Search Results: communism
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 23 October 2014
1 Comment
In 1996, US journalist Gary Webb claimed in the San Jose Mercury News that the CIA and US State Department had supported the smuggling of crack cocaine into the US, as a way to help fund Contra rebels against the revolutionary government of Nicaragua during the Reagan era. This 'dark alliance', Webb claimed, contributed significantly to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles, and fuelled the War on Drugs that Regan himself famously escalated.
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RELIGION
- Kevin Donnelly
- 28 August 2014
34 Comments
Growing up in working class Broadmeadows in a Housing Commission estate with a communist father and a Catholic mother – mass on Sunday and the Eureka Youth Movement on Tuesday – taught me first hand about two of the most influential and powerful forces of the 20th century.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
- 16 May 2014
2 Comments
Fraser was a ruthless, conservative political animal who today is one of our most prominent human rights champions. The elder statesman is quite the angry young man in print. He delights in telegraphing his haymakers and following through with a well-placed elbow or two. Put bluntly, Fraser suggests we need to shed our lackey status. 'We need the United States for defence,' he argues, 'but we only need defence because of the United States.'
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AUSTRALIA
- John Falzon
- 27 March 2014
16 Comments
I reject the dystopian vision of an Australia where people experiencing poverty are made to endure expenditure cuts while the people who have the least need for assistance enjoy overly generous tax concessions. From time to time someone comes out of the woodwork and accuses me of being a communist but that's the least of my worries. What worries me is the myth that people living in poverty are to blame for their own situation.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 07 February 2014
15 Comments
'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'. This was George Orwell's parody in Animal Farm of the vicious use of language in communist states. It was one of his memorable depictions of how the absurdities of language not only reflect evil, but also predicate it. Language was a tool of oppression in communist states. In capitalism it is no less vicious.
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RELIGION
- Neil Ormerod
- 17 December 2013
27 Comments
Pope Francis' vision for the church of the poor is now joined to a stinging critique of our globalised economy which promotes a 'new tyranny' of unfettered capitalism and an attack on the 'idolatry of money'. While such language has not been uncommon, buried in the riches of Catholic social teaching, this pope has made it up front and centre stage of his message.
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MEDIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 26 September 2013
64 Comments
The limitations of Marr's account are the obverse of its virtues. It sifts Pell's motives and words but not those of his critics, and simplifies complexities. The details are designed to imply character. Churches are empty or full depending on the needs of the plot; Pell does not speak but booms. If a cock crows in a distant farmyard it crows for the Cardinal alone. This makes for engaging reading, but demands careful judgment.
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INTERNATIONAL
Alluding to his own military style intervention in Kosovo, Bill Clinton warned Obama not to look like a 'wuss' on Syria. Still, Obama's decision to start providing arms to Syrian rebels is an enormous risk. Australia's history of state interventions to tackle Indigenous disadvantage provide surprisingly apt criteria for evaluating the decision.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 23 May 2013
2 Comments
Fr Frank Brennan's keynote address at the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn Clergy Assembly, St Clement's, Gaylong, on 22 May 2013
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RELIGION
- Irfan Yusuf
- 21 January 2013
7 Comments
If Pakistan is to remain a nation with something resembling life and soul, it must protect its minorities. But instead, as with India, it is quietly eviscerating them. It isn't just extremists engaging in the self-harm, it happens at all levels of society. Before long the nation may find itself bleeding to death.
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RELIGION
- Kristina Keneally
- 07 January 2013
35 Comments
Recently Catherine Deveny tweeted that my claim to be a Catholic and a feminist showed I was 'suffering serious cognitive dissonance'. Many gay Christians are confronted by a similar lack of understanding from non-believers who can't understand why they would embrace a Church that rejects them. Friday 8 June
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AUSTRALIA
- Sarah Burnside
- 20 September 2012
9 Comments
BBC director general Mark Thompson turned down a proposal to erect a statue of Orwell on the broadcaster's premises because the writer was 'too left-wing'. But political animals of all stripes have long sought to claim Orwell. His political writing transcends both time and ideology.
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