Friday 20 March 2015

letters 20/3 VC not disappointed

VC not disappointed
Contrary to your report that “vice-chancellors are united in their condemnation of Senate crossbenchers for rejecting the government’s higher education reform package”, I am one vice-chancellor who is not disappointed that the legislation to introduce full-fee deregulation did not pass the Senate (“Senators failed us but there’s hope: unis”, 19/3).
UTS has consistently said that moves to unbridled full-fee deregulation could have a negative effect on equity of access to university. These reforms need close examination; the Senate is right to call for that.
The Senate position reflects the high value the community places on higher education and the concerns I share with students about safeguarding all that makes ours a fair system.
Unlike any other time I can remember, we have a minister dedicated to reform, an opposition and a crossbench committed to a high-quality, affordable and accessible university sector — and students, industry and the community engaged in the discussion.
We now have a golden opportunity to work together to find a model for a sustainable and affordable system that will improve prosperity and wellbeing for all.
Attila Brungs, vice-chancellor, University of Technology, Sydney
University’s values
BY aggressively disrupting a public lecture by Richard Kemp at Sydney University (“Protesters disown their university values”, 17/3), demonstrators deliberately denied the values that universities should stand for — freedom of speech, tolerance of ideas and pursuit of knowledge. And all this encouraged by Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the university.
The university felt compelled to suspend Barry Spurr for his choice of language in private correspondence, so it should demand Lynch’s resignation for bringing the university into disrepute.
Sarah Kalus, Toorak, Vic
JAKE Lynch says that “When I showed banknotes to one of those attending it was in an attempt to convey to her that, if she did not stop physically attacking me and my wife, I would sue her for assault.”
Who do you think you are kidding, Professor Lynch? You are quite aware of the time the Jew-hating actor Vanessa Redgrave was speaking in Los Angeles in 1977 when one protester waved a fistful of dollars and shouted, “Who is willing to rid the world of a Jew-baiter?” It has been a common insult to those of Jewish faith in Europe and Britain ever since.
Chris Moore, Maylands, WA
Elected thanks to Obama
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral victory contained a powerful message to the US from the rest of the world (“Bibi declares historic poll win”, 19/3).
The Israeli people told US President Barack Obama in no uncertain terms that if an ally — in this case Israel — cannot feel confident with the support of an important and close ally, then they will not take the risk and elect a leader who may endanger their security by adopting a softer stance on international issues.
Since coming to power, Obama’s foreign policy has been to sideline the US’s friends and appease its enemies; the lack of confidence this imbues has made the world a much more dangerous place.
Alan Freedman, St Kilda East, Vic

Thursday 19 March 2015

LYNCH, Borecki LETTERS 19/3 - Peace centre farrago

Peace centre farrago
YOUR readers have been misled over events at the meeting at Sydney University with Richard Kemp (“Protesters disown their university values”, 17/3). Contrary to accounts given initially in the Jewish press, I took no part in the demonstration that halted proceedings for about 15 minutes, though I understand its motives.
Neither did I at any point “scream” at anyone. When I showed banknotes to one of those attending it was in an attempt to convey to her that, if she did not stop physically attacking me and my wife, I would sue her for assault. The video evidence now in the public domain entirely supports the account I have given all along.
This whole farrago is a classic case of apologists for Israeli war crimes blaming the victim making it an uncannily accurate microcosm of the conflict as a whole.
Jake Lynch, director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, NSW
I ATTENDED the lecture by Richard Kemp at Sydney University and felt intimidated and threatened by the Socialist Alliance protesters and wacky university lecturers who arrogantly took over the lecture theatre for the sake of their political egos.
There is no doubt that these extremists intended to disrupt the lecture as they bombastically entered chanting slogans with a megaphone.
Everyone in the lecture theatre felt violated by this unruly rabble. Unfortunately they were determined to veto free speech and were not interested in dialogue or an exchange of views — unless they were the only ones who could speak.
It is such a shame because this guest speaker was going to open up the floor for questions. Instead, we were bombarded with a megaphone of mindless, childish rhyming chants.
Eric Borecki, Bellevue Hill, NSW

Tuesday 17 March 2015

RICHARD KEMP: Protesters disown their university values

Protesters disown their university values


Illustration: Sturt Krygsman

Illustration: Sturt Krygsman Source: Supplied

TACTICAL responses to insurgencies by the conventional armed forces of democratic states, and the ethical challenges of fighting an enemy that uses civilians as human shields and as targets, are topics of obvious relevance to Australian foreign ­policy and contemporary inter­national affairs.
I was invited to address these issues at the University of Sydney from the standpoint of my experiences as a commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, Iraq and elsewhere, and as the former head of international terrorism intelligence in the British Cabinet Office for the Joint Intelligence Committee and the national crisis management group, COBRA. As well as being a practitioner, I have studied and written extensively about these matters.
I spoke for about 20 minutes to an audience of about 100 students, academics and guests. A group of about a dozen people then stormed into the lecture theatre and started yelling at me and the audience through a megaphone, accusing me of “supporting genocide”, and trying to shut down the lecture.
The protesters occupied the lecture theatre, intimidated members of the audience and were intent on preventing the exchange of views my lecture was intended to facilitate. Two of the academics then joined them, one of whom I saw badgering an elderly woman who objected to him photographing her on his iPhone. When she tried to push the iPhone out of her face he grabbed her arm forcibly, and appeared to hurt her. When she retaliated physically, the academic — an associate professor — waved a $5 note in her face and the face of a Jewish student.
I heard one of the protesters yell support for the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a vile group that is banned in many countries, whose theo-fascist values seem to me entirely at odds with the progressive values these students claim to support.
I have addressed the UN commission of inquiry on the conduct of the parties to the Israel-Hamas war. I have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation and recognised the extraordinary measures to which Israel has gone to avoid civilian casualties when faced with an enemy that militarises civilian infrastructure and shields its fighters with the bodies of the civilians it claims to defend. US General Martin Dempsey, the highest ranking officer in the US Army, sent a fact-finding team to Israel and concluded the US ­forces had lessons to learn from the measures taken by Israel to spare the lives of Palestinian civilians as far as possible, often at the expense of its own soldiers.
By daring to defend the actions of the Jewish state and condemning Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated terrorist organisations, I was considered fair game for the protesters. This is indicative of a pervasive culture among certain sections of university students and staff in Britain, and clearly in Australia, where to speak objectively about Israel is to court harassment, thuggery and violence. The behaviour of the protesters and the academics was an affront to the core ideals of the university — the freedom to speak, the freedom to assemble and the freedom to engage with ideas and opinions.
This protest had clear anti-­Semitic undertones. The audience was predominantly Jewish and the protesters knew that. Often anti-Semitic abuse and ­hatred is dressed up as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist action. This resonated that way, with vicious shouting and intimidation against a group of Jews and brandishing money around invoking the stereotype of the “greedy Jew”.
As for Associate Professor Jake Lynch, shown to be so adept at conflict with an elderly woman, his value to the university and its students would be enhanced by listening to those who have seen real conflict and have risked their lives to secure peace.
Richard Kemp was commander of British Forces in Afghanistan and headed the international terrorism intelligence team at the British Cabinet Office.

Monday 9 March 2015

Searches related to troy bramston is a socialist

About 10,900 results (0.50 seconds) 

Searches related to troy bramston is a socialist

Looking for the Light on the Hill: Modern Labor’s Challenges...By Troy Bramston


2310 words

BOOKS & ARTS

Why does Labor exist?

18 NOVEMBER 2011
Labor’s search for meaning needs to go beyond the failures of the post-1996 party, writes Frank Bongiorno
Part of the problem? Portraits of former Labor prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (above) at Parliament House, Canberra.
Photo: Bentley Smith/ Flickr
By Troy Bramston 
Scribe | $32.95
UNTIL the early months of 2010, any author approaching a publisher with a proposal to write a book about a crisis in the Australian Labor Party would have had difficulty gaining a hearing. As recently as the period between November 2007 and September 2008, Labor had been in office federally and in all eight states and territories. The most senior Liberal public office-holder in the country was probably the lord mayor of Brisbane. John Howard had been succeeded by Brendan Nelson, who made way for Malcolm Turnbull, who was in turn defeated by Tony Abbott. There was a thriving industry in books about the Liberal Party’s bleak present and uncertain future.
Yet Troy Bramston believes that Labor’s emerging crisis was perceptible even in the hour of victory. Early in his lively new book, Looking for the Light on the Hill: Modern Labor’s Challenges, he gives an account of the disappointment felt by many of the true believers at Kevin Rudd’s execrable election night victory speech in 2007. As Bramston adds pointedly, “it would be a sign of things to come.” Labor’s share of first-preference votes at that election, at around 43 per cent, was the second-lowest the party had ever attracted while still winning. For Bramston, this decline reflects the failures of “Labor’s lost decade” from 1996 until 2007, when it distanced itself from the successful Hawke and Keating legacy while neglecting party renewal. Labor’s crisis today, he says, is primarily one of identity and leadership. A once proud and well-led party animated by a clear sense of purpose has given way to a fearful and poorly led crew.
Bramston’s views should be taken seriously. A Labor insider, he was employed as Rudd’s speechwriter during 2007 – although he was not the author of that election night speech – and he has also worked for many years as a staffer for other Labor MPs in both opposition and government. But unlike many of those who make careers in the offices of Labor politicians, Bramston also has a deep knowledge of party history. In this sense, he is a commentator in the best traditions of the NSW Labor Party, which has long seemed to take its history and traditions more seriously than state branches have elsewhere. Looking for the Light on the Hill is crammed with references to the party and leaders of yesteryear; in comparison, the modern party is often found to be wanting. This gives the book a slightly nostalgic quality, but one mitigated by Bramston’s conviction that party renewal means taking inspiration from the past rather than reliving it.
Bramston’s method is to extract from Labor history what he sees as the essential and continuing goals, and then to argue for a reconstruction of the party’s mission around them. On the whole, a party that allowed itself to be guided by the renovated objective that Bramston outlines in his book would do Australia much good. It includes economic and social justice, environmental sustainability, equality of opportunity, nation-building, “creative and innovative diplomacy,” and the promotion of rights and liberties. And when he begins to explain how these broad goals might translate into specific policies, his commitment to a just and humane politics could not be clearer.
All the same, there is too little sense here of the historical contingency of most definitions of what the Labor Party stands for. Bramston quotes Susan Ryan, the former Hawke government minister: “Why does Labor exist? It has only been in recent years that we have needed to ask the question. A generation ago, and right back to our founding at the end of the nineteenth century, we knew the meaning and purpose of Labor. Labor is a social-democratic party.” But there were remarkably few true believers who would have thought to call Labor a “social-democratic party” before the 1970s. In the Australian context, “social democracy” seems to have emerged around then or a little later as a way of distinguishing the ambitious program of the Whitlam government – its gestures towards universalism in welfare provision and its embrace of the concerns of the new social movements, for instance – from old-style Labor’s supposedly narrower concern with how many “bob” a man got in his pay packet.
Similarly, most Labor people would not until recently have called themselves “centre-left.” I can’t remember hearing this term until the last few years and presume it is of fairly recent – and probably British or North American – coinage. Even “progressive,” another word Bramston favours, was probably insignificant until recently. It was used by the Victorian Labor Party, which called itself the “Progressive Political League” for a couple of years in the 1890s, but Victorian Labor was at that stage essentially a wing of the Liberal Party. Western Australian Labor also used it briefly, but it might not have been widely applied to the Labor Party again until it was picked up by Australian admirers of Tony Blair and the Third Way in the late 1990s.
IN ITS British context, the term was intended to present New Labour as the heir to the best traditions of English liberalism, with Blair as a latter-day Gladstone. In Australia, “progressive” has more often functioned as a means by which the Labor right, especially in New South Wales, could identify itself as something more noble than a machine for dispensing jobs and favours or a pathway into the lucrative world of private sector employment. “Part of the problem with Labor,” former NSW and national party secretary Karl Bitar told Bramston, “is that by the time many of our politicians and officials reach senior positions of power, they are no longer driven by the core policy values which brought them to be involved in politics in the first place.” Bitar is now employed as a lobbyist for James Packer’s gambling empire.
For at least a decade, Bramston has been a persistent critic of Labor’s socialisation objective – that is, of its formal commitment to “the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields.” He believes that the socialist objective should be dropped largely for two reasons. In the first place, socialism is a discredited ideal, and the socialisation objective no longer reflects the actual goals of party members. It is therefore a barrier to the kind of rethinking of its mission in which the party needs to engage. This position is defensible, although I also have sympathy with John Faulkner’s comment, quoted by Bramston: “It is a very long time since the socialist objective has won or lost Labor a vote in an election.” Most electors would not even know of the objective’s existence. As Bramston shows, Labor has quite a lot of problems at the moment; is it wise to alert the ignorant to something most see as an irrelevance?
Bramston’s analogy with Tony Blair’s successful effort to remove the British Labour Party’s famous Clause IV seems to me off the mark. Adopted in 1918, not long before its Australian counterpart took on its socialisation objective, Clause IV committed the British Labour Party to the “common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.” The context of Blair’s 1994 assault on this goal was totally different from the situation faced by the Australian Labor Party today. The Conservatives had been in office for fifteen years, the Labour Party had moved well to the left, especially under Michael Foot, and there were concerns about radical groups within the party, such as the Militant Tendency, which had recently been active in the anti–poll tax campaign. It would be an exaggeration to call Blair’s success in persuading the party to discard Clause IV as a tragedy. But the attempt to repeat it in Australia in 2011 might well be a farce.
Bramston also believes that the objective should be dropped because Labor is not and has never been a socialist party. But socialists have clearly been a presence in the Labor Party from the jump, and socialism made its mark on Labor’s way of viewing the world. Bramston is right to point out that there has always been much confusion about the meaning of socialism. But much the same might be said of “social liberalism,” “social democracy” and “labourism,” which he believes to form an amalgam that has constituted Labor philosophy over the last 120 years.
Whatever else they have disagreed about, socialists have usually believed in a more equal society. It is striking that when Bramston discusses “equality” in this book he seems to be referring primarily to equality of opportunity, a goal that Tories in both Britain and Australia usually find themselves able to endorse. Yet until the 1980s, one of the guiding principles of the Labor Party was surely that a more equal society was better than a less equal one. Here was part of socialism’s legacy for Labor, whose goal of greater equality was more ambitious than mere meritocracy. But the idea of equality began to break down in the 1950s and 1960s as mass consumerism offered ever wider circles of people easier access to a large range of desirable goods. By the early 1970s, in the context of continuing affluence, Whitlam was defining equality as equal access to government services – a noble goal, but one that evaded the problem of inequalities that did not have their basis in unequal access to public goods. By the 1980s, Labor leaders such as Hawke and Keating were no longer at all interested in arguments about how the economic cake was divided up, so long as it was sufficiently large to ensure that enough crumbs fell the way of the disadvantaged, either “naturally” or with a little help from government.
THAT was not the only “break” that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Labor’s strong support for White Australia gave way to non-discrimination and Asian engagement. Labor’s hard nationalism was replaced by a softer version closely aligned with multiculturalism. The party’s traditional support for the patriarchal family sustained by a male breadwinner’s wage gave way to acceptance and then an embrace of double-income families and gender equality. The traditional Labor preference for public ownership of major utilities and enterprises was superseded by a mania for privatisation. Support for high levels of spending gave way to austerity and balanced budgets. A powerful strain of sexual puritanism and moral conservatism decayed in the face of a rights agenda that may well soon extend to gay couples wishing to marry.
Like Bramston, I welcome many if not all of these changes. But my point is that if we are to find an answer to why a prime minister with the intellect of Kevin Rudd quickly found himself all over the shop, or why a politician as accomplished as Julia Gillard cannot find a register in which to address the nation, or why the Labor Party for the last generation has been unable to build up a coherent narrative about where it wishes to take the country, we might well need to look beyond the failures of the post-1996 Labor Party. We need to look harder at those dramatic changes in the very era of Labor achievement that Bramston celebrates. They have combined with deindustrialisation and globalisation to detach Labor from those 40 per cent of voters who used to stick by it hail, rain or shine.
Bramston nonetheless offers an astute diagnosis of the ills afflicting the modern Labor Party, as well as some ways in which the party might set about trying to resolve its problems. On some matters, such as his advocacy of a parliamentary leader elected by rank-and-file members (along the lines of arrangements in the British Labour Party I discussed in Inside Story in August 2010), he moves well beyond the recommendations of the review carried out after the last federal election by John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks. He opposes a close relationship with the Greens; the compact the Gillard government signed with them is for him both a symptom and a cause of the identity crisis.
On the relationship of the party to the union movement, he is more cautious than Rodney Cavalier, who wants a massive reduction in union power so as to end union control of Labor. Bramston argues for retaining affiliated unions and even expanding union involvement in the party by providing, for example, more opportunities for unaffiliated bodies to participate. He does recognise that any significant effort to empower ordinary party members will come up against the obstruction of powerful vested interests, such as union bosses, faction leaders, sitting MPs and those who eventually wish to take their places. But he doesn’t really offer a way around this problem. Perhaps his failure to do so is consistent with his position that internal party reform matters less than sorting out the serious deficits in leadership and identity.
In this, Bramston is perhaps a creature of his culture and our time. Labor was founded as a radical democratic party; so much so that the first NSW Labor caucus didn’t even choose a leader, preferring a committee of management. The Labor Party has venerated its leaders but also been highly suspicious of them. Yet Bramston looks to the party leadership, not to the rank and file, for a solution to the problem of identity.
This is all quite understandable, for the rank and file is almost gone. But it might be that a party that needs to look to its leaders – professional politicians – for a sense of who it is, what it wants, and where it’s going, has already lost the battle. •
Frank Bongiorno teaches history at the Australian National University.
This article has been amended to include a correction in the reference to Rodney Cavalier (see author's note below).

6th


  • Avatar


    I can understand self hating Jews like Schakowsky and Cohen despicable behavior. I could never understand Herzog's thinking. Is he that stupid who can't see Iran's existential threat to Israel. Or he is so power hungry willing to jeopardized Israel survival?.
    It's time for Jews all around the world to realized that Hussein O's goal is to destroy Israel.


      • Avatar


        Herzog is clearly a power hungry individual whose thirst for power trumps all other issues-even including the survival of the state he wishes to lead.


          • Avatar


            He pales into transparency when compared to Livni.
            I truly hope and pray the left does not accede to power. :o


              • Avatar


                And a disgrace to the family name. His grandfather Isaac was a scholar and pre-state Israel's first Chief Rabbi. His father Chaim was a leading ambassador and defender of Israel. Today's Herzog is just a selfish political hack.


                • Avatar


                  You need to do your homework big time!


                    • Avatar


                      NO !!!!!! YOU need to do yours-----and quickly !!!!


                        • Avatar
                          This comment was deleted.

                          • Avatar


                            You are a really ignorant poster and shameless at that.


                              • Avatar


                                Do your homework and you will see that what I have posted is true Start here! Do your research!
                                Christian centre torched in Jerusalem
                                Israel News.Net Thursday 26th February, 2015
                                A Christian seminary building in Jerusalem was torched and anti-Jesus slurs were spray-painted on its walls early Thursday in, what the police suspect, a hate crime attack by far-right Jews.
                                A spokesperson for the fire services said firefighters arrived at the scene near Jerusalem's Old City at around 4 a.m. and extinguished the blaze, Xinhua news agency reported.
                                No injuries were reported but the building, which belongs to the Greek-Orthodox church, was damaged. Racist graffiti were spray-painted on a wall.
                                The building is situated on Mount Zion across from the Old City, one of the areas most prone to the so-called "price tag" attacks.
                                Dozens of hate crimes by Israeli extremists have taken place in the area, including assaults and spitting attacks on Christian clergymen and vandalism of churches, cars and tombs.
                                "Price tags" are attacks perpetrated by far-right Jews against Palestinians' property or religious sites, including mosques and Christian churches, in response to Palestinian violence or, alternatively, to Israeli government moves that are perceived as a threat to the expansion of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
                                The latest incident came a day after a mosque in the West Bank village of Jab'aa near Bethlehem was set on fire. According to Palestinian reports, settlers entered the mosque overnight and sprayed hate graffiti on the walls, including "Revenge" and "We want redemption of Zion".

                                  see more

                                • Avatar


                                  Christians in the Middle East are *only* safe and thriving in Israel. As to Ethiopian Jews, I met one of them just last week. She was an officer in the IDF and is completing an engineering degree at the Technion.


                                    • Avatar


                                      We shall not and therefore, I'm not playing your game !!


                                        • Avatar


                                          Israeli liberal journalist Isak Letz has chronicled numerous instances of Orthodox Jewish groups becoming increasingly active in their opposition to Jews converting to Christianity, including violent acts against converts. These attacks often go unpunished by Israeli authorities.
                                          In general, Christian missionaries limit proselytism in Israel due to Christian Zionist beliefs, and many believe reports of proselytism made by Orthodox Jewish groups are exaggerated as a pretext to attack Christians in the region…
                                          A frequent complaint of Christian clergy in Israel is being spat at by Jews, often Haredi yeshiva students. Even Christian ceremonial processions have been alleged to have been spat at, with one incident near the Holy Sepulchre causing a fracas which led to the destruction of the Armenian Archbishop’s 17th-century cross.
                                          The Anti-Defamation League has called on the chief Rabbis to speak out against the interfaith assaults. One Christian complained that the spitting was “almost a daily experience.”.
                                          Clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem have said that they are all victims of harassment, and that while most incidents are ignored, when they complain, the police don’t usually find the perpetrators.
                                          Father Goosan, Chief Dragoman of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, stated that, “I know there are fanatical Haredi groups that don’t represent the general public, but it’s still enraging. It all begins with education. It’s the responsibility of these men’s yeshiva heads to teach them not to behave this way.
                                          In May 2008, hundreds of New Testaments were burned in Or Yehuda, Israel after having been collected by the Deputy Mayor who described the material as “Messianic propaganda” and then claimed that the books were burned by three Yeshiva students. In May 2009 a Russian orthodox church in Northern Israel was showered with stones thrown by yeshiva students, injuring many of the congregation.
                                          In 2009 a church in Israel was vandalized. Messages such as “We killed Jesus” and “Christians out” were written on it, as well as “Fuck off” which was adorned with a Star of David. Churchmen at the site also stated that the church doors are urinated on almost every day.
                                          In 2012 a Greek Orthodox Christian monastery near Jerusalem was defaced with “Death to Christians”, and “Greeks out” slogans. Jerusalem’s Christian community was said to feel increasingly under assault.

                                            see more

                                            • Avatar


                                              Christian centre torched in Jerusalem
                                              Israel News.Net Thursday 26th February, 2015
                                              A Christian seminary building in Jerusalem was torched and anti-Jesus slurs were spray-painted on its walls early Thursday in, what the police suspect, a hate crime attack by far-right Jews.
                                              A spokesperson for the fire services said firefighters arrived at the scene near Jerusalem's Old City at around 4 a.m. and extinguished the blaze, Xinhua news agency reported.
                                              No injuries were reported but the building, which belongs to the Greek-Orthodox church, was damaged. Racist graffiti were spray-painted on a wall.
                                              The building is situated on Mount Zion across from the Old City, one of the areas most prone to the so-called "price tag" attacks.
                                              Dozens of hate crimes by Israeli extremists have taken place in the area, including assaults and spitting attacks on Christian clergymen and vandalism of churches, cars and tombs.
                                              "Price tags" are attacks perpetrated by far-right Jews against Palestinians' property or religious sites, including mosques and Christian churches, in response to Palestinian violence or, alternatively, to Israeli government moves that are perceived as a threat to the expansion of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
                                              The latest incident came a day after a mosque in the West Bank village of Jab'aa near Bethlehem was set on fire. According to Palestinian reports, settlers entered the mosque overnight and sprayed hate graffiti on the walls, including "Revenge" and "We want redemption of Zion".

                                                see more

                                      • Avatar


                                        Right on Caroline ! Man, are you on the mark.