Condorcet

Nice.

edit: for those who aren't aware

Yeah, dismal job from the ABC this time. If you want a better account with quotes, there was one shared here.

Further details: the USyd student magazine's article on this.

Perhaps there's a new market for crystal cases then.

This is straight from a think tank commentary site (their words).

ASPI was established by the Australian Government in 2001 and is partially funded by the Department of Defence

The following copypasted from Wikipedia:

In 2020, Myriam Robin in the Australian Financial Review identified three sources of funding, in addition to the Department of Defence. ASPI receives funding from defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Thales Group and Raytheon Technologies. It also receives funding from technology companies such as Microsoft, Oracle Australia, Telstra, and Google. Finally, it receives funding from foreign governments including Japan, Taiwan and the Netherlands.

For the 2019-2020 financial year, ASPI listed a revenue of $11,412,096.71. The ASPI received from the Australian Department of Defence 35% of its revenue, 32% from federal government agencies, 17% from overseas government agencies, 11% from the private sector, and 3% from the defense industries. Finally, it receives funding from foreign governments including Japan, Israel, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

So it's important to understand the article with that bias in mind - this is sponsored content.

About 1,000 people at the CPAC conference in Brisbane also heard the former Conservative party leader blame the “unelected Bank of England”

Demanding elections for businesses? That's sounds a bit like socialist rhetoric, Comrade Liz!

Truss said that while many were campaigning against conservatives, “the public” was on their side.

Ahh, the 'silent majority' routine! It's funny how the article has to constantly use scare quotes when repeating all these nebulous spooky concepts like 'the argument' and 'the public'. What argument? Which public? The publics which voted out 'conservative' parties in Britain and Australia?

The problem is the disproportionate force. The police should not be using those weapons. If an officer panicking goes this badly, we shouldn't be blaming that officer or the protest. The problem is that police were firing bullets into a protest, at all. That this was a plan they had on the table for this situation, and they're clearly happy with this plan.

[Premier Jacinta Allan] also defended the state government's sponsorship of the Land Forces conference, and said delegates attending the event had the right to gather.

"Any industry deserves the right to have these sort of events in a peaceful and respectful way."

When your industry is undeniably dedicated to murder and maim, you don't deserve peace (or, for that matter, respect).

Rubber bullets are especially concerning. Many of us saw the damage they did to journalists and protestors who were shot with them in the US protests by police a few years ago.

Seriously, watching that interview is a little painful with all the interrupting to try and railroad the conversation, and attaching weird attacks and assertions to make loaded questions, or rather, framing a claim as a question. I haven't seen it so bad outside of Faux News in the US.

Glad to hear Max got a quick mention of the Green Bans of the BLF in.

Both US athletes intended to bring black gloves to the event, but Carlos forgot his, leaving them in the Olympic Village. It was Peter Norman who suggested Carlos wear Smith's left-handed glove. For this reason, Carlos raised his left hand as opposed to his right, differing from the traditional Black Power salute.

Classic "no worried, she'll be right" attitude, Pete.

I haven't really thought about this much, because military commemoration is just normal here and I thoughtlessly assumed it was similar around the world. And I didn't really consider how unnecessarily big many of them are. Sure, it's easy for me to point to the US and say 'that's what real military worship is!' but you're right that there are many reminders of war around, most obviously the monuments in parks and national ceremonies (ANZAC Day, Remembrance Day). You mention that you have a foreign background; do you mention this because the monuments are not normal where your background is, or is it because our wars are offensive and seem atrocious to have statues for?

It's important to understand the intended purpose of many of these as similar to a gravestone, it's meant to be a respectful reminder of the town's loss rather than glorifying war, like Aussiemandeus said it's the towns wanting future generations to be aware of their town's sacrifice for the war effort. However, there is also the fact that national ceremonies are sometimes used as propaganda to glorify wars of invasion or imply they were all honourable: the only one of those ANZAC wars where Australia was actually invaded was WWII (various attacks), all the others were joining political allies (first UK, then US) in other continents in imperialist wars, and in many of the wars they were clearly invasive and Australia's participation should be denounced (including the Korean War, Vietnam War and Middle Eastern conflicts).

So while I can tolerate (critically) the community monuments commemorating dead soldiers, especially those built after WWII when sacrifice was in the self-defense of the country, we must also be critical of those trying to glorify war and imperial conflicts, just as we should be critical of those who glorify or trivialize the colonial invasion of this continent.