By Kim on August 18, 2010
The no doubt over-hyped “town hall meeting” at the Broncos Leagues Club at 6pm, featuring Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and 200 “swinging voters” picked by Galaxy will be televised live by ABC News 24 this time; and the online stream [...]
Posted in Brisbane, federal election 2010 | Tagged Brisbane, Broncos, broncos leagues club, direct democracy, Federal Election 2010, Galaxy, History, Julia Gillard, New England, Paddington, Q&A, red hill, Rooty Hill, Tony Abbott, town hall meeting, twitter |
By Kim on July 10, 2010
Paul Norton has already written at length on Bob Carr’s interpretation of Mark Aarons’ supposed revelations of some leading ALP left figures holding dual membership in the Communist Party of Australia (a claim, it’s important to note, that is flatly [...]
Posted in Culture, History, Politics | Tagged ALP, Angela Shanahan, anti-communism, Arthur Gietzelt, Bob Carr, communism, Culture Wars, Democratic Club, DLP, History, ideology, Julia Gillard, Labor, Lionel Murphy, Mark Aarons, NCC, paul norton, progressive politics, Rex Connor, Socialist Forum, Tony Abbott |
By Mark Bahnisch on April 11, 2010
I spoke yesterday at a Search Foundation Forum, Breaking the Addiction: challenging Bligh’s privatisation push, in Brisbane at the Workers’ Community Centre at Paddington. This is the text of my talk, written up from my notes: I The Bligh government’s [...]
Posted in Activism, Culture, Economics, Government, History, Policy, Politics, Queensland, Sociology, State/Territory Elections | Tagged ALP, Andrew Fraser, Anna Bligh, autonomy, Bligh government, capacities, capital, Carole Ferrier, commodification, communitarianism, communities, corporatism, decommodification, democratic socialism, ETU, GFC, global financial crisis, globalisation, governmentality, History, homgenisation, homogenisation, ideology, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, John Quiggin, John-Paul Langbroek, Labor, Lawrence Springborg, Liberal National Party, LNP, managerialism, Media, neo-liberalism, New Labor, New Labour, nudge, Peter Beattie, political class, political culture, Polls, privatisation, QR, Queensland election 2009, queensland government, Queensland Greens, Queensland history, Queensland rail, radical brisbane, Ray Evans, resources, Sociology, Sunday Mail, T. J. Ryan, The Greens, trade unions, unions |
By Mark Bahnisch on April 8, 2010
As an addendum to Robert’s post on the Rudd government’s announcement of the appointment of Tony Burke as Population Minister, and the call for a national debate on population policy, I wanted to pick up on another aspect of Bernard [...]
Posted in Australiana, Culture, History, Howardia, Immigration, Media, Politics, Race | Tagged ALP, asylum seekers, bernard keane, Big Australia, boat people, border policing, border security, Culture, discourses, History, Immigration, immigration debate, insularity, John Howard, Julia Gillard, Kevin Andrews, labor party, Lowy Institute, One Nation, political communication, political culture, poll, population policy, Race, racism, rhetoric, Rudd government, Scott Morrison, survey, Tony Burke |
By Mark Bahnisch on January 23, 2010
When disaster strikes, there’s always a reflex to suggest that politics is a dirty word, that humanitarian considerations trump any sort of consideration of the context of the impact of horrendous events. There’s something of the ‘act of God’ and [...]
Posted in Activism, Developing world, Disasters, International, Media, Politics, Sociology | Tagged agency, Aristide, Ben Ehrenreich, debt, disaster, disaster capitalism, earthquake, facebook, global sociology blog, haiti, History, humanitarian response, Hurricane Katrina, IMF, Katrina, Medecins San Frontieres, Media, Naomi Klein, Peter Hallward, Rebecca Solnit, representation, Saskia Sassen, Slate, Slavoj Žižek, social context, Sociology, US, USA |
By Guest Poster on January 15, 2010
Cross-posted from Skepticlawyer. Today my daughter was playing with her pink superball while my son was asleep (it’s small, so she’s only allowed to get it out while he’s sleeping). I heard her mutter to her toys while brandishing the [...]
Posted in Life, Politics, Sociology | Tagged Andrew Peacock, Bob Hawke, childhood, childhood memories, Gough Whitlam, History, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Kevin Rudd, Mark Bahnisch, memories, Politics, skepticlawyer, Sociology |
By Mark Bahnisch on January 4, 2010
One of the accusations frequently made by climate change deniers or ‘skeptics’ against those who would like to see concerted action taken to ameliorate the impacts of anthropogenic global warming is that of being somehow apocalyptic. A related charge is [...]
Posted in Activism, Apocalypse, Authoritarianism, Climate change, Disasters, Economics, Energy, Environment, History, International, Politics, Religion, Sociology, Technology | Tagged AGW, anthropogenic global warming, Apocalypse, Capitalism, Climate change, climate change denialism, collective action, conservatism, contingency, Culture, disavowal, ecology, end of history, Energy, History, ideology, necessity, neo-liberalism, non-renewable resources, peak oil, Politics, resources, Science, Slavoj Žižek, the imaginary, utopia, world politics |
By Mark Bahnisch on November 18, 2009
I referred in an earlier post to Paul Kelly’s style of commentary – a mix of oracular pronouncement and portentous ponderings about the primacy of narrative. I actually read his March of Patriots a while back, and planned to review [...]
Posted in Australiana, History, Howardia, Media, Politics, Sociology | Tagged Book review, Guy Rundle, History, Insiders, John Howard, march of history, narrative, Nationalism, Paul Keating, Paul Kelly, political history, reform, Sociology |
By Mark Bahnisch on September 28, 2009
As a sequel to my post on The Australian‘s series on the left, where I highlighted Guy Rundle’s take, I’m reproducing from today’s Crikey (with permission) his longer sequel to his take beneath the fold. Meantime, the Oz series meanders [...]
Posted in Activism, Culture, Economics, History, International, Media, Policy, Politics, Sociology | Tagged ALP, Australian Greens, BLF, Capitalism, CPA, Crikey, Culture, David Hetherington, GFC, global economy, global financial crisis, globalisation, globalism, greens, Guy Rundle, History, ideology, Labor, Labor Left, labour movement, Labour parties, left, liberalism, Maoism, Marx, McKenzie Wark, Meidner plan, neo-liberalism, neocons, neoconservatism, new left, Per Capita, political culture, robert manne, social democracy, social markets, social movements, Sociology, Soviet union, Sraffa, sweden, The Australian, the left, Tony Blair, unions |
By Mark Bahnisch on September 25, 2009
On Saturday, I penned some thoughts on the series in The Australian on the Australian left, riffing off the first article by Tim Soutphommasane. Among other things, I queried the practice of addressing a discourse about left politics to the [...]
Posted in Australiana, Books, Writers & Writing, Culture, History, Media, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology | Tagged ALP, Australian culture, classical liberalism, Crikey, Guy Rundle, History, ideology, Julia Gillard, labor party, labourism, political sociology, political theory, Politics, social democracy, Sociology, The Australian, Tim Soutphommasane, What's Left |
By Mark Bahnisch on September 19, 2009
The Australian is running a series on defining the left (!), kicking off with a contribution today by Tim Soutphommasane. Soutphommasane is apparently the go to person at the moment for all things social democratic, having written a book arguing [...]
Posted in Culture, Media, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology | Tagged agency, ALP, Amartya Sen, canon, capabilities, Culture Wars, Demos, egalitarianism, electoral politics, History, ideology, internationalism, Kevin Rudd, Labor, labourism, left, Lenin, mateship, narrative, Nationalism, New Labour, patriotism, Paul Kelly, political culture, political identity, political philosophy, political theory, Politics, Rudd government, social democracy, social inclusion, social justice, socialism without doctrines, Sociology, The Australian, Tim Soutphommasane, values, What's Left |
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