G20 Gyrations: Donald, Ivanka and Hollow Diplomacy
Traditional diplomacy is being given a makeover - at least where it is not being abolished altogether and being replaced by a replica of The Apprentice. US President Donald Trump’s…
Dr Binoy Kampmark
Tweets of Praise: Donald Trump, Australia and Refugees
Praise from US President Donald Trump has a tendency of tarnishing gold and ungilding matters, and there was something of the muck in his tweet praising Australia for its sadistic…
Childish Diplomacy: Donald Trump’s New Play Against Iran
Diplomacy has been seen historically as a practitioner’s art, nurtured in schools of learning, tested and tried in the boardrooms of mild mannered summitry. Klemens von Metternich and Otto von…
The Pinkerton Effect: The US Marines in Darwin
Subordinates rarely have a good time of dictating matters to their superiors. In the webbed power relations that pass as realpolitik, Australia is the well behaved child in the front…
Violent Voyeurism: Surveillance, Spyware and Human Rights
Surveillance is merely a variant of violent voyeurism, the human behind the camera or visual apparatus observing behaviour in a setting, often private. Its premise is privacy’s violation; its working…
Bill Clinton in Kosovo
“War in the name of morality provides as many reasons for historical shudders as war in the name of self-interest, for at least the latter may be easier to call…
A Slow Death: The Ills of the Casual Academic
Any sentient being should be offended. Eventually, the casualisation of the academic workforce was bound to find lazy enthusiasts who neither teach, nor understand the value of a tenured position…
Nigel Farage’s Grand Tour of Sabotage: The Paypal of the People Rides High
He is all about being the romantic saboteur. He is destructive, hates the business of a steady vocation, and the idea of being desk bound. Little details trouble him; an…
The Fragility of Democracy: Hong Kong, China and the Extradition Bill
It has been a history of turns and the occasional betrayal, but Hong Kong’s experiment with democracy, incubated within the Special Administrative Region, was always going to be contingent on…
Matters of Water: Dubious Approvals and the Adani Carmichael Mine
“When a company wields such power that it can cause a Minister to rush an approval process, cut corners and make significant errors, it is cause for serious concern.” Kelly…
Julian Assange and the Scales of Justice: Exceptions, Extraditions and Politics
The Home Secretary of the United Kingdom did his thing, which was little in the way of disagreement. The superpower has issued a request; the retainer would comply. This week,…
Defanging the Predators: Oxfam’s Woes
First came the abuses. Then, the allegations. Then, the tardy response, with lacings of apologia. The UK Charity Commission could not have been harsher about the conduct of Oxfam, which…
Cleansing the Platforms: YouTube, Censorship and Grievance
Stripping the altars, burning the heretics and cleansing the stables are the usual fare of a morally crazed order. The engaged agents think they have found the reason for existence…
The Danish Elections: Social Democracy with an Inhumane Face
The great centrist European tradition of social democracy has been receiving a rattle for the last few decades. The European Parliament elections were a reminder how much their appeal has…
Snubs, Bumps and Donald Trump in Britain
He may not be popular in Britain, but he still has shavings of appeal. For a country that has time for Nigel Farage, pro-Brexit enthusiast and full-time hypocrite (he is…
Warring Against Sources: The Australian National Security State, Journalism and the Public Interest
“What’s gone on this morning sends clear and dangerous signals to journalists and newsrooms across Australia. This will chill public interest reporting.” News Corp Australia spokesperson, The West Australian, June…
Cults of Impeachment: The Mueller Report, Trump and Wedging the Democrats
It is a giddy intoxicant, and making all who partake fall over in puddling nonsense. The Mueller Report is not turning out to be the cleansing agent any of its…
Findings of Torture: The UN Rapporteur and Julian Assange
Another crude and sad chapter, yet more evidence of a system’s vengeance against its challengers. Julian Assange, like they dying Roman emperor Vespasian, may be transforming into a god of…
Clubs, Cartels and Bilderberg
“After decades of neoliberalism, we are at the mercy of a cluster of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using monopoly power to boost profits.” Joseph Stiglitz, The Price…
Lies in Politics: Boris Johnson, the Law and the European Union
An enduring memory of the 2016 Brexit campaign, so marked by the foppish-haired blusterer, Boris Johnson, was the claim that the European Union was hungrily drawing out from British coffers…
Authoritarian Spirits: Congress, the Espionage Act and Punishing WikiLeaks
The time was 1917, and for anyone keen to impress us about any liberal feelings on the part of President Woodrow Wilson, the following should be said. Having deemed the…
The End of Theresa May
The vultures of the British conservative party have gathered, and the individual who seemed to thrive in failure, to gain momentum in defeat, has finally yielded. UK Prime Minister Theresa…
Monsanto, Scientific Deception and Cancer
Money may not be able to buy the purest love, but it can buy the best, life-ending cancer. For Monsanto, giant of rule and misrule in matters of genetically modified…
The Victory of Small Visions: Scott Morrison Retains Government
Australian politics since the 1990s has been marked by a dedicated loathing of the “vision thing”. For those keen to see policies lasting beyond the life of the May fly,…
Fantasies of Humanity: The Christchurch Pledge and a Regulated Internet
It had to come. A massacre, broadcast in real time and then shared with viral automatism; the inevitable shock, and the counter from the authorities. The Christchurch shootings, inflicting fifty-one…
Modern Merchants of Death: The NSO Group, Spyware and Human Rights
Arms manufacturers of old, and many of the current stable, did not care much where their products went. The profit incentive often came before the patriotic one, and led to…
Maximum Pressure in the Strait of Hormuz: The US-Iran Standoff
Hegemons are never going to sound too sensible when they lock horns or joust in spats of childish anger. Power corrupts, not merely in terms of perspective but language, and…
The Democrats and Muellerisation
The psychic problems facing the Democrats continue to bite, and with their foiled efforts to see the full, unredacted report of the Mueller Report, they look distracted, confused and bitter. …
Lowering Standards: Australian Universities, English Requirements and Student Cash Cows
There are no protests on the streets and no effigies of university officials being burned by protesting students today. There are no protests outside the officers of the over-remunerated Vice…
A Matter of Independence: Equinor and Drilling the Great Australian Bight
Such companies advertise themselves as slick and professional, the best in the business, all things to men, women and everyone in between. They insist that we can all have that…
Disproportionate Sentences: Julian Assange, Bail, and Extradition
Should journalism ever have a deity worth His, Her or Its salt, looking down upon the recent proceedings against Julian Assange will provide endless choking fits of confusion and dismay. …
Islamic State Celluloid: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Witch Doctors of Terrorism | Binoy Kampmark
Nothing turns on the charlatan class of terrorism expertise than a video from an elusive, unknown destination, adjusted, modified and giving all the speculative trimmings. In reading, E.B. White suggested…
Doubts at the NSA: Shelving a Mass Surveillance Program
Earlier this year, Luke Murry, national security adviser for Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, revealed that the National Security Agency had been averse over the last six months to…
Corporate Joe: Biden Enters the Presidential Race |Binoy Kampmark
Values, values and more values. Another dreary dish added to the smorgasbord of Democratic hopefuls for the White House. This one is a bit cured and worn, smoked by history. …
Continued Detentions: The Intended Role for Chelsea Manning
The noose is tightening around the WikiLeaks world, yet another dedicated attempt to strangle the channels of information that might cast light over the dastardly deeds of state. Connections are…
Volodymyr Zelenskiy as Actor President
The world is not so much a stage as a simulacrum for those who think it so. And if the stage goes bad, it is fitting that those who get…
Failed States and Militias: General Khalifa Haftar moves on Tripoli
The richly disastrous mess that is Libya has been moving into another phase of inspired aggression at the hands of General Khalifa Haftar. As he does, UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez…
Binoy Kampmark- Julian Assange as Neuroses
Julian Assange continues to ripple and roam as a cipher through the political and media scape of the world. Detained in Belmarsh maximum security prison, the sort of stately abode…
Binoy Kampmark-Burning Gothic: Reflections on Notre-Dame de Paris
“But no matter the destruction, the spirit of what it means to be a cathedral can and does survive such catastrophes.” Becky Clark, Church of England director of cathedrals and…
Permissible Influences: Israel and the Australian Elections
So much hullabaloo; so much pent-up anger and, let’s face it, so much opportunity for the political classes of Australia. The theme since 2016 is electoral interference; the object: whichever…
Passing the Parcel: The European Union and Refugees in the Mediterranean
The modern UN Refugee Convention is now so flea-bitten it’s been put out to the garbage tip of history. At least the enthusiastic fleas think so, given their conduct as…
Binoy Kampmark – Delegitimising Journalism: The Effort to Relabel Julian Assange
“Your honour, I represent the United States government”. The Westminster Magistrates Court had been left with little doubt by the opening words of the legal team marshalled against the face…
Shredding Asylum: The Arrest of Julian Assange
The man seemed like a bearded emissary, a holy figure nabbed in his sleep. He looked similarly pale as to how he did in 2013, but he cut a more…
Absence of Proof: The Approval Process for Adani
Much hot air is coming out from the public relations unit of Adani, and the language used is that of a hostage taker seeking to earn a rich and ill-deserved…
Terrorist Designations: Trump and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps
It’s designed to give the US more leg room in the sanction stakes but may end up having its own hemming consequences. The designation by the Trump administration of Iran’s…
Lethal Fluctuations: The Death Penalty in Asia
The Malaysian government last year expressed a surprise change of heart on a policy long held dear; it would reconsider the death penalty. The case of Muhammad Lukman, sentenced to…
Syariah Matters: The Kingdom of Brunei’s Stoning Affair
From time to time, celebrities recoil and, in anger, seek to march for a change to the status quo. Much of is never intended to alter much, but they can…
Night Parrot Confections: The Dangers of Discovering the Elusive
Discoveries of natural flora, fauna and phenomena are not necessarily straightforward things. The discoverer may wish to conceal the source. The discoverer may also have various motivations. In certain grave…
Terms of Asylum and Distraction: Moreno’s Assange Problem
Political asylum is an accepted if often ignored right. It is also at the mercy of those interests that grant it. Ecuador’s repeated insistence on conditioning Julian Assange’s stay in…
The End of the Politician (in a Fashion): The Slovak and Ukrainian Elections
The structures of politics have become so rigid, so distant, and ultimately so irrelevant to those who vote for them that a trend through countries can now be confirmed. Brittleness…
Unnecessary Expansions: The Australian War Memorial
War is not merely a matter of sowing death, much of it needless; it entails preserving a rationale to perpetuate it. The mistake often made about reading, consulting and listening…
Angles of Tolerance: Yusuf Islam in Christchurch
Let’s not be too churlish about this; but then again, let us not be ignorant. The singer once known as Cat Stevens (in pre-conversion state), and known as Yusuf Islam…
The Logic of Annexation: Israel and the Golan Heights
Any measure of annexation is based on the extension of a military’s boots. Diplomats tend to be silenced before the noise of tanks, weaponry and garrisons. Countries may claim to…
Michael Jackson, Convenient Freak
The comedian Dave Chappelle put it like this: why were accusations of inappropriate conduct directed at Michael Jackson always so superbly timed? “Listen Michael,” goes Chappelle’s mock white executive voice,…
A Privileged Education: The US College Admissions Scandal
The oldest idea of history; the perennial problem of station: education. Get the child as far as possible so that he or she can be propelled, as if from a…
Reining in the Yemen Conflict: The US Congress and War Making Powers
We keep hearing it. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is firm on the view that the Yemen conflict should conclude. “We all want this conflict to end,” he never tires…
Globalising the Christchurch Shootings: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Gallipoli and Invasion
Never let a bloody and opportune crisis pass. In New Zealand, there is talk about gun reform after attacks on two Christchurch mosques left fifty dead. There have been remarks…
Reading Manifestos: Restricting Brenton Tarrant’s The Great Replacement
A censorious and censoring attitude has engulfed responses to the mental airings of the Christchurch shooter. Material in connection with Brenton Tarrant, the alleged gunman behind the killing of 50…
Saving the Planet One Child at a Time: Children, School Strikes and Global Climate Action
Children’s crusades do not necessarily end well. During the years of armed missions to the Holy Land, when Jerusalem meant something to the sacredly inclined in Europe, children were encouraged…
The Dangers of Values: Brenton Tarrant, Fraser Anning and the Christchurch Shootings
The argument that the Christchurch shooter, suspect Brenton Tarrant, or the views of Australia’s Senator Fraser Anning, seemingly holding a lone torch, are somehow not representative of the broader whole,…
Annual Subscription
Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us
