It was such a noble public health dream, even if rather hazy to begin with. Run down SARS- CoV-2. Suppress it. Crush it. Or just “flatten the curve”, which could have meant versions of all the above. This created a climate of numerical sensitivity: a few case infections here, a few cases there, would warrant immediate, sharp lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, the closure of all non-vital service outlets. Then came mutations and variants. Delta became the word mentioned like a terrorist saboteur, placing bombs under the edifice of the health system. The pro-market factions within governments receptive to using lockdown formulas…
Author: Dr. Binoy Kampmark
Morning listening on October 13. Australia’s Radio National. Members of the Morrison government are doing their interview rounds with the host, Fran Kelly. We enter a time warp, speeding away into another dimension where planet Earth, and Australia, look different. The first interview, with Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, is filled with the sort of rejigged reality that is less mind expansion than contraction. It is easy to forget that she is a member of the government. She tells listeners that her constituents and the electorate she represented were not interested in climate change or its effects. A bold, quixotic reading.…
The returns have not been impressive. For an app essentially anointed as a saviour for tracing purposes in the worst pandemic in a century, COVIDSafe is a lesson in exaggerated prowess and diminished performance. It was billed as necessitous and supremely useful. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was fashionably vulgar in linking the use of the app with an important goal: getting watering holes opened. “If that isn’t an incentive for Australians to download COVIDSafe, I don’t know what is,” Morrison claimed in May last year. The prime minister even equated the use of the app to protect yourself before…
The recent acquisition of the Newcastle United football club by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, along with financier Amanda Staveley and the billionaire Reuben brothers, was a source of much excitement for some former players. Old boy Alan Shearer did little to conceal it. “We can dare to hope again,” he rejoiced. In The Guardian, Barney Ronay was less enthusiastic, notably at the appearance of the House of Saud in English football. “Welcome, Mohammed bin Salman, to the billionaire boys club. No need to wipe your feet. Although maybe, on reflection, do wash your hands. Those damned spots, eh?” Hatice…
The only surprise was that it did not come sooner. Big Tech whistleblowers are not exactly running out of the offices of Silicon Valley, so it was with some excitement that Facebook could produce a person willing enough to show us the laundry, with the dirt still caking the content. And the laundry in question proved to be bountiful, with internal company documents running into the thousands showing a fruit salad range of mendacity, deception and approaches to combating hate, violence and misinformation on its platform. The Wall Street Journal capitalised. Before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Production, Product…
Pushing people back across borders; turning asylum seekers away from shores. When such tactics were openly adopted and used with impunity by Australia’s navy and border force, it caused outrage and concern in the maritime community and pricked the interest of border protectionists the world over. Disgust and outrage have, in time, been replaced by admiration at the sheer chutzpah of Australian governments such as Tony Abbott’s, who introduced a turn-back-the-boats policy as part of an electoral promise to better secure borders. This meant that vessels heading for Australia could be literally turned back towards Indonesia without a care in…
The merits are hard to stomach for partisans long jaundiced by presumption and dislike, but the cheer at the deplatforming of Donald Trump by a range of social media platforms said as much about the nature of any sentiment about democracy as it did about those claiming to defend it. For one, it shut off a valve of fantastic, instant recognition to a figure whose thoughts are best aired rather than cellared in underground vats. But cellaring, hiding, suppressing unsavoury viewpoints are the very things social media platforms are getting more enthusiastic about, much of it pushed on the censorious…
It was startling and even shocking. Away from the thrust and cut of domestic politics, not to mention noisy discord within his government’s ranks, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison could breathe a sign of relief. Perhaps no one would notice in Washington that Australia remains prehistoric in approaching climate change relative to its counterparts. Being known in his own country as “Scotty from Marketing”, he just might pull it off. Besides, a security compact with the United States and the United Kingdom had just been cemented, one promising Canberra eight submarines with nuclear propulsion. That these promised to be…
It seems utterly beyond debate but acknowledging legal rights to clean air has assumed the makings of a slow march over the years. The 1956 Clean Air Act in Britain arose from the lethal effects of London’s 1952 killer smog, which is said to have taken some 12,000 lives. The Act granted powers to establish smoke-free zones and subsidise householders to shift to the use of cleaner fuels (gas, electricity, smokeless solid fuel). There is certainly no shortage of advocates for the self-evident point that clean air is vital. Some of this has been reduced – at least historically -…
With that orange haired brute of a president supposedly ushered out of the White House with moralising delight, the Biden administration was all keen to turn over a new leaf. There would be more diplomacy, and still more diplomacy. There would be a more humanitarian approach to refugees and asylum seekers – forget, he claimed, the Border Wall.Kindness would come over border officials and guards of the imperium. Instead, we have had secret diplomacy culminating in the trilateral security pact of AUKUS, one reached unbeknownst to allies in Europe, Asia and the Indo-Pacific. And we have had a particularly ugly…
It began just after a news interview. Time: a quarter past nine. Morning of September 22, and yet to take a sip from the brewed Turkish coffee, its light thin surface foam inviting. The Australian city of Melbourne in its sixth lockdown, its residents fatigued and ravaged by regulations. Rising COVID-19 numbers, seemingly inexorable. Then, an initial, gentle movement of floors, a slight, barely detectable swaying of the walls of the apartment. Across City Road in South Bank, one part of the beleaguered Crown Casino establishment seemed to be rippling, the glass forming gentle, shimmering waves across the surface. Melbourne…
It does not get any messier or more chaotic than this. Since 2009, when Australia’s Future Submarine Program (FSP) known as Project SEA 1000, began to take shape, strategists and policy makers have been keen to pursue the next big White Elephant of defence spending. And few areas of an already wasteful area of public expenditure are more costly – often mindlessly so – than submarines. The Australian effort here is particularly impressive. Pick a real winner by signing a contract for a yet to be designed attack class submarine, supposedly necessary in an increasingly dangerous region. Ensure that this…
The faux Damascene converts have been doing the rounds in the Murdoch empire of late, stirring interest in matters green and attempting to shift, if ever so slightly, discussions on climate change. Known for being a stable of environmentalvandals and fossil fuel standard bearers, News Corp has gone for a green turn of sorts. Within the media imperium, harmony on the issue of how to reportclimate has not been one of accord. The patriarch, Rupert Murdoch, was unable to keep younger son James and wife Kathryn from venting on the issue. “Kathryn and James’ views on climate change are well…
In a particular deli store in South Melbourne, a tongue-and-cheek message is attached to the cash register. “Bitcoin accepted there,” it proclaims brightly. Naturally, it is nothing of the sort, a teasing ruse for the punters and those casting an eye in the direction of the store. Cold hard cash remains king, albeit one with a tarnished crown; pandemic times have driven consumers towards such non-intimate transactions as contactless payment. One country has decided to make using cryptocurrency a reality, sticking its neck out in adoptingbitcoin as something akin to an economic messiah. Few thought it would be El…
Anniversaries can provide occasions for reflection and deep consideration. Past errors and misjudgements can be considered soberly; historical distance provides perspective. Mature reflections may be permitted. But they can also serve the opposite purpose: to cake, cloak and mask the record. The gooey name GWOT, otherwise known as the Global War on Terrorism, is some two decades old, and it has revealed little by way of benefit for anybody other than military industrialists, hate preachers and jingoes. For its progenitors in the administration of President George W. Bush, motivated by the attacks of September 11, 2001 on US soil,…
When the tears dry, it is worth considering why there is so much upset about the fall of Kabul (or reconquest) by the Taliban and the messy withdrawal of US-led forces. A large shield is employed: women, rights of the subject, education. Remove the shield, and we are left with a simple equation of power gone wrong in the name of paternalistic warmongering. The noisiest group of Afghanistan stayers are the neoconservatives resentful because their bit of political real estate is getting away. In being defeated, they are left with the task of explaining to the soldiery that blood…
Listening to Australian pundits talk about the relationship of their country with the US – at least from a strategic perspective – can be a trying exercise. It is filled with angst, Freudian fears of abandonment, the strident megalomania of Australian self-importance. Critics of this complex are shouted down as Sinophiles or in the pay of some foreign power. This unequal and distinctly unhealthy relationship has been marked by a certain outsourcing tendency. Australian foreign policy is a model example of expectation: that other powers will carry its weight: processing refugees; aiding Australians stranded or persecuted overseas; reliance on…
Larrikin is a word often, and inaccurately used, in Australian political lingo. Australia’s longest serving Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was known as one such figure. He was praised as the great communicator and healer between the forces of labour and capital, enjoyed imbibing, his sports and varied female company. He could also be vain and ruthless. In June, a rather unremarkable revelation was made that Hawke had been something of an errand boy for the US imperium, a spiller of the beans and something of what Australians would call a “dobber”. Cameron Coventry, in an article published that…
Refugees and asylum seekers provide rich pickings for demagogues and political opportunists. The Australian approach politicises their plight by arguing that they are illegitimate depending on the way they arrive, namely, by boat. The twentieth anniversary of the MV Tampa’s attempt to dock at Christmas Island with over 400 such individuals inaugurated a particularly vicious regime. Intercepted by Australia’s SAS forces in August 2001, it presented the Howard government with a stupendously cruel chance to garner votes. And my, did that government garner them with gusto. Various European countries have also adopted an approach akin to this: naval arrivals…
No more profoundly disturbing statement was needed. In the dying days of the official US departure from Kabul, a US drone etched its butcher’s legacy with a strike supposedly intended for the blood-lusty terrorist group ISIS-K, an abbreviation of Islamic State in Khorasan Province. Its members had taken responsibility for blasts outside Harmid Karzai International Airport that had cost the lives of at least 175 individuals and 13 US service personnel. Suicide bombers had intended to target “translators and collaborators with the American army”. President Joe Biden promised swift retribution. “To those who carried out this attack, as well as…
The question does not bear asking, but in a global economy greased by what has been termed disposable people, the past’s previous examples of the same may be a country worth visiting. The prod along for such a journey came with the discovery of yet another gem from the ruins of Pompeii. The news headlines were ravenous in consuming the details about the history of an individual who, having been a slave, obviously went on to do rather well for himself. It read like a tale of social mobility, and would have sent the likes of those who spoke about…
The question does not bear asking, but in a global economy greased by what has been termed disposable people, the past’s previous examples of the same may be a country worth visiting. The prod along for such a journey came with the discovery of yet another gem from the ruins of Pompeii. The news headlines were ravenous in consuming the details about the history of an individual who, having been a slave, obviously went on to do rather well for himself. It read like a tale of social mobility, and would have sent the likes of those who…
Do not for a minute think that this is a kind, heart-felt thing in the aftermath of Kabul’s fall. True, a number of Afghans will find their way to Germany, to Canada, to the UK, US and a much smaller number to Australia. But this will be part of the curtain act that, in time, will pass into memory and enable countries to return to their harsh refugee policies. Britain’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, is none too enthused about welcoming high numbers of Afghan refugees. “We have to be realistic in terms of those that we can bring to the…
Civilisation has tended to be seen like a gift by those claiming to grant it. It is done, in the sense Rudyard Kipling intended it, with solemn duty. It is a task discharged as a burden borne heavily. In its modern form, notably in the hands of the US, it comes with fast food, roads, schools and blue chip stocks. Civilisation, in this context, is also unsolicited, imposed upon a country, whether they would wish it to be. Autonomy comes into it superficially: the custodianship of a puppet regime, often rapacious. The results of such unsolicited gifts are there to…
The historical vectors are moving with conviction and purpose; the weak and lacking in conviction are in retreat and the gun is doing the talking. The government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the security services and the Afghan National Army, seem to be either huddled in despair, capitulating or fleeing before the inexorable advance of the Taliban. They have the upper hand, the cards, the means, storming through and winning half of the country. For months, it was assumed that the Taliban would not have the means to capture cities. The National Army would be able to garrison and lord…
The desperate attempt by the US imperium to nab Julian Assange was elevated to another level on August 11 in a preliminary hearing before the UK High Court. The central component to this gruesome affair was the continuing libel of the expert witness upon which District Justice Vanessa Baraitser placed so much emphasis in her January 4 decision not to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher. The prosecution effort was intended to add more strings to their bow. The US had already been given leave to appeal in July on the basis that the judge erred in law by deciding that Assange’s…
Australia’s Channel 7 team was all about ignoring history as its selected commentators went into describing, poorly, the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. The trio was poorly equipped culturally, geographically and totally (the Japanese component was barely credible: “We want to make things warm for you,” she chirped), to deal with the eclectic groupings of the athletes as they assembled. Clichés and platitudes clogged the commentary as each team strode into the stadium. It would have been interesting had they noted the militaristic, political echo that follows the beginning, and end, of each Olympic Games. “In the Olympic Opening…
The Public Inquiry into the murder of the resourceful journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia handed down its findings on July 29. Firm aim was taken at the Maltese State, which had “to shoulder responsibility for the assassination because it created an atmosphere of impunity, generated from the highest levels in the heart of the administration of the Office of the Prime Minister”. Such conditions proved expansive “like an octopus” and “spread to other entities like regulatory institutions and the police, leading to the collapse of the rule of law.” In such a climate, the State duly failed in recognising “real and…
This week, Twitter was keen to share the news about its new arrangement with The Associated Press and Reuters “to expand our efforts to identify and elevate credible information” on its platform. The company reiterates its commitment that people using its service are able to “easily find reliable information” hoping to “expand the scale and increase the speed of our efforts to provide timely, authoritative text across the wide range of global topics and conversations” taking place on the platform each day. The global head of user-generated content at Reuters, Hazel Baker, was businesslike in describing a partnership that…
The company has been looking forward to this for some time. For an outfit found wanting in dealing with inhabitants of a land whose culture it eviscerated in a matter of hours in May last year, Rio Tinto could think grandly about another future. The Anglo-Australian mining giant could add its name to a sounder, more environmentally sensitive programme, join the responsible future gazers and stroke the ecological conscience. Forget the destruction of the Juukan Gorge Caves in Western Australia. It was time to control the narrative. Eyes have shifted to the Balkans. The company is promising $2.4 billion for…
