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.
Energy White Paper – an overconfident document
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Martin Ferguson personally drafted parts of the Federal Government’s new energy White Paper. It reads with the same subtext he manages to pack into just about every sentence – that you greenies have [...]
Libya: The politics of the ‘endgame’
As the Revolution in Libya appears set to succeed, a number of notions have become instant common wisdom, the most prominent of which is that “we” somehow have a responsibility to ensure that Libya does not become another Iraq.
The Pentagon’s invisible army
Via Late Night Live, New Yorker reporter at large Sarah Stillman spent a year investigating the invisible army of more than 70,000 “third-country nationals” (TCNs) who work for the American military in war zones, many in conditions “resembling indentured servitude”. [...]
Obama Afghanistan announcement
Defense officials have been quoted as saying that Mr. Obama will call for an initial withdrawal of about 10 percent of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with 5,000 troops to leave first, followed by another 5,000 before the year’s end.
Violence, democracy and the mass media
It can hardly be denied that violence has a peculiarly vicarious allure in the modern mass media environment, regardless of whether we are talking ratings, book sales, ticket sales, clicks, or good old-fashioned circulation. Think James Patterson, the “world’s best-selling [...]
Obama, Bin Laden, ‘Postwar’ and the rule of law
Writing in Crikey today, Guy Rundle looks at the way Barack Obama, like a good dialectician, has both incorporated and transformed Bush’s agenda, no doubt gaining significant political credit along the way: Obama will identify himself with targeted, well-planned operations, [...]
Libya: Realism, ideology and the ‘Responsibility to Protect’
I referred in my last Libya article for The Drum (the final part of the trilogy, on democratisation, will be published next week) to the issue of Responsibility to Protect, a doctrine enabling the UN to take action when states [...]
Libya, human rights and politics
I have an article at The Drum today on the Libyan intervention, human rights and politics. [Previous discussion on LP of Libya and politics can be found here. It would be nice if comments on this post were relevant to [...]
Libya roundtable
Discussion on Libya on various threads has tended to stray off the topic, so it’s appropriate that we have a general roundtable for discussion of continuing developments in Libya, and argument about issues other than those raised on substantive posts.
Libya, the Left and a No Fly Zone IV
The previous thread is also getting a tad long, so here’s a new one. You can access all related LP threads here. If anyone needs a discussion starter, there’s an interesting take from Gilbert Achcar at Znet: The left should [...]
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