Author Archives: andrew

Sovereign rights and wrongs

Posted on July 1, 2011 by andrew

14/5/2011: Robert Fisk in The Independent (UK): “Christopher Hill, a former US secretary of state for east Asia who was ambassador to Iraq – and usually a very obedient and un-eloquent American diplomat – wrote the other day that “the … Continue reading →

Posted in By The Way | Leave a comment

Funny and serious

Posted on July 1, 2011 by andrew

As British writer, wit and actor Stephen Fry once said, ‘It is easy to forget that the most important aspect of comedy, after all, its great saving grace, is its ambiguity. You can simultaneously laugh at a situation and take … Continue reading →

Posted in Humour and Democracy | Leave a comment

Unhappy 50th to Amnesty International

Posted on June 27, 2011 by andrew

By Andrew L. Urban After many years of actively and financially supporting Amnesty Australia, I resigned in April 2007 with a heavy heart.  AI’s charter had always been to support and work for the release of non violent prisoners of … Continue reading →

Posted in Organisations And Groups | Leave a comment

Citizens assemblies & Julia Gillard PM

Posted on June 27, 2011 by andrew

By Andrew L. Urban When Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced during the 2010 election campaign that she would establish a Citizens’ Assembly to deliberate on and find consensus for climate change policies, the idea was derided and ridiculed. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Making A Difference | Leave a comment

Policy debates – celebrities should know better

Posted on June 27, 2011 by andrew

By Andrew L. Urban It is generally desirable to have everyone participate in democracy in some way, to maker it truly deliberative, whether by direct contact with local members, letters to the media, active membership in parties and organisations, election … Continue reading →

Posted in Should Know Better | Leave a comment

Democracy and freedom of speech

Posted on June 27, 2011 by andrew

By Andrew L. Urban Democracy is a complex system of governing, unavoidably full of compromises and contradictions. Amongst other things it guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of the press. One can feed into the other. The media can report … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotidian | Leave a comment

The greatest moral challenge of our time … is not climate change

Posted on June 27, 2011 by andrew

By Andrew L. Urban The uncomfortable truth is that Al Gore got it wrong. His urgent call for action on global warming (now it’s called climate change) was turbo-charged with the political slogan that tackling it was the greatest moral … Continue reading →

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Orwell, newspeak and democracy today

Posted on June 27, 2011 by andrew

In George Orwell’s 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, ‘newspeak’ was one of the key tools of the totalitarian State, used to diminish the range of words, hence thoughts, by the citizens. A propagandist language, it is characterised by euphemism, circumlocution and … Continue reading →

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