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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 36]
Reactionary Succession: Peter Dutton, Australia’s New Opposition Leader
Monday, 30 May 2022, 2:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The devastation wrought on Australia’s Coalition government on May 21 by the electorate had a stunning, cleansing effect. Previously inconceivable scenarios were played out in safe, Liberal-held seats that had, for decades, seen few, if any challenges, ... More >>
George W Bush, Freudian Confessions And Foiled Assassinations
Sunday, 29 May 2022, 5:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Death, remarked Gore Vidal about Truman Capote’s passing, was a good career move. The novelist Saki also considered the good qualities of shuffling off the mortal coil. “Waldo,” he writes in “The Feast of Nemesis”, “is one of those people ... More >>
The Economy Of Tolerable Massacres: The Uvalde Shootings
Thursday, 26 May 2022, 2:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Societies generate their own economies of tolerable cruelties and injustices. Poverty, for instance, will be allowed, as long a sufficient number of individuals are profiting. To an extent, crime and violence can be allowed to thrive. In the United States, ... More >>
Biden In Tokyo: Killing Strategic Ambiguity
Wednesday, 25 May 2022, 3:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Could it have been just another case of bumbling poor judgment, the mind softened as the mouth opened? A question was put to US President Joe Biden, visiting Tokyo and standing beside Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida: “You didn’t want ... More >>
The Great Teal Tsunami: Arise Australia’s Independents
Sunday, 22 May 2022, 5:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Rarely in Australian history has a governing party suffered such loss in the face of an opponent unable to claim complete victory. It said much about the disillusionment, and plain disgust, from that nebulous centre of the country’s politics. That centre ... More >>
Australian Disinformation Wonderland: The Federal Election 2022
Saturday, 21 May 2022, 1:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
All elections are filled with the half-truths, mistruths and full-fledged lies. Victory is rarely bought on a platform of complete honesty. But the road to the current Australian federal election has been potholed by more deception than most. This is ... More >>
COVID Brain Fade At The Australian Elections
Thursday, 19 May 2022, 1:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s the last week of an election between the uninspiring and the unspeakable. Australia’s conservative incumbents – the unspeakable ones – are even desperate enough to concede to a lack of popularity. Dislike us, but for heaven’s sake, vote ... More >>
Peter Dutton’s Defamation Defeat
Wednesday, 18 May 2022, 3:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The occasions when an activist, writer or commentator triumph over defamation lawsuits launched by a thin-skinned politician are rare in Australia. When it comes to matters regarding the law of reputation, Australia remains a place where parliamentarians, ... More >>
The British Art Of Black Propaganda
Tuesday, 17 May 2022, 2:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Never underestimate the potency, and deceptive malice, of the British political mind. In responding to the threat posed by Imperial Germany during the First World War, the British propaganda campaign made much of the atrocity tale, the nun raping ... More >>
Morbid Matters: Estimating COVID-19 Mortality
Monday, 16 May 2022, 2:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has dominated news cycles, debates and policies since 2020, but COVID-19 continues to exercise the interest of number crunchers and talliers. While the ghoulish daily press announcements about infections and deaths across many a country have diminished ... More >>
Rogues And Spyware: Pegasus Strikes In Spain
Saturday, 14 May 2022, 7:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Weapons, lacking sentience and moral orientation, are there to be used by all. Once out, these creations can never be rebottled. Effective spyware, that most malicious of surveillance tools, is one such creation, available to entities and governments ... More >>
Barnaby Joyce: Election Gonzo And China Fears
Thursday, 12 May 2022, 2:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Always looking, and sounding, a touch unhinged, the beetroot-coloured Barnaby Joyce, leader of the Australian Nationals and, for a time now, deputy prime minister, has made a splash. With the federal elections being held on May 18, he does not have ... More >>
Greg Norman: Saudi Arabia’s Sportswashing Emissary
Tuesday, 10 May 2022, 1:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
As with previous breakaway religions thrilled by the prospect of the new, breakaway sporting competitions offer a chance to reassess doctrine, administration, and philosophies. It has happened in football, cricket, and rugby, often controversially, and almost ... More >>
Bongbong Politics: Rehabilitating The Marcos Family
Sunday, 8 May 2022, 4:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Children should not pay for the sins of their parents. But in some cases, a healthy suspicion of the offspring is needed, notably when it comes to profiting off ill-gotten gains. It is certainly needed in the case of Filipino politician and presidential ... More >>
Leaking For Roe V Wade
Thursday, 5 May 2022, 12:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The US Supreme Court Chief Justice was furious. For the first time in history, the raw judicial process of one of the most powerful, and opaque arms of government, had been exposed via media – at least in preliminary form. It resembled, in no ... More >>
Noise Matters: Wind Farms, Nuisance And The Law
Wednesday, 4 May 2022, 2:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
For years, the Australian wind farm has been reviled as ugly, noisy and unendearing by a certain number of prominent figures. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott pathologized them, calling wind turbines the “dark satanic mills of the modern era”, being ... More >>
Panic In Kooyong: The Threat To The Australian Liberal Party
Tuesday, 3 May 2022, 12:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He has been seen, not always accurately, as the more moderate in an otherwise conservative Liberal Party, which has governed Australia since 2013 in an at times troubled alliance with the Nationals. He has served as party deputy to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, ... More >>
Australia’s Pacific Neglect: Distractions From Climate Change Security
Saturday, 30 April 2022, 4:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The hysteria in Canberra and Washington over the Sino-Solomon Islands security pact has shown, again, how irrelevant the individual affairs of Pacific Island states are in the chess game of geopolitics. The one thing conspicuously missing has been ... More >>
Slaying The Dragon Of Net Zero Emissions
Thursday, 28 April 2022, 12:57 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Queensland Nationals Senator Matt Canavan is a jewel of parochialism, a darling of nutty consternation. As a member of a party historically hostile to cutting fossil fuel emissions, he has been, for the most part, at home. But some of his colleagues ... More >>
Fibbing On Anzac Day
Tuesday, 26 April 2022, 1:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
April 25, 2022 was one of the less edifying days in the annals of commemorating the fallen. The day is regarded as special for Australians and New Zealanders for being a solemn occasion, a moment to consider those who gave their lives up for King ... More >>
