2021 Reading List (Part 1)

13/12/2021

I have not written anything for a while, having gone from taking a short break at the wind down of university and then straight back into work, and thought that I should get a head start on the yearly reading list review. I hope to add another one or two by year’s end, but I am quite happy with the amount I’ve managed to get through this year. List will be in the order I read them with comments looking back over them, and with a few exceptions I would recommend most of them. Also keep in mind the earlier in the year it was the less precise details I’m going to remember about the book, so bear with that.

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Objectivity Requires Evidence and Context

15/09/2021

I’ve written a number of pieces over the years about objectivity, whether that be reporting in the media, the recording and study of history, or relying on science for truth. As usual, something I have read and stuff I have heard puts my own ideas in much clearer language than I have so far achieved, this time in the case of journalism. John Pilger’s 1998 book, Hidden Agendas, that came out the year I was born, basically says truly objective journalism needs one key thing – context.

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Friendlyjordies Tapping at The Mainstream

19/06/2020

While I had a kindling interest in politics before finding the Friendlyjordies channel on YouTube in (I want to say) 2014? It was through him I heard about Noam Chomsky, and from that bizarre link I stumbled into anarchism and that minor interest became a greater focus as the years went by. Created by Jordan Shanks, the Friendlyjordies channel has been a counter to the mainstream media narrative here in Australia, with the clear aim of showcasing Coalition failures and giving a platform to the usually neglected or misconstrued Labor Party (with, you know, actual evidence to support his claims and views). It’s been a long ride, but he’s getting too big to ignore.

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Drew Pavlou and the UQ-CCP Saga

30/05/2020

I first heard of Drew Pavlou, a UQ student Senator, in the height of the Hong Kong protests last year when he made local waves supporting Hong Kong at the University of Queensland’s (UQ) St Lucia campus. This demonstration, as I recall, got a little heated, but I didn’t hear much come of it until recently, with Pavlou reaching an international audience and entering the national discourse. The reason? That protest has since become a small movement of its own against UQ’s connections with the Chinese Communist Party.

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Invoking 1984: Chomsky and Silber

27/04/2020

I always enjoy it when people turn to George Orwell’s 1984 in a debate. It must just be the interviews and videos I stumble across, but in a fair number of them they do so from a position of ignorance about Orwell himself and/or in a way to smear their opposition despite them being the founts of questionable information. Words have always been louder than actions in “democracies”.

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Bernie Sanders and the Movement He Started

18/04/2020

When I first heard of Bernie Sanders near the end of 2015, it was rather exciting. My knowledge of politics (in hindsight) was tragic, particularly regarding the US circus, but I knew enough to understand that Sanders was an upheaval to their “business as usual” manner. Since, he’s run for and dropped out of two Presidential campaigns, bringing together probably the most significant grassroots movement in that country’s history. Now, some of his supporters are turning against him.

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Rethinking Camelot: A Reflection

02/12/2019

Interpretation of Historical Fact

Camelot is the myth that surrounds John F. Kennedy, the hero of the American people during a Presidency cut too short by a malicious assassination that changed America’s and the world’s future forever, specifically in relation to Vietnam and the Cold War. This myth, still peddled by many today, perhaps more so given the growing years between us and the events that took place, is nothing more than that – a collation of numerous accounts that all rely on a complete dismissal of fact.

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Reflecting on Old Reflections: Lenin and the Russian Revolution

23/11/2019

Earlier this year, I read Lenin and the Russian Revolution by Christopher Hill, which was a rather old and small book that is very much an introduction to the revolution and to Lenin himself. At the time I also wrote a couple of pieces on my thoughts about it, thoughts which, with further reading and understanding, are worth revisiting in an exercise of revision. While the general thrust of each of the pieces is still solid, my view of Lenin has changed drastically – for the worse.

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