Why Adam Bandt is (largely) wrong about the Qantas dispute
There’s been a fair bit of discussion around the traps about Adam Bandt’s statement yesterday about what the government should have done, or left undone, with regard to the Qantas dispute. Some of Bandt’s post seems to echo criticism from [...]
Quick link: Who goes to right wing rallies, and why?
I don’t always agree with Bernard Keane but I think he is right on the money on the question of the demographics and motivations of participants in right wing rallies such as the recent ones in Canberra, in his first [...]
London burning II: The sociology of civil disorder
It’s time for another thread on the English riots, since the last one is now rather long.
To update on some of the analysis, the prediction that a number of the usual suspects would turn the events into a partisan football has unsurprisingly been borne out. So let’s ignore that, and have a look at what we know about what’s happened and what it means.
Breivik not a ‘crazed loner’, but a terrorist
We mourn the victims of these massacres by working to ensure that such abominations never occur again. To do that effectively, it is necessary to understand, without illusions and avoiding polemics, why this tragedy occurred.
Obama, class politics and the debt ceiling crisis
The tortuous negotiations over the US sovereign debt ceiling probably feature in our minds as a threat to our economic well being. Or for American politics junkies, the maneouvring could be uppermost. It’s worth putting the negotiations in a different perspective.
Tipping points, politics, NotW and the longer view
As the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks prepare to appear before the House of Commons, we may have reached a tipping point where the noise machine’s days are numbered.
Both atheist ‘rationalism’ and Catholic triumphalism betray Mary MacKillop’s legacy
I had mixed feelings last night about whether to watch the canonisation ceremony for Blessed Mary MacKillop on ABC News 24. In part, but not exclusively, those feelings related to the way the ceremonies would be covered, and I’m afraid [...]
Not the Twitter election
Malcolm Farnsworth has an excellent piece at The Drum on how claims that the 2010 federal election was going to be a Twitter campaign are very wide of the mark. I’d recommend reading the whole thing. If the premise is [...]
Kristina Keneally’s speech on same-sex adoption
[Via Nicholas Gruen] Anyone who wants to automatically equate Catholicism with homophobia really should read Kristina Keneally’s fine speech to the New South Wales parliament, explaining why she is casting her vote in favour of a bill allowing same sex [...]
The Left, the independents and “new politics”
There was an interesting micro-debate on Twitter the other night between me, Tad Tietze and Jason Wilson, riffing off Dr_Tad’s scepticism about the “independents are our saviours” meme. That’s expanded on at much greater length at Left Flank. I’d thoroughly [...]
Refuting Bernard Keane: It’s not all our fault
Bernard Keane stirred things up a bit over the last few days in Crikey, with a provocative claim made in a two part series that the malaise of contemporary politics was fundamentally the fault of us citizens. We’ve outsourced politics, [...]
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