Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy
By Lindsay Tanner
Scribe, 2011
232 pages, $32.95 (pb)
Lindsay Tanner, the former finance minister in the federal Labor government, laments in his book, Sideshow, the rotting core of democracy in Australia that plumbed its most dismal depths in the lacklustre, “non-of-the-above” elections of 2010.
The commercial media, he says, have been responsible for dumbing down the quality of political debate and sapping the level of popular political engagement.
There is much in Tanner’s critique that is accurate.
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This is a full video coverage of Noam Chomsky's address to Occupy Boston protesters on Oct 22, 2011 by a NewsParticipaton.com citizen reporter.
The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released the statement below on October 23.
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A Burmese refugee in detention two weeks short of two years began a roof top protest at the Darwin detention centre Sunday night, 23 October.
Occupy Melbourne released the statement below on October 24.
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Occupy Melbourne will today write to the Victorian Ombudsman calling for an investigation into at least 43 documented instances of police violence against peaceful demonstrators, including children, during the morning raid of October 21.
Occupy Melbourne have welcomed Robert Doyle’s concern for public safety and have again called on the Lord Mayor to support a full inquiry into the events of Friday 21 October where riot police were deployed against peaceful demonstrators.
Tim reads out our first statement endorsed by the consensus of the General Assembly.
The Darwin Asylum Seekers Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) released the statement below on October 23.
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The Darwin Asylum Seekers Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) today called on the federal government to learn from the humanitarian disaster that is the Northern Immigration Detention Centre (NIDC) and abandon its plans to open a new 1500 bed detention centre at Wickham Point, 35 kilometres south-east of Darwin.
Indonesian army forces brutally attacked the Papuan national conference in Abepura on October 19. The conference was attended by up to 20,000 people discussing West Papua's struggle for independence from Indonesia.
WestPapuaMedia.info said on October 21 that local sources confirmed six people were killed. New Matilda.com reported on October 20 an account from a priest who saw a truck full of arrested people who were “covered with blood” and had been “beaten and shot”.
An estimated 2.4 million Kenyans are facing food insecurity this year.
One cause is poor rains, which have affected all of north-east Africa and are probably at least partially the result of climate change. Another is the rising cost of imported food.
Rising food costs are also partly caused by climate change, but also by speculation. For the finance industry, food is just another commodity to be bought, sold or hoarded to generate the most profits.
After being delayed by three months, the official campaign for Tunisia's constituent assembly began on October 1, paving the way for the October 23 elections.
More than 80 different parties, many formed or legalised since the overthrow of dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, and about 1500 different lists vyed for a place in the 218-member assembly.
The barriers to renewable energy are many. It’s not just a matter of the draconian new Victorian laws against wind farms — the legacy of government support for fossil fuels also hangs heavily over the renewables sector.
On October 16, Kenyan forces entered southern Somalia. The invasion is aimed against the Islamist militia al Shabaab. It is in response to a recent rise in cross-border kidnappings of Westerners, with four abducted in the past month.
Kenya is not the only regional country with soldiers in Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991. An African Union force of 9000 Ugandan and Burundian troops has been in the country since January 2009, when it replaced an Ethiopian force.
AU troops have launched their own offensive against al Shabaab.
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