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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 74]
George H.W. Bush: Cold War Ends and New World Orders
Tuesday, 4 December 2018, 9:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
The death of certain political figures, notably those of a vast imperium, is bound to provoke less criticism or critical insight than soul searching pursuits. With the US in the mauling clutches of Donald J. Trump, the nightmare that was supposedly ... More >>
Journey into Obsolescence: The Adani Carmichael Project
Sunday, 2 December 2018, 4:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Carmichael mine being pursued in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland is a dinosaur before its creation. On paper, it is hefty – to be some five times the size of Sydney harbour, the largest in Australia and one of the largest on the planet. ... More >>
Mutual Decline: The Failings of Student Evaluations
Friday, 30 November 2018, 2:54 pm | Binoy Kampmark
That time of the year. Student evaluations are being gathered by the data crunchers. Participation rates are being noted. Attitudes and responses are mapped. The vulnerable, insecure instructor, fearing an execution squad via email, looks apprehensively at ... More >>
A Parliament of Irresponsibility: Peter Dutton
Thursday, 29 November 2018, 1:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It took place as the blades were being sharpened for a palace coup in August. On Radio National’s breakfast program, Deputy Leader of Labor, Tanya Plibersek was tight lipped to her interlocutor. The issue posed to her party was the eligibility ... More >>
Eyes Without The Prize: Stripping Aung San Suu Kyi’s Awards
Thursday, 29 November 2018, 1:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is impossible to see peace prize or freedom awards as anything other than fragments of an industry. In time, ideals become marketable and matters of commodity. Those who go against this market rationale face the fires of moral outrage. The business ... More >>
Steve Bannon at Oxford
Wednesday, 28 November 2018, 11:30 am | Binoy Kampmark
Steve Bannon. The Oxford Union. A university that has been the breeding, sculpting and minting ground for British prime ministers for centuries and the Establishment. Here , Bannon, strategist of the Trump campaign in 2016, was in full swing, spearing ... More >>
Fanciful Notions: European Armies, Trump and NATO
Tuesday, 27 November 2018, 10:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
The idea of a standing European army, one dedicated to the specific needs of Europe as opposed to being an annex of another power is far from new. In gestation alongside notions of European federalism and its defence have come the idea of a force filled ... More >>
Coming Up Against Yellow Vests: Emmanuel Macron’s Fuel
Sunday, 25 November 2018, 12:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Governments and ruling regimes tend to face revolution in the face of harsh hikes in prices. Margaret Thatcher’s rule in Britain was rocked by the poll tax. In France, the once enthusiastically embraced Emmanuel Macron has decided to leave the ground ... More >>
Bringing God and Finding Death
Friday, 23 November 2018, 1:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Curiosity for the undiscovered last tribe, that tantalising moment when eyes are cast upon the previously unseen, remains the anthropological Holy Grail. But to do so would lead to the natural consequences that come with contact and invasion: the ... More >>
Forgetting Jamal Khashoggi: Donald Trump
Thursday, 22 November 2018, 1:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“I never thought I’d see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.” Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), Twitter , Nov 20, 2018 More >>
Big Mouthed Blue-Eyes: Frank Sinatra in Australia
Wednesday, 21 November 2018, 11:52 am | Binoy Kampmark
The demigods are rarely tempered, and Frank Sinatra, who considered himself one, along with a horde of adulating fans, was one who rarely faced the sharp tongue or chastising hand. Accusations about mob connections, thuggery and darker impulses ... More >>
Unnecessary Fussing: China, the United States and APEC
Tuesday, 20 November 2018, 7:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The parents on the global stage of power are bickering and now, such entertainingly distracting forums as APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum) are left without a unifying message. This should hardly matter, but the absence of a final ... More >>
US Prosecutors Get Busy With Julian Assange
Tuesday, 20 November 2018, 10:29 am | Binoy Kampmark
Those with a stake in the hustling racket of empire have little time for the contrariness that comes with exposing classified information. Those who do are submitted to a strict liability regime of assessment and punishment: you had the information (lawfully ... More >>
The Jerusalem Tangle: ScoMo’s Recognition Policy Stumbles
Friday, 16 November 2018, 12:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Jerusalem, deemed a holy city, and seen as trade item, bargaining chip and bartering tool over the centuries. Sought by the major faiths, despoiled at stages by various empires, revived and chalice of poison in international law. Australia’s Scott ... More >>
The Disgruntled Former Prime Minister
Thursday, 15 November 2018, 2:57 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The disgruntled former prime minister is a rather large, and growing club, on the Australian scene. The country has become known for its killing seasons, those occasions when spear wielding apparatchiks within respective political parties feel the need ... More >>
Convenient Demonologies: Stopping Migrant Caravans
Tuesday, 13 November 2018, 3:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
President Donald J. Trump has been engaged with berating human caravans, a spectacle that might have been odd in another era. At first instance, it all seems fundamentally anachronistic, a sort of history in reverse. It was, after all, the caravan packed ... More >>
Remembering the Peace Makers
Monday, 12 November 2018, 4:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Those in the war industry and the business of commemorating the dead have little time for peace, even as they supposedly celebrate it. For them, peace is the enemy as much as armed opposing combatants, if not more so. Dr Brendan Nelson of the Australian ... More >>
Concepts of Nonsense: Australian Soft Power
Sunday, 11 November 2018, 4:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Soft power was always a term best suited for eunuchs. It relies on persuasion, counsel and an air of seduction. It does not imply actual force as such (often, that side of the bargain is hidden). At its core are the presumed virtues of the product being ... More >>
Ukraine’s Holodomor, Genocide and Intent
Friday, 9 November 2018, 3:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The impression hits you immediately. An opening of an exhibition held to commemorate survivors and families of one of the darker atrocities of human experiments; and it features ample food and wine. The commemorative occasion, however, was in stark ... More >>
Mid-Term Divisions: The Trump Take
Friday, 9 November 2018, 1:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
President Donald J. Trump has a special, strained take on the world. Defeat is simply victory viewed in slanted terms. Victory for the other side is defeat elaborately clothed. Both views stand, and these alternate with a mind bending disturbance that ... More >>
