‘Money/, So they say,’ sing Pink Floyd in Dark Side of the Moon, ‘Is the root of all evil today.’ And money makes the roots of the multipolar world, the power of great states, and the grand illusions of Western dominance in the world.
Tag Archives: politics
Virtual Reality State: news media, power and the Twitter files
If such fundamental deceptions, such as the USA President is ‘a Russian agent’ or Ukraine is ‘the beacon of democracy’, becloud the voting public, how secure are our political institutions, our halls of public reason, or our means of public choice?
On the Renunciation of the Political World – a choice for us all
I wrote this essay on the renunciation of the political world in 2019. It is even more true today as well all face our world we cannot control and choices about how to husband and not derange our minds and the gardens of our culture. I was editing it for my next collection of essays, ThirteenContinueContinue reading “On the Renunciation of the Political World – a choice for us all”
Stockholm Syndrome or Stanford Prison Experiment – Interpreting the 2022 Victorian election
Victoria, like many post-democratic societies of the so-called West, is not a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. It is trapped in a Stanford Prison Experiment.
Two new podcasts on the uses of history in government and decision-making
Episode 63 The Lessons of History – The Burning Archive podcast explores how the past is not dead, the past is not even past. But if that is so, what are the uses and lessons of history? How can history be used for guidance in our lives, and to advise governments on the big decisions that shapeContinueContinue reading “Two new podcasts on the uses of history in government and decision-making”
Two new podcasts on America and Australian Foreign Policy
I have released two new podcasts on the crises in America and the challenges of a multipolar world for Australia.
What if Russia Wins?
So, it seems reasonable at least to ask: what will happen in the West if Russia wins the war in Ukraine?
Flowers of the Mind 25
This debate from a major show in India gives a good insight into how the USA has alienated Indian elites. It is one event in an rushing cascade of intellectual revolt against the Anglo-American world, against the Netflix stream of American thinking about the world, diplomacy, democracy, economics etc. The world is saying: America, look at me, I am the captain now.
Flowers of the Mind 23
A new iron curtain is falling across the “Western” or Anglo-American world. This time curtain is not being brought down by a reincarnated Russian empire. It is being brought down by a failing empire of lies, the media-theatre state of the Global American Empire, spiralling into a dynastic collapse.
Flowers of the Mind 18
Operation Barbarossa and war on the Eastern Front in World War II and its relevance to popular memory and geopolitics. Joint statement of Xi-Putin summit comments on history of WWII. The Anglo-American illusions of Munich: the edge of war. Russophobia and the collapse of Anglo-American diplomacy.
Flowers of the Mind 14
Journalists draft history? The public sphere, Habermas and the post-democratic society. Emmanuel Todd on the tasks ahead for advanced societies. History as a moral art that encounters the living past in an infinite conversation.
Flowers of the Mind 12
Omricon, fear and crowd psychology. Jay Bhattacharya and the catastrophic errors of public health. Grieving memories of Stuart Macintyre. Szymborska on what matters. Paul Kingsnorth on fear, tyranny and the vaccine wars. Elena Shvarts on both hopelessness and hope.
Flowers of the Mind 10
Robert Lowell on George Santayana. The silence of the doctors and the rule of public health. Virus gonna virus. Jordan B. Peterson on saying no to tyranny. The exposure of the RussiaGate and Steele dossier hoax. On prophecy. Bhagavad Gita and the sacrifice of the soul in the fire of the Gods.
Flowers of the Mind 9.
The escapades of the American Imperial War Faction in the Black Sea. Corruption investigation in Victoria, political patronage, branch stacking, Red Shirts and political decay. Rene Girard on scapegoating. Tennyson’s temper of heroic hearts. Regenerated tradition.
Flowers of the Mind 7. Asvina (week 5) 2021
Michael Anton, Machiavelli, and the way. David Starkey, rootedness and Chaucer. Dalai Lama. Jordan B. Peterson and self-transformation. Zbigniew Herbert and dreams.
Flowers of the Mind 3. Asvina (week 1) 2021
Wallace Stevens. COVID zero fanatics. The Novel is dead. Saint Galgano. Louise Glück. How democracies die. Solzhenitsyn.
Podcast #20 Six Asides about the Powerless
Vaclav Havel was a Czech writer and dissident who later became, after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the President of his country. This episode continues the The Burning Archive podcast’s commemoration of his writing, ideas and the model of his way of living in truth remains meaningful to us today. This episode looks at the essays, “The Power of the Powerless” (1978), “Six Asides about Culture” (1984), and “Politics and Conscience” (1984), the memoir, To the Castle and Back, and Havel’s work for a better world after leaving the Czech Presidency in 2003.
Podcast #19 – Vaclav Havel’s Letter to a Locked Down World
This episode of The Burning Archive podcast explores how Havel’s writing, ideas and the model of his way of living in truth remains meaningful to us today. This episode sets out the main events of Havel’s life and the ideas of his political essays. It looks in depth at the “Letter to Gustav Husak” (1975), and its uncanny evocation of aspects of our lives today in a locked down world.
Podcast #18 – After Kabul, the Task Ahead for Australia
The fall of Kabul has raised questions for Australia about the reliability of its alliance with the United States of America. Will the fall of Kabul and the rise of Eurasia provoke the same questioning of foreign policy by Australia?
Letter from Melbourne: mirror to the post-democratic world
Things are very serious here in Australia. There is a mental health crisis. We have endured a state of emergency since March 2020. Normal rules of government decision making have not applied. We have pursued a medical utopia of COVID Zero at stunning cost. It is really something that should never happen again, and hopefully, at the right time in the right way by the right people, will be deeply investigated and reflected on.