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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 98]
Binoy Kampmark: Waking up in Trumpland
Friday, 11 November 2016, 3:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Jake was at the polling station at A La Turca restaurant on Geary Street answering questions and shepherding voters to their respective booths. “I need to speak to you a hundred feet from the polling station.” Expressing overt political opinions, ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Voting American Style
Wednesday, 9 November 2016, 10:28 am | Binoy Kampmark
Propositions, Measures and the Presidency: Voting American Style By Binoy Kampmark San Francisco 8.11.16 More >>
Brexit Stumbling: High Court, British Parliament, Article 50
Tuesday, 8 November 2016, 3:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Parliamentary supremacy in British law and politics is akin to the fetish of the union in the United States. Challenge it at your peril; question it to your misfortune. The point was tested, with rumbling consequences, by the May government in its latest ... More >>
On the Eve of the Vote: Trump Values, Islam and Militias
Tuesday, 8 November 2016, 9:18 am | Binoy Kampmark
The chugging train of fear continues to drone away on the eve of what has been considered one of the most important elections in generations. Mind you, this was the sort of stuff spouted during the campaigns of 2008, when a disgusted electorate washed a ... More >>
Pirate Parties & Transparent Politics: Iceland’s Experiment
Thursday, 3 November 2016, 4:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Getting transparency advocates into parliament and assemblies has proven to be a great challenge in modern politics. Iceland has led on that point, giving the world political punditry much to discuss in the good fortunes of the four-year old Pirate ... More >>
Having a Flutter: The Melbourne Cup & the Australian Gambler
Thursday, 3 November 2016, 4:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
An inspection of the hungry, jostling crowds gathering at the gates of the Flemington Race Course, Melbourne, gives a false sense of colour, order and, dare one venture it, glamour. It is another first Tuesday of the week of November, and the State is ... More >>
The FBI Intervenes: James Comey and Hillary Clinton’s Emails
Wednesday, 2 November 2016, 4:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
All is fair in love and war, and this particular electoral battle in US politics has assumed more belligerent proportions than most. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton genuinely deserve to be in the White House, but elections are rarely fought, ... More >>
The Illusion of Meritocracy: Thomas Piketty in Australia
Tuesday, 1 November 2016, 4:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
No one likes being lectured, and when it comes in the form of Gallic smugness delivered from literally the left of centre, it can grate. The equally smug social engineers and commentators who see their society as an exemplar to emulate find that hardest ... More >>
Nobel Confusion: Ramos-Horta, Trump and World Disorder
Friday, 28 October 2016, 3:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
History should tell us that writing scolding, even scornful letters, to electorates as part of a conversation for persuasion do not work. They are even less effective when coming from outside that electorate, however well-intentioned. Non-voters should ... More >>
Clearing the “Jungle”: The Calais Refugee Operation
Friday, 28 October 2016, 3:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It grew out as an organic consequence of failure – a failure on the part of Europe’s authorities to come to some measure of proportionate and even handed procedures to assess and process desperate refugees who have very little intention of returning ... More >>
Manipulating Uprisings: Hungary 1956 - Binkoy Kampmark
Friday, 28 October 2016, 12:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Magic, and tragic years, tend to fill the calendar of commemoration for central European patriots. There are religious intercessions; guiding symbols; omens. Then there are the calamities, the crushing battles that empty entire classes and countries. More >>
Creepy Clowns and Clownish Creeps: A Global Craze
Saturday, 22 October 2016, 8:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“We live in a country where the Hamburglar can freely walk down the street, but Ronald McDonald can’t.” Twitter post by ‘BH’, Oct 12, 2016. More >>
Trump on rigging - Binoy Kampmark
Friday, 21 October 2016, 3:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Hideousness is only one word that covers the third and last presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But prior to that, as a warm up of mischief, Trump was insisting that he would find accepting a public vote for Clinton hard to stomach ... More >>
Nauru, Refugees and the Torture Complex - Binoy Kampmark
Wednesday, 19 October 2016, 5:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Two items of interest have tickled the airwaves and triggered some commentary over the last few days. The first was an ABC Four Corners program covering the fate of refugees in the detention facility on Nauru, known euphemistically as a “processing ... More >>
Neither War Nor Peace: Shimon Peres, Israel and History
Tuesday, 18 October 2016, 4:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“We learned from the British,” explained the late Shimon Peres in The Guardian in 2011, “what democracy means, and how it behaves in times of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both ... More >>
Demonising Wind Energy in Australia - Binoy Kampmark
Monday, 17 October 2016, 4:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
From the time when energy became a state ambition and the central, almost paranoid platform of security, its messiness became apparent. Energy reserves needed to be controlled; corrupt regimes with access to such resources needed to be placated, ... More >>
Covering, and Exposing, Atrocity - Binoy Kampmark
Monday, 17 October 2016, 1:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Kevin Frost, a special forces sergeant in the Australian Army, has done something unusual. He wishes, even demands, to be tried for his role behind the summary execution of an Afghan prisoner in his captivity during a tour of the country. More >>
No-Fly Zone Madness: Catastrophe and Conflict in Aleppo
Saturday, 15 October 2016, 10:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Tuesday’s House of Commons debate in Britain was filled with the hollow anguish of impotence, fresh with statements about Russian war criminality tossed about like freshly made blinis. Ever easy to point to, Russian support for a regime which Western ... More >>
Risk, Danger and Cricket: The Death of Phillip Hughes
Saturday, 15 October 2016, 10:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“It is abundantly clear that once the tragic accident had occurred, there was nothing that could have been done to prevent Phillip’s [Hughes’] death.” Kristina Stern SC, ABC News, Oct 14, 2016 More >>
Normalising the Brutal - Binoy Kampmark
Friday, 14 October 2016, 3:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There is no getting away from the degradation that is taking place, on colossal scale, in US presidential politics. The sense of two dysfunctional candidates beating each other over the remains of the US republic as it suffers the last paroxysm of what ... More >>
