Category: Arts
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Alex Mitchell’s Weekly Notebook – David Bowie’s brush with fascism and the occult
For the record, here are some of the views of the late David Bowie. • “Britain is ready for a fascist leader. I think Britain would benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism.” • “There is no politician like me. As I see it, I am the only alternative for premier…
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Alex Mitchell’s Weekly Notebook – China’s slowdown starts to hit home
Surely, it’s time that the saying, “When Wall Street sneezes, the rest of the world catches pneumonia”, was updated. It retains some veracity because the New York Stock Exchange is the biggest in the world, US banks are the largest and the US economy is the global heavyweight. But what about China? What if Beijing…
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Alex Mitchell’s Weekly Notebook – 40th anniversary of Whitlam’s dismissal: more questions
In the thick of Australia’s greatest era of social and cultural reform, a vice-regal coup succeeded in overthrowing the elected government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. It was November 1975 and the capitals of the Western world were swirling with hyper-inflation, OPEC’s “oil shock”, massive government debt and rising unemployment. A year earlier President Richard…
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Alex Mitchell’s Weekly Notebook – Murdoch’s shadow looms over Turnbull
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in Australia hesitated after the successful party room coup against Liberal Party prime minister Tony Abbott on September 24. The lumpen columnists who had barracked incessantly for “The Mad Monk” resented the arrival of Malcolm Turnbull and, quite frankly, they were disoriented. Which way should they jump now? Once the message…
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Alex Mitchell’s Weekly Notebook – Oz cremates Abbottry; Canada ends Harperism
Stephen Harper, the insufferably arrogant conservative Canadian politician, has been chucked out of office by the neophyte Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau. Trudeau has scored a treble victory: as the son of the late Pierre Trudeau, he has restored the family name to a place of honour in Canada’s political history; he has ended the…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Stench of cover-up from Lindt inquest
Stage management of the coronial inquest into the Lindt café siege broke down in spectacular fashion this week with the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions scrambling to ban publication of embarrassing evidence. The DPP wants to suppress evidence of why the siege gunman Man Haron Monis was on bail on serious criminal charges when he…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Abbott starts having delusions of grandeur
The age of entitlement is over, according to Tony Abbott, but not for his own family. While he orders Australians to tighten their belts to rein in the ballooning deficit, Abbott is loosening his own, and we are footing the bill. The family’s latest taxpayer-funded scam is to turn the historic Kirribilli House into their…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Abbott’s Budget heralds an early federal election
This week’s Federal Budget was not about Australia’s economic future. And it wasn’t about the future of the country either. Its overriding purpose was to rescue Prime Minister Tony Abbott. It was the “Save Abbott” budget. It sets the stage for a snap federal election between now and the end of the year. He has…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – ANZAC spirit tainted by Abbott and greed
Politicians, the media, the RSL and the military lobby have kicked an own goal. Incredibly, they have managed to tarnish the Anzac legend and turn off a large number of Australians. How did they do it? By crassly politicising the event and grossly commercialising it. The Abbott Government invested some $200 million in the 100th…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Abbott’s military mission in Iraq becomes nightmare
Objectives of the mission by Australian Defence Forces in Iraq/Syria, masterminded by Field Marshal Tony Abbott, change from week to week. Amid the release of bloodthirsty and homicidal ISIS videos late last year, Abbott wrapped himself in the flag and ordered Special Forces and RAAF warplanes to “destroy the death cult”. Instead, Australian aircraft became…