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Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 101]
Binoy Kampmark: Illness in the White House
Tuesday, 13 September 2016, 3:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Exciting times, indeed. The latest bustling instalment in the Clinton-Trump saga of “produce your documents” now goes to the issue of health. The Democratic contender for the White House found herself feeling rather off, which made doctors order that ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Eaten Fish and the Refugee Crisis
Tuesday, 13 September 2016, 3:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Graphic depictions of cruelty come in an assortment of forms. The cartoon medium can convey the grotesque with brilliant effect, proving both witheringly caustic and poignant. The prints of Otto Dix emphasise the cripple, the mangled body, the ... More >>
Filipino Brute: President Rodrigo Duterte and US Imperialism
Saturday, 10 September 2016, 9:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Empires are often in the habit of producing brutes. Colonies, once left to their own devices, can either improve in the face of history, or degenerate. The Philippines provides an example of cruelty fashioned into office: dictatorships with a pro-US ... More >>
Libelling Leakers: Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and Russia
Friday, 9 September 2016, 4:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What was the New York Times thinking in making the suggestion? Evidently, its patriotic sense has been affronted by the disclosures from WikiLeaks that have sprinkled more than a bit of dust on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In doing so, Julian ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Canonising Mother Teresa
Thursday, 8 September 2016, 4:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“The question is: was a woman who preached virtue in suffering rather than trying to alleviate it and took money from dictators really that saintly at all?” Douglas Robertson, The Independent , Sep 5, 2016 More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Resettling Refugees in Australia
Tuesday, 6 September 2016, 3:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“If we require a shield [against people smugglers] we should leave that up to Australian Border Force, our Navy, the AFP and our intelligence services.” Paris Aristotle, Lateline , Sep 5, 2016. More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Foiling Apple’s Tax Dodge
Tuesday, 6 September 2016, 3:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
For years, Apple has perfected the art of tax minimisation, hoovering up possibilities in creating an empire built on profit and return. It has cultivated a power that adapts the message of the bribing agent with that of the bully, tempting government ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Next Escalation - Turkey’s Invasion of Syria
Tuesday, 6 September 2016, 3:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The move by Turkey into Syrian territory was given the necessary couching by Ankara’s ideologues. Conducted from the air and on the ground after weeks of scouting and reconnaissance, it saw the taking of Jarablus and the banishment of Islamic State ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Malcolm Turnbull, the ADF and Islamic State
Friday, 2 September 2016, 4:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The oldest political trick of a leader in domestic strife is to emphasise the unholy nature of a threat from without. When the polls are low, nothing provides quite the necessary panacea than a military action, or promise of action, on a scale deemed ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: A Trip To Charters Towers
Friday, 2 September 2016, 4:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Cult of Mining in ‘The World’: A Trip To Charters Towers by Binoy Kampmark More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Hillary Clinton’s Extreme End Game
Monday, 29 August 2016, 12:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The loathsome two are moving into full view, mustering weapons and taking aim at each other in a US election campaign that continues to be filled with colourful missives. But the one to lose most is Hillary Clinton, whose nasty appropriation of the high ... More >>
The Terrors of Free Speech: Australia’s Discrimination Act
Monday, 29 August 2016, 12:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When sections in a piece of legislation assume their own properties, the state of debate is bound to be strained. In Australia, the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA), notably section 18C, has again become a central ball of political play. More >>
Unwanted Images: The Nauru Incident Reports
Thursday, 25 August 2016, 4:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the first reports came through about the unfolding Holocaust during the Second World War, audiences were incredulous. Surely no industrialised society could quite go so far? Killings, yes; butcheries, certainly. But a mass-scale industrialised ... More >>
Labouring Hours: Sweden’s Six-Hour Working Day
Tuesday, 23 August 2016, 5:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“The establishment of a normal working-day is the result of struggle between capitalist and labour.” Karl Marx, Das Kapital , Ch 10 More >>
The Sri Lankan Abyss: Australia’s Crushing Defeat
Friday, 19 August 2016, 4:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Everything that seemed to unravel in a side that had enjoyed top ranking status before coming to Sri Lanka did on this most abysmal of tours. But any cricket commentary directed against Australia’s performances should also account for what was a memorably ... More >>
The Hypocrisies of Commemoration: Dispute at Long Tan
Friday, 19 August 2016, 3:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One of the stranger sights in international relations is that of a defeated State seeking to commemorate its fallen in a country whose affairs it sought to disrupt. Australia is particularly adept at this, having obtained near exclusive entitlements ... More >>
Fingers on the Button: “First Use” and US Nuclear Weapons
Wednesday, 17 August 2016, 5:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Do you wait till the prospect of obliteration is upon you? Or initiate, blithely, a nuclear holocaust upon your enemy as a matter of what is termed “first use” by the nuclear weapon high priests? Neither prospect is particularly attractive, ... More >>
Triggers, Morals and Drones in the Sky
Tuesday, 16 August 2016, 4:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.” Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (Alan Rickman), Eye in the Sky (2015) More >>
Donald Trump and the ISIS Factor
Tuesday, 16 August 2016, 3:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Ever straddling that fine line between the absurd and the puncturing revelation, Donald J. Trump’s “ISIS” remarks about the Obama administration and the Democrat presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, were vintage. “[Obama] was the founder of ... More >>
The Flagging TPPA: The US Election and Free Trade Politics
Friday, 12 August 2016, 4:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Being savaged by Donald J. Trump on one side of the electoral aisle, and modestly beaten by the Democratic presumptive candidate, Hillary Clinton, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is lying somewhere between near death and miraculous survival. ... More >>
