Menzies versus Evatt

By Anne Henderson (2023) Robert Menzies and Herbert Evatt were both born before Australia was – in 1894 to be exact, in the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales respectively, but they would blossom under the soon-to-be-created Federal Commonwealth. Their natural intelligence and Victorian work ethic set them on the path to success, and to some degree, Australia became the better for their struggle, in that they brilliantly represented, and advocated for, different yet necessary principles and practices of the nation’s democracy. Menzies went to the Victorian bar, and still in short pants lead in the Engineers’ Case (1920),…

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Ring the Division Bell

February 4, 2024 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | American Politics, POLITICS |

Recently, we were sent an interesting take by George Monbiot, published in the Guardian, suggesting the likely Republican nominee for U.S. President this year, Donald Trump, was “king of the extrinsics.”  Now we have expressed concerns about George before, but felt he deserved respectful consideration none-the-less. By ‘extrinsic,’ Monbiot did not mean a “basket of deplorables,” exactly. He wrote: “Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in…

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The Modern Metternich

December 3, 2023 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | American Politics, HISTORY, POLITICS, USA History |

Henry Kissinger (27 May,1923 to 29 November, 2023) Like Klemens Metternich, he’d been a refugee, entered into the realm of international diplomacy early on, and took a realist, conservative view of world order, based on the equilibrium of power and interests. Always a ‘foreigner’ in his adopted country, one could impute to him, after Metternich, the line: “I governed the World sometimes, America never.” Kissinger became a bête noire of the left: for example, Christopher Hitchens wrote an incendiary polemic about him, declaring him guilty of war crimes. One doubts not that Henry cringed when remembering the coup in Chile, the…

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Voicing Doubts

As October 14, Referendum Day, beckons, Australians are asked whether to say “Yes” or “No” to the insertion of a new Chapter (IX) with a single section, s.129, into the Commonwealth Constitution. The key Chapters in the existing Constitution set out the main sources of power, and how that power is balanced, between the Federal Parliament (Chapter I), the Executive Government (Chapter II), the Judicature (Chapter III) and the States that complete our federal system (Chapter V). In Australia’s Federal system, the States have exclusive legislative power over their territories, but the Federal Government can override this by having the…

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Oppenheimer

(Directed by Christopher Nolan) (2023) On 16 July 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated, at a test site named “Trinity”, in New Mexico, USA. It went so well that, on 6 August 1945 at 8.15 am, the US tried it on an actual city: Hiroshima. A blinding flash shot over the city, and then some 100,000 people were vapourised. The morning turned dark; a priest, Father Kleinsorge, wandered in the garden of his mission, dazed and bleeding, to see his housekeeper, Murata-san, crying out “Shu Jesusu, awaremi tamai!” (‘Our Lord Jesus, have pity on us!’).* Of course, President Truman’s…

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