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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 102]
Detained for Terror: Proposed Indefinite Detention Laws
Tuesday, 9 August 2016, 3:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The reactive dimension of global politics – at least at the level of many states – is a broader statement about how far things have rotted. Nothing is more reactive than a State’s response to terrorism, actual or perceived. The pure evidentiary ... More >>
The Washington Vaccination Ploy
Thursday, 4 August 2016, 12:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Should you fear receiving the needle from a stranger? Yes. Should you fear receiving it from a person you know all too well as a historical abuser? Even more so. Empires do it, states do it, and even local agencies do it. Let’s all, as it were, vaccinate ... More >>
Rubbishing Pauline Hanson: the Campaign Continues
Tuesday, 2 August 2016, 3:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“I blame Tony Abbott [and] John Howard for my imprisonment and no one will ever change my opinion about that.” Pauline Hanson More >>
Olympic Chaos: The Rio Games
Tuesday, 2 August 2016, 3:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Wounds have opened; recriminations are all around. The Rio Olympic Games, even before the first act, has already shown how it will be one of the more interesting ones for all the wrong reasons. (Eventually, such wrong reasons tend to seem right.) More >>
Humanising Hillary Clinton: The DNC
Monday, 1 August 2016, 3:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“He [Bill Clinton] wanted people to know the real Hillary.” John Podesta, Jul 28, 2016 More >>
Kevin Rudd’s Failed UN Secretary General Bid
Monday, 1 August 2016, 3:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Few sights are sadder in international diplomacy than seeing an aging figure desperate for honours. In a desperate effort to net them, he scurries around, cultivating, prodding, wishing to be noted. Finally, such an honour is netted, in all likelihood ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Kevin Rudd’s Failed UN Secretary General Bid
Friday, 29 July 2016, 5:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Few sights are sadder in international diplomacy than seeing an aging figure desperate for honours. In a desperate effort to net them, he scurries around, cultivating, prodding, wishing to be noted. Finally, such an honour is netted, in all likelihood ... More >>
Cults of Security and Terror in Rio
Friday, 29 July 2016, 12:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Olympics remains a black hole of needless expenditure, sucking services into it with impending and merciless doom. Unused stadia, tracks left to moulder, services supposedly linked to urban renewal turned into dilapidated wonders. That is the Olympic ... More >>
Laura Ingraham and Trumpism
Tuesday, 26 July 2016, 1:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Never doubt the ballistic factor of Laura Ingraham. Ingraham is never into facts, which tend to be the unwanted gate crashers of her party. What matters in that particular world view is sentiment, often tinged by viciousness. In so far as it matters, she ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Apologist in Chief - Boris Johnson
Thursday, 21 July 2016, 1:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It might have been seen as a form of expressive penal servitude. The UK Foreign Secretary’s position is usually one of the more prestigious ones. Even with Britain being a faded power, a historical scarecrow relative to its former meatier self, the position remains ... More >>
Banning and Banishing: The Nonsense About Muslims
Tuesday, 19 July 2016, 1:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was the kingpin of the whole affair by suggesting it. In December 2015, the US Republican presumptive nominee for President, Donald Trump, came up with that daft suggestion which seems so utterly devoid of informed meaning. Ban Muslims from entering ... More >>
Violence, Police Authority and Black Lives Matter
Wednesday, 13 July 2016, 10:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
“When we include, we find ourselves.” USC President Max Nikias, 2016 Annual State of the University Address More >>
Hung Parliaments and Democracy
Wednesday, 6 July 2016, 3:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Hung parliaments are deemed the bane of the Westminster System. It makes politicians sweat, policy makers work, and the broader system of representative government unusually representative. The latter part is particularly irksome for the majoritarians. More >>
Corbyn, British Labour and Anti-Semitism
Wednesday, 6 July 2016, 3:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In another attempt to kick the leader of the British Labour down and out, a campaign has been hatched with a now commonplace virulence. A report into anti-Semitism within Labour party circles authored by Shami Chakrabarti was to be released with little ... More >>
The Mythology behind the US-British Relationship
Friday, 1 July 2016, 11:45 am | Binoy Kampmark
To any historian buff, it should be a known fact that Britain’s “special relationship” with Washington has been a tough one, subjected to periods of bruising and disagreement. States caught in a web of imperial domination can only be special to a certain extent. More >>
Texas, Abortion and the US Supreme Court
Wednesday, 29 June 2016, 11:30 am | Binoy Kampmark
The abortion right in the United States, given full force in Roe v Wade, has never been a plain sailing affair. The language of rights is ever a prickly matter, marred by the undergrowth of burdensome reasoning and poor application. In a country where ... More >>
Headaches of Empire: Brexit’s Effect on the United States
Monday, 27 June 2016, 11:05 am | Binoy Kampmark
President Barack Obama, like other leaders who were taking the gruel of Brexit for his breakfast serving, did not react well to the referendum result. Over time, he has been unduly chiding in his manner, reproachful about the affairs of another country ... More >>
The Inhumanity of Brexit
Friday, 24 June 2016, 10:51 am | Binoy Kampmark
While the Brexit debate has become a matter of colliding blocs of speculators and crystal ball gazers, a glaring aspect has come to the fore. Virtually nothing has been said about the role played by human rights, Britain’s role in building it ... More >>
Dreams about Terrorists: Wolves, Wolf Packs and Resources
Tuesday, 21 June 2016, 11:04 am | Binoy Kampmark
Terrorists provide alibis for hungry security establishments in search of themselves. Their physical effect is always small relative to the psychic disturbances they cause. Know thyself, urges the Delphic maxim, but self-knowledge implies an acceptance of ... More >>
The Politics of Boxing: Muhammad Ali and Ring Activism
Monday, 13 June 2016, 4:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Boxing lends itself to political expression. There is the theatre, the anticipation, the blood of primeval sacrifice. Sometimes, even histrionics. Off the ring, dramas linger. Sometimes boxers enter political office. Philippine boxing celebrity Manny ... More >>
