Screen vs Life

There are 2 very big problems that are becoming glaringly obvious at Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). First, is it’s clearly partisan reporting on political news. Second, its political partisanship is explicitly racist and bigoted. Take for example SBS's representation, or lack thereof, of Candice Owens. Owens is a black female political activist in the US who rose to fame on social media when her satirical video on coming out as conservative went viral. She has since teamed up with conservative heavy weights such as Turning Point USA and PragerU to launch a career as a political activist and pundit. Most notably, Owens the brainchild of Blexit , a movement that aims to educate black Americans about how politicians exploit black American concerns to gain their vote, and encourages them to ‘exit’ the democratic party.  Even if you disagree with her politics, Owens is indisputably an independent, strong, articulate, black woman, w...

Dutifully and begrudgingly masked up to run necessary errands in Coburg, I regularly encounter fellow Melbournian’s with their masks around their chins chugging on their cigarette as though their life depended on it. And I don’t say this to complain of loopholes in Melbourne’s emergency laws, or to demand tougher penalties for those not properly wearing their masks. If you want to smoke while wearing your mask as an ankle bracelet, I couldn’t give a monkey’s left testicle. I do however highlight this particular type of encounter because it highlights the ludicrous principle underpinning mandatory masks. We must wear masks, we are told, to protect others . Because masks limit opportunities of unknowingly spreading coronavirus - not catching coronavirus - the principle is that we take responsibility for the health of others . In fact, it is selfish to speak of personal responsibility for one’s own health. And as Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton is fond of repeating, taking re...

There has been a discernible change in Melbourne, and not for the better. As I smile at fellow customers in the super market, or greet neighbors as I walk down my street very few people greet or smile back. In fact, it would seem that most people have decided that it is too scary to even make eye contact lest THE COVID leaps from my body and into their eyeballs. Only a week ago, while careful to maintain their distance, strangers still smiled at each other and joked about the strange times that we had come to live through. So why the change? Whether or not you agree with the recent measures taken by Daniel Andrews’ Government in Victoria, there are a few rhetorical strategies utilized by this government, and indeed, the mainstream media, to galvanize support for the return to lockdown, and which is successfully driving a wedge between citizens, neighbors and families.   Take for example oft repeated phrase that our medical workers are “on the frontline”. What does it mean to insist...

Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is the nation’s multicultural public broadcaster, and as such, its core mandate is to “inform, educate and entertain all Australians, and in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society” ( SBS Charter  ).  Like other public broadcasters, Britain's BBC and Australia's ABC for example, SBS was instituted as a public sphere, the function of which is to uphold liberal democratic values by providing a forum of free speech within which everyone can debate matters of collective importance, as equals, irrespective of their political views. In principle, the explicit multicultural mandate of SBS recognized that such equality had not historically been afforded to those with non-English speaking backgrounds, and attempted to rectify this lack of access to the public sphere by featuring non-white faces and voices.  Yesterday, I read a couple of articles circulated by SBS on Facebook which seems to indicate that the ...

Only days ago, I had a conversation with a friend who stated that violence was a reasonable response to the ideas expressed by Milo Yiannopoulos. The violent protests that have since erupted at Berkley University to prevent Milo from giving his final talk on his extremely successful “Dangerous Faggot” tour, indicates that many others on the progressive left believe that this is a perfectly reasonable position. As elaborated in my previous post What’s so bad about Nazism?, it is my opinion that meeting ideas with violence is a fundamentally fascist tactic which creates the climate of fear and oppression that protestors claim to be fighting against. There are three more points about Milo that need to be made in order to develop a bit more clarity about the issues at stake in the Berkeley riots. 1. The mainstream media and opponents of Milo consistently describe him as far right. This may well be true of many of the opinions that he is known for, however, the fundam...

What is it about Nazism that people find so abhorrent? What are those elements of Nazism that we recognize in the words and actions of the politically empowered that make us rise up and say “no more”? Is it the harsh lesson of how quickly the forked tongue of a charismatic leader can whip up support to condemn a whole race of people to extermination? Is it the uncanny ability to identify the next despot, paving his or her road to political victory by spinning tales of unearned wealth and privilege accruing to an elite minority? Both sides of the contemporary political spectrum increasingly invoke Hitler to raise the alarm about the imminent danger of the next fascistic regime. It is however, towards the left that I pitch this question, because the Hitler-Nazi-Fascist triad has largely been invoked by the left to foreground the re-emergent politicization of race, and valorization of racism. And while I certainly do not condone racism I believe that this focus is detriment...

Dear Carolyn, As Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th US president tomorrow I am reminded of what I have lost in the build up to the 2016 election.  It is odd that we are no longer friends given that as an Australian I have no direct stake in the US politics. But you, as a recently naturalized citizen and ten-year resident of California, are directly affected. I knew when you sent me that message that you were trying to find out if I needed to be cut like a cancer from your life. You asked for photos of family, for updates on work, on life more generally, and what I thought about the upcoming US election. My response to this last question was deliberately vague. But in the end I didn’t keep secret my political leanings. As I daily witnessed a Facebook feed awash with pro-Hillary, pro-socialist propaganda, posted by you, posted by just about everyone one else I knew and worked with, it felt necessary to also start sharing the bits of news and information that I h...