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Keywords: Totalitarian

  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia is neither Christian nor atheist

    • Michael Mullins
    • 20 January 2014
    34 Comments

    The Greens have called for the dropping of the Lord's Prayer from the opening of each day's sitting of federal parliament. Because Australia is not a Christian country, they are right to question the exclusive use of a Christian prayer. But any change should reflect a multi-faith society, not a no-faith society.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The ethics of spying

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 November 2013
    12 Comments

    A minor diversion in the disruption of Australia's relations with Indonesia has been the entanglement of political commentators. Many have wriggled on the hook of their conviction that international relations are an ethics free zone in which the only guiding star is national self interest. But that does not stop them from launching a raft of ethical judgments. It is worth considering on what ethical principles international and national politics might rest.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor's cult of Rudd-hate

    • Ray Cassin
    • 05 April 2013
    29 Comments

    In Orwell's 1984, the daily 'two-minutes hate' sees citizens gather to scream their loathing at images of Big Brother's enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein. The ritual has become so entrenched that what Goldstein is supposed to have said or done has become mostly forgotten and largely irrelevant. So now it is with Rudd.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Film takes sex abuse guilt to the Vatican

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 March 2013
    8 Comments

    Fr Murphy's atrocities include using the confessional as a lair in which to abuse his deaf students. With the Royal Commission already gathering steam, Silence in the House of God warns what revelations may be to come, and reminds those with high hopes for Pope Francis how much work remains to be done.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gina's subpoena threatens press freedom

    • Michael Mullins
    • 18 March 2013
    11 Comments

    During the week, media power brokers portrayed Communications Minister Stephen Conroy as a Stalinist enemy of press freedom. This coincided with an assault on one of its core principles — the protection of journalists' sources — by Gina Rinehart, one of Australia's up and coming media barons. It appears politicians are scared to speak out.

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  • RELIGION

    The Church is not beyond reproach

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 November 2012
    1 Comment

    'Might not the chief problem with Church language in the public square be that we tend to come from a position of moral superiority, approaching those dreadfully compromised politicians who will do anything to be elected? The abuse crisis reminds us that the Church is not irreproachable.' Text from Fr Frank Brennan's presentation at the Anglican Church of Australia's Public Affairs Commission Conference, November 2012.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Life after Hitler

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 20 September 2012
    9 Comments

    How does a German teenager, the daughter of a Nazi perpetrator, face up to the fall of the Third Reich, and the revelation of the regime's true nature? 'It wasn't like the war ended, Hitler committed suicide and everybody stopped loving him,' says Australian-Jewish filmmaker Cate Shortland.

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  • RELIGION

    Confidentiality in the confessional and psychiatrist's rooms

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 August 2012
    19 Comments

    The news that Aurora accused James Holmes had sought psychiatric help may broaden the Australian discussion of the secrecy of confession. The exemption of certain privileged conversations from the duty of disclosure may be justified on the grounds of the public good.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Coalition of the willing targets messenger Assange

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 June 2012
    14 Comments

    The US pursuit of Assange is being played out with the cooperation of other western democracies. Last week a British court rejected his appeal against extradition to Sweden. The UK government could overrule this, as it did for Chilean dictator Pinochet in 1998. But it looks as if they won't repeat the favour for Assange.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What Australia doesn't want East Timor to know

    • Pat Walsh
    • 05 April 2012
    10 Comments

    The famine of 1977–79 cut a swathe through East Timor's civilian population. Having failed to subdue the Timorese, the Indonesian military opted to starve them out. Details from that little-understood period are contained in cables that Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has blocked from public access.

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  • EDUCATION

    Best of 2011: Germaine Greer's Catholic education

    • Gregory Day
    • 06 January 2012
    3 Comments

    In trying to convince my atheist goddaughter to embrace her Catholic schooling, I found an unlikely role model. I'd never thought of Greer as a chip off the old block of a convent education. Now I realised that that's exactly what she was. Published 22 February 2011

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mainstreaming evil

    • Michael Loughnane
    • 11 November 2011
    20 Comments

    Journalist Hannah Arendt noted that Nazi 'desk-murderer' Adolf Eichmann did not lack a moral compass — his conscience simply spoke with the 'respectable voice' of society. The case raises questions about whether we might be 'silent witnesses to evil deeds' in our society today.

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