” But the erosion of the foundations of democracy here is gathering momentum, he says, a process he naturally feels more intensely since he started to collect information.…
Hypocrisy trumps policy in Western alliance with Libya
My following article appears today on ABC’s The Drum: The latest BBC interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, situated in a fancy restaurant on the Mediterranean, was painful to watch. Clearly delusional and blaming drug-addled youth and al-Qaeda for the ongoing revolution in his country (which he claimed he didn’t lead, the “masses” were in…
The paranoia of unelected Chinese men
Although it remains unclear exactly how paranoid the Chinese authorities remain over possible Egyptian-inspired, democratic protests, this insider view would suggest that Beijing isn’t taking too many chances: On Saturday, February 12, the day after Hosni Mubarak resigned in Egypt, some of the members of the politburo of the Communist Party of China held a…