Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Update on the Mad Monk file
Popular ridicule spells political death for any political leader. That’s because it is almost impossible to overcome and undermines the capacity to lead and carry authority. In just 18 months Prime Minister Tony Abbott has managed to reveal himself as mad and bad. Now he’s a joke. What broke the... Read More
Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Top cop joins PUP and Parrot to rubbish Premier Newman
Two bizarre opponents have emerged to make life agonisingly difficult for the embattled Queensland Premier Campbell Newman in the closing days of the campaign for the state election on January 31. Mining billionaire Clive Palmer and Alan Jones, the millionaire commercial radio ham, have commenced personal vendettas against Newman alleging... Read More
Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – The road to Hebdo and why I won’t be Charlie
1. Classical English liberalism was destroyed and buried in the trenches of World War One when British Prime Minister David Lloyd George shrugged off his pacifism and became a Cabinet warmonger. The fledging British Labour Party split over support for the imperialist bloodbath with Arthur Henderson leading the majority faction... Read More
Judith White
The poet as hero
When the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) convened in Havana on January 28, proceedings began with a huge torchlight procession in tribute to the poet José Martí, born 161 years ago on that day. The celebration has been held every year since the revolution of 1959, but... Read More
Windows on the world
Translation, writes one of its outstanding practitioners, “helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar. As nations and as individuals, we have a critical need for that kind of understanding and insight.” The words are Edith Grossman’s,... Read More
Class and culture
The black arts of marketing, Murdochism and right-wing academia have made the term “working class” almost as much of a taboo as the word “socialism” in mainstream public discourse. As Noam Chomsky says about the US, “you’re supposed to say ‘middle class’ because it diminishes the understanding that there’s a... Read More