White Speech, “Other” Speech

I recently finished Randa Abdul-Fattah’s book Coming of Age in the War on Terror that, while limited primarily to broad national conversations and a Sydney-specific context, provided a keen insight into the perceptions of kids who grew up with the “war on terror” following 9/11, particularly Arab and/or Muslim kids. While practically as white as it gets, I also grew up in this context – I was three in 2001, so any notion of a “pre-9/11 world” is foreign to me. But what isn’t foreign is my ability to form and express opinions on these topics, something I can do without any particular consequence (so far – if I’m on any kind of list I’d be honoured to learn about it and laugh). The same cannot be said for those without the privilege of Whiteness.

(Anarchist Federation readers can click here to read at the original source!)

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Human Rights Do Not Exist, But We Can Make Them Exist

One of my current reads coming into the new year is Susie Alegre’s Freedom to Think: Protecting a Fundamental Human Right in the Digital Age. Part one of the book is all I have read so far, a fairly broad history of human thought and expression and the ways in which it has been oppressed or undermined (from religion to advertising). I look forward to seeing how the concepts introduced there are transferred to the modern digital era – in fact, I’ve already read some parts ahead for essays I wrote on privacy last year. Aside from privacy though, the notion of human rights is a pillar of the book, and it’s one I have quite a fundamental disagreement with Alegre over. That is, I don’t believe they actually exist.

(Anarchist Federation readers can click here to read at the original source!)

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My 2023 Reading List

My reading habits this year were a bit different to previous years. Firstly, while I did not read (i.e. finish) as many non-fiction books as I had last year, I did start reading fiction again, mostly at the behest of a friend who had some series she wanted me to read. While I won’t include those here, it’s nice to read stuff about how awful fictional worlds are, rather than how awful the real one is. Second, I probably actually read more material in academic journal articles this year than in books. Can only hope with my degree finished that I don’t lose access entirely to the online library for research… As before, list is in order of when I finished reading each book, and all books are here, not splitting into different parts.

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The Blind Watchdogs: Barriers of State, Capital and Platforms Against Contemporary Journalistic Practice

Journalism and the wider media landscape is often considered an important and fundamental pillar of modern liberal democracies, so much so that it is referred to as the “fourth estate” to ensure checks and balances are met in the halls of power. The ostensible watchdog role of the media has, however, been deeply criticised and questioned, with trust in the media seeming to decline further on a global scale (Edelman, 2023). While much of this distrust of the mass media is likely to be mired under accusations of “fake news” and misinformation – with different applications and meanings depending on which direction they are coming from – those buzzwords have been comprehensively covered since their popularisation during the US elections in 2016. A more critical examination of the media, including its role in society (both proclaimed and actual) and how that is carried out in practice, is perhaps better served by viewing journalistic practice through the lens of the overarching systems of power and connectivity in the current era.

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Everything to Fear: Data and Privacy in the Digital Era

Essay for university arguing against the notion that having nothing to hide means having nothing to be concerned about regarding mass surveillance and data collection. References below.

In debates about privacy, particularly that of the digital realm, there is one argument made with unnerving prevalence against the individual’s right to maintain it. On a policy level, it’s often touted alongside concerns of national security, where the state simply must infringe upon the right to privacy to protect the citizenry. In casual conversation, however, there’s a frightening level of apathy and acceptance of the status quo that has cemented it in the public’s consciousness. It is this:

“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

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The Surveillance of State and Capital and the Collapse of Privacy

An essay on surveillance and data written for university. It was relatively limited around the content of a particular section of the course content, but I took liberties with the approach and by including the commodification of data by the private sector. The premise is that the institutions of state and capital are incapable of ensuring or allowing privacy in an increasingly digitised and data driven world. References are below.

Data collection has become so normalised it is rarely questioned. Big data has been a buzz word for well over a decade, it has been a decade since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of what is essentially the US government’s domestic and international spying via the NSA and various programs, and data has been described by many in the business and tech worlds as the new oil. State and corporate entities have immense power and influence over the modern internet, and dystopian levels of access to personal data. Questions of privacy over security, or privacy over convenience, seem somewhat irrelevant when faced with the question of whether privacy is even possible.

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Australia’s involvement in Chile, 50 Years On

Today marks 50 years since the violent coup in Chile that brought down the democratically elected government of Salvadore Allende and installed a reign of terror under the brutal dictator, and one of Washington’s Latin American sweethearts, Augustus Pinochet. Much has come to light from this sordid affair, with much work done by the National Security Archive and Peter Kornbluh documenting the atrocities committed – and the US role via the CIA to help instigate it. Less known by many until recently, however, is the details of Australia’s involvement under the McMahon and Whitlam governments.

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Plastic World: The Impacts and Possible Solutions to Global Warming’s Sibling Crisis

The following piece is an essay written for my Environmental Politics unit. Rather than staying safe with a topic like climate change, I decided to pick something I’d never properly looked into to research from scratch. Perhaps a mistake for this month’s sanity quota, but I genuinely enjoyed it, there are many references below, and it gave me a new reason to believe we’re irredeemably screwed as a species – nice!

Plastic pollution, along with greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity, has quickly become one of the largest anthropogenic threats to environmental health and stability, including that of human health. According to a European plastics industry body, Plastics Europe, the arguably conservative estimate is that over 390 metric tonnes of plastic was produced globally in 2021 alone, an over 20 metric tonne increase on 2020 when production “stagnated” due to COVID-19 (Plastics Europe, 2022). Despite the report’s positive outlook, it is projected this will double by 2040, with production and waste to both far exceed 1 billion tonnes by 2060 (Hood, 2022).

This essay will begin by exploring just how far spread plastic pollution – particularly micro- and nano-plastics (referred to just as microplastics from here) – is and the effects that has had and will have on land and marine ecosystems. While a lot has been said about plastic pollution in the oceans, most of it originates beyond that, and the long-term effects of microplastics in nature and in human health have only recently become a topic of serious discussion. A brief history of other environmental movements will be given to provide some possible pathways that could be taken. Following that, a few solutions and initiatives will be examined, including the UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution that began negotiations after a resolution for it passed in March of 2022. Some scepticism is warranted regarding the ability (and desire) of state and corporate actors to genuinely commit to a real shift from plastics, which will end the discussion with a brief mention of future possibilities.

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Mis- and Disinformation in Australia and the United States: A Comparison

The following piece is an essay written for my Democratic Politics unit at university. What’s a political science or communications/journalism course without… yet another piece on misinformation on the internet. So I made a point of bashing the media too, you’re welcome! Reference list at the end.

Mis- and disinformation, fake news, propaganda – these are all terms that have recently been rejuvenated in public discourse over the past decade, particularly in the wake of the election campaign (and subsequent electoral victory) of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016. They often have different meanings for different people, can have significant overlap, and (most importantly) are able to be spread by anyone whether they are aware of it or not. The aim of this essay is to compare the prevalence and influence this influx of (mis)information has had on the democratic processes and systems in the United States and Australia, and how their respective systems and institutions have influenced the dissemination of it in return.

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First Impression of A NYT Journalist’s Book

I’ve read the prologue and first chapter of the book This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race, written by Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times. It seemed quite interesting, the blurb talking about zero-day bugs and the global market of hackers and intelligence agencies working to create and defend against them. I hope I’m wrong, perhaps the rest of the book will change my impression, but so far the book very much takes sides through omission and framing.

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