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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 119]
Inflicting Death and Avoiding Taxes: The G-8 Stalls
Monday, 24 June 2013, 11:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
In recent years, the leaders of the G-8 have acted as some de facto consortium of much noise signifying nothing. As Tom Barry observed in an article for Foreign Policy in Focus as far back as July 2002, the G-8 “had shown little leadership in addressing ... More >>
The War on Metadata: WikiLeaks and Monitoring the Monitored
Friday, 14 June 2013, 2:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Ideas are fashioned weapons. When applied to the right spot, their result can be immediate, overwhelming, collapsing. The pressing need for populations across countries to revolt against the revolting, to assert sovereignty over themselves, their information, ... More >>
Wanting to be Left Alone: The ACLU, Privacy and Obama
Thursday, 13 June 2013, 5:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a statement that remains powerful for its clear and striking defiance: wanting to be left alone. It was not merely a position taken by Greta Garbo who fobbed off the fans and detractors with equal disdain simply wanting to be let alone; it was ... More >>
Edward Snowden: Whistleblowing at the NSA
Tuesday, 11 June 2013, 11:51 am | Binoy Kampmark
He has been so naughty, at least in the eyes of the security establishment. The British are up in arms about what information is being obtained on their citizens via U.S. channels. Foreign Secretary William Hague has tried dousing the fires, claiming that ... More >>
Surveillance USA: NSA and the PRISM Project
Friday, 7 June 2013, 4:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Ever since The Patriot Act came into being, the body of liberties citizens cherish have been chipped away by a bloated security state keen to find nourishment. When rights and liberties are deferred to the voyeurs, the monitors, and the paranoid, ... More >>
Killing the Illusion: Bradley Manning on Trial
Tuesday, 4 June 2013, 6:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is time to pull out the stops. Yes, efforts have been made, some commendable, some noisily admirable, and the protesters have gathered constantly over the thousand and more days that Private Bradley Manning has been held. The trial is about to begin, ... More >>
The Terrier in Action: Cardinal Pell, Abuse and the Church
Wednesday, 29 May 2013, 5:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Cardinal George Pell is a terrier of the wrong sort. Combative for the Catholic church, he does the Pope’s bidding down under with a loud bark and occasional bite. Much of it has proven disastrous for the Church’s reputation in Australia and elsewhere. ... More >>
Obama and Drone-Speak: Targets Intentional or Otherwise
Monday, 27 May 2013, 12:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Well it was that President Barack Obama would make the claim that the way prisoners are detained and the way drones are used in terms of targeting would “define” the United States as a nation. A nation of opportunistic, moneyed hustlers intent ... More >>
Using Labels: The ‘Terror’ Act of Woolwich
Friday, 24 May 2013, 11:32 am | Binoy Kampmark
It is an object study. Two men in a car, which is driven into another man. The attacked individual is then hacked to death by a meat cleaver or kitchen implement in broad daylight. There may be several instruments used. There are religious chants – or ... More >>
The Mining Myth: Sustainability and Development
Wednesday, 22 May 2013, 12:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has been a fiction that has held sway for a time. Mining booms create trickledown wealth. It is tagged as “sustainable” when it is premised on temporariness. Natural resources work for countries that possess them in abundance. More >>
Excising Australia: When a Country Ceased to Be
Saturday, 18 May 2013, 11:18 am | Binoy Kampmark
It was a crime of sorts, perpetuated against the international community with a brazen disregard that has come to mark the politics of the country. On Thursday, the bill that had been promised excising the Australian mainland for the purposes of refugee ... More >>
Angelina Jolie: Breasts, Celebrity and Choice
Wednesday, 15 May 2013, 4:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Popular culture, and celebrity, have come to this. A well-endowed personality, a figure of celluloid appeal, has to justify to the other-worldliness of an action personal and specific to the person in question. More >>
Stopping the Drones: Pakistan-US relations in the High Court
Tuesday, 14 May 2013, 3:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Alternate realities in the conflict Pakistan is waging against insurgents in its tribal areas tend to be regular affairs. Intrinsic to them is the contorted relationship the country has with the United States, three bits domestic violence to two bits ... More >>
An Indulgent Strike: Israel, Syria and the Bloody Absurd
Friday, 10 May 2013, 3:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In one of St. Augustine’s observations (and there were many on the subject), the absence of morality among states would simply make them aggrandized bandits legitimised by rules of plunder. The Syrian conflict, with bloodied players both internal and ... More >>
The Death of Il Divo: Andreotti and Modern Italy
Wednesday, 8 May 2013, 3:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Giulio Andreotti was a creature of the Italian post-war scene, with its astonishing volatility and kaleidoscopic deals. Unlike his opponents, he proved astonishingly versatile. He seemingly occupied every notable position in Italian cabinets he could ... More >>
Totem and Taboo: The Non-Closure of Guantánamo
Friday, 3 May 2013, 5:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Guantánamo’s resplendent carceral facilities remain a classic example of double realities, the co-existence of totemic impulses and the reflex of taboo. On the one hand, it has become an institutional reminder of the extensive, vague and indefinite ... More >>
Mississippi Madness: Ricin, Elvis and Elephants
Wednesday, 1 May 2013, 4:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has been a strange month for the citizens of Tupelo in Mississippi. This is Elvis town, and, to be polite about it, frothing with striking eccentricity. Tupelo Police have been kept busy as have papers and the gossip circuit. Did somebody slip rohypnol ... More >>
Economic Blockade and WikiLeaks: Iceland and Beyond
Monday, 29 April 2013, 12:53 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Julian Assange had been using that term for a time, but economic censorship is as close to the mark as any. If you want to shut someone up, deprive them of funding, cut off the supply, hope they go quietly into the night, hopefully without breaking ... More >>
Authentic Fakes: The Hitler Diaries and History
Monday, 29 April 2013, 12:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Frauds in time become historical artefacts, objects of their own worth. As projects, they may not have succeeded in attaining the brand of authenticity – but that hardly matters. Their authenticity is merely of a different sort – the fake as real, the ... More >>
Halting CISPA: The Verdict on Cyber Information Sharing
Friday, 26 April 2013, 6:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Congress of the United States is showing again why it remains schizophrenic in its appraisal of rights and obligations – encouraging of various whistleblower protections on the one hand while suggesting at points why they should be prosecuted, ... More >>
