Invasion Day/Australia Day: Unity/Disunity
I think everyone of a certain age can remember a certain mantra from John Howard. Symbols, he intoned, are not important. “Symbolic Reconciliation” is not important, he couldn’t say Sorry. The Republic was just a symbol, of interest to “elites”. [...]
Quick link – 60th anniversary of the Slansky Trial: Stalinism, anti-semitism and “anti-Zionism”.
Here is a very interesting article about the emergence of anti-semitism (parading as anti-Zionism) as a key element of Soviet and Eastern European Stalinism after WWII.
Occupy Australia and the Antipodean “bubble”
After the Occupy Melbourne event was forcibly (and it appears, disproportionately violently) cleared by the Victorian Police at the instance of Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle, Dr_Tad has been reflecting at Left Flank on some of the criticism of the actions [...]
Weekly Whimsy
This week’s whimsy is brought to you by archaeologists discovering an enormous gladiatorial compound buried near the banks of the Danube outside Vienna. Please share any bits and pieces you have come across recently that have surprised, delighted, intrigued or otherwise positively engaged you.
Twenty years since the death of communism
It was twenty years ago today that a clique of Soviet political and military officials attempted a coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev with the aim of “saving” the USSR. Their actions had exactly the opposite result – the coup [...]
Nancy Wake, RIP
New Zealand born, Australian raised Nancy Wake, awarded just about every decoration under the sun for her work with the French resistance in the Second World War, has died of a chest infection. Her wartime exploits were widely recounted, for [...]
Hairspray the Musical: Cultural politics of the 60s, now, and race
What interests me in this post is the cultural politics of Hairspray. One of its marketing themes is 60s nostalgia. That nostalgia is by necessity a collective re-imagining of what the 60s ‘meant’, whether or not we were around to form our own judgements.
The left, culture wars, Anzac Day and the royal wedding
Over at The Drum, veteran culture warrior Dr Kevin Donnelly proclaims: …recent events like the celebration of ANZAC Day and the Royal Wedding and it is clear the left has definitely lost the culture wars and that generations of Australians [...]
Anzac Day roundtable – what have we forgotten?
As part of her visit to Korea, Julia Gillard helped to unveil a memorial to the Battle of Kapyong, described as “the forgotten battle in the forgotten war”. But it’s hardly the only aspect of Australia’s wartime experience that has [...]
I can’t say I get this Bible = Western civ thing
Stupid talking point of Ozpolitics of the day – Julia Gillard’s view that the Bible should be taught so that the kiddies can understand where literature and Western culture is coming from (hint – second bit more important, for all [...]
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