The Daily News

Australia pulls out of Afghanistan

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared Australia will withdraw its remaining 80 troops from Afghanistan by September, marking the end of its longest involvement in a war. This follows President Joe Biden announcing the United States will leave Afghanistan by September. The path to this point has appeared inevitable for years. Ten years ago, journalist Karen Middleton highlighted the futility of the counterinsurgency campaign in her aptly-titled book, An Unwinnable War. High hopes dashed Back in 2001, it all seemed so different. Only weeks after the September 11 attacks, Australian special forces deployed to southern Afghanistan alongside US, Canadian, British and other NATO troops to defeat al-Qaeda, who was hosted by the then-Afghan government, known as the Taliban. After dusting off their boots and leaving in early 2002, Australian forces were drawn back in 2005 with a special forces task group. This was followed by an engineering reconstruction task force that over time morphed into a mentoring task force, intended to help the Afghan national security forces establish law and order. But without a clear strategy for effective governance and widespread corruption, the Taliban returned with a vengeance. The mentoring created opportunities for so-called “green on blue” attacks, which contributed to the deaths of a number of Australians. By 2014, 41 Australian soldiers had been killed. Many understandably wondered: was it worth it? Australia’s niche approach Australian politicians and policy makers were always risk-averse about the commitment. Eager to avoid casualties on the scale of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War (where 500 Australians were killed), successive governments opted to make niche contributions that relied on critical support and leadership from US and other allies. But never wanting to manage everything itself left Australia vulnerable. For example, Australia handed detainees to Afghan authorities who, soon enough released them. Some of these, it appears, ended up fighting against Australians again. With special forces, in particular, undertaking rotation […]

The Firm

The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business by Duff McDonald The story of McKinsey & Co., America’s most influential and controversial business consulting firm, “an up-to-date, full-blown history, told with wit and clarity” (The Wall Street Journal). If you want to be taken seriously, you hire McKinsey & Company. Founded in 1926, McKinsey can lay claim to the following partial list of accomplishments: its consultants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological change to the nation’s best organizations; they remapped the power structure within the White House; they even revolutionised business schools. In The New York Times bestseller The Firm, financial journalist Duff McDonald shows just how, in becoming an indispensable part of decision making at the highest levels, McKinsey has done nothing less than set the course of American capitalism. But he also answers the question that’s on the mind of anyone who has ever heard the word McKinsey: Are they worth it? After all, just as McKinsey can be shown to have helped invent most of the tools of modern management, the company was also involved with a number of striking failures. Its consultants were on the scene when General Motors drove itself into the ground, and they were K-Mart’s advisers when the retailer tumbled into disarray. They played a critical role in building the bomb known as Enron. McDonald is one of the few journalists to have not only parsed the record but also penetrated the culture of McKinsey itself. His access puts him in a unique position to demonstrate when it is worth hiring these gurus—and when they’re full of smoke.

High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out

by Amanda Ripley When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people. High conflict, by contrast, is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the normal rules of engagement no longer apply. The brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free. Our journey begins in California, where a world-renowned conflict expert struggles to extract himself from a political feud. Then we meet a Chicago gang leader who dedicates his life to a vendetta—only to find himself working beside the man who killed his childhood idol. Next, we travel to Colombia, to find out whether thousands of people can be nudged out of high conflict at scale. Finally, we return to America to see what happens when a group of liberal Manhattan Jews and conservative Michigan corrections officers choose to stay in each other’s homes in order to understand one another better. All these people, in dramatically different situations, were drawn into high conflict by similar forces, including conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries. But ultimately, all of them found ways to transform high conflict into something good, something that made them better people. They rehumanised and recategorised their opponents, and they revived curiosity and wonder, even […]

The importance of press freedom

The importance of a free press to a thriving democracy is well-known. But what is its importance to a thriving economy? Attacks on press freedom – such as jailing journalists, raiding their homes, shutting down printing presses, and using libel laws to thwart reporters – have measurable effects on economic growth. Countries that recorded a decrease in press freedom also experienced a 1%-2% drop in real gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Economies may not bounce back Institutions that uphold a “rule of law” are strongly associated with stronger economic performance. Most significantly is the long-term economic impost of undermining a free press. Freedom House’s own research suggests “press freedom can rebound from even lengthy stints of repression when given the opportunity”: The basic desire for democratic liberties, including access to honest and fact-based journalism, can never be extinguished. But this rebound does not translate to the economy. In nations where freedoms were removed, and then restored, economic growth does not fully recover. That’s a significant point at a time when economic frustration is contributing to waning enthusiasm for democracy, increasing distrust of legacy media, and the rise of populist and authoritarian governments taking action to control the news media. Throughout Asia there has been a tightening of press freedoms. In Hong Kong, new security laws threaten to snuff out independent media. In Myanmar, publications have been silenced and journalists arrested. In Malaysia, journalists have been harassed and jailed for criticising the government. In the Philippines, respected investigative journalist Maria Ressa has been detained ten times in two years and convicted of “cyberlibel” under controversial laws. In India, the world’s largest democracy, the Modi government has curbed press freedoms. These aren’t just issues for other countries. Australia might look relatively free, particularly compared with near neighbours. But recent years has seen Australian Federal Police raids on journalists homes and the new restrictive national security […]

The Empty Shield

-by Giacomo Donis Michael Moorcock’s New Statesman Book of the Year. A people’s history and the horror of war: Howard Zinn meets Apocalypse Now. March 1972, about to graduate from NYU. A journey: two days and nights in the New York subway. Love it or leave it. A decision: become a Great Academic Marxist; blow up the Williamsburg Bridge; go into exile. Vietnam Veterans with placards, for and against the war. Seven placard-men at the seven gates of Thebes, brandishing their shields. A decision. Political or personal? Or pure Zen? Mind or no-mind? Kill for peace! Dylan, Hendrix, or the Fugs. The two Suzukis, or Dogen. Monk and Coltrane! The relation between Hegel’s logic of thinking as such and his logic of practice, which does not exist. The screech of the subway stops. A fork where three roads cross, the realm of shadows, what is to be done? A Chinese menu? Stab it! Stab it with your fork! But what I, myself, decide is not the point. The point is the question of ‘what a decision is and what making a decision means.’ The answer is ‘never stop asking.’ Ask yourself. Ask FDR, JFK, LBJ, McNamara and his band, John Kerry, or a Vietnam War veteran of your choice. Ask Nixon, Kissinger Trump! Ask Trump! Ye great decision-makers, have you ever asked yourselves what a decision is and what making a decision means! That is the question. The Empty Shield asks it. Repeatedly, repetitiously, abysally, and, possibly, once and for all. “The Empty Shield by Giacomo Donis is an extraordinary political biography. Donis describes how his Marxist politics developed and how renouncing his US citizenship (for Italian) proved harder than leaving the Mafia, with federal agents grilling him and warning how people like him could suffer. It’s a people’s history rather than a conventional memoir.

Nick

-by Michael Farris Smith Michael Farris Smith takes the narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and imagines his life prior to the events of the classic novel. The first part of the story is set during WW1 and follows Nick’s fortunes on the front line in France – a long nightmare of bloody battles and constant fear. During short periods of leave in Paris he strikes up a relationship with Ella, a nomadic free spirit ….. an affair, that in his damaged state becomes all consuming. Psychologically broken, Nick can’t face going home as the war comes to an end. He detours, randomly to New Orleans and enters a sleazy, pre prohibition world of chancers, prostitutes, drugs and abject poverty. Nick falls in with some dangerous and desperate characters and a twisted drama plays out that has some strange echoes of the Great Gatsby storyline. In an introduction to the book MFS discusses his writing life, his bouts of depression and why he was drawn to Nick Carraway as a character (he too was a dislocated ex pat feeling his life was running away from him) and it’s interesting how these elements become important themes in the book. In The Great Gatsby Nick is an integral part of the plot but is also slightly detached, an honest outsider observing those around him, not quite connecting. In this novel his relationship to the story and characters felt similar. This was probably intended, but I wanted to know him more and really get under his skin. His PTSD, emotional background and family life were well described but I still felt he was an enigma. I never felt that I fully understood his actions. Michael Farris Smith is a very good writer and creates a convincing picture of post WW1 New Orleans. […]

Communal living – the biggest benefit

It’s thought 70% of people will live in cities by 2050. Co-living could offer sustainable, affordable housing options for many. The world’s loneliness and mental health crisis is being exacerbated by the pandemic. Communal living can provide companionship for those who don’t want to live alone. Studies suggest living with others can help anxiety and improve mental wellbeing. The coronavirus pandemic has shone a light on a trend that’s catching the eye of more and more city dwellers – co-living. Accommodation designed for multiple individuals with shared facilities, such as work and cooking spaces, has been on the increase for the best part of a decade. When rising property values priced a lot of young professionals out of the real estate market, many turned to sharing the cost burden with strangers. Now, as the pandemic prompts governments around the world to issue stay-at-home orders, could communal living help lessen the side-effects of lockdowns, especially anxiety and loneliness? “Co-living is an opportunity to live in your own private place but still be part of a ‘family’,” says Jaimee Williams of SPACE10, IKEA’s “research and design lab” and co-organizer of a survey on perceptions of communal living. “Urbanization has led to unaffordable housing and, paradoxically, increasing loneliness.” Sharing the load Respondents to the One Shared House 2030 survey said the ability to socialise was the biggest benefit of co-living. The survey also had something to say about the notion that the trend is only for the young: elderly respondents identified the concept as a good means of staying close to people who could help them in an emergency, among other things. “Communal living has moved on from communes and sharing meals,” says Irene Pereyra, co-founder of New York-based design agency Anton & Irene, another co-ordinator of the survey. “What’s nice is that everyone who answered our […]

Technologies-of-control-figure The Mirror website

Break up big tech, make it fairer

With billions of people now members of social media networks such as Facebook and the all-pervasiveness of big tech throughout many aspects of our lives, conversations about digital citizenship have never been more important. Seeta Peña Gangadharan writes that despite efforts by the Obama administration in the late 2000s to improve digital citizenship, the US information economy has now become one characterised by surveillance, targeting, nudging, and manipulation so that digital technologies represent a control rather than an opportunity. For people to be able to exercise a right to refuse these technologies, she argues, we need to reinvent what it means to practice civil disobedience in the digital era. Watch Professor Gangadharan’s recent TEDxLondon talk. It’s about time that we renewed a conversation about what it means an active digital citizen in the 21stcentury. The current conditions of our data-driven economy demand that we explore ways to deny technologies the possibility to control us. Unfortunately, Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, which was the Obama Administration’s signature digital inclusion policy effort, marks the last time the US government paid close attention to digital citizenship. Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), the program channeled $4.7 billion aimed to drive economic prosperity, drive educational attainment, and create a more inclusive digital citizenry. But the history of the program reveals a cruel irony. While many—myself included—celebrated this policy as a means to meaningful participation in digital society (see here and here for examples), the toxic subprime loan industry and the historic financial crisis—which led to the Recovery Act and subsequent establishment of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program—provided a clue of what was to come in the country’s next chapter of the information economy: surveillance, targeting, nudging, and manipulation. As I’ve written elsewhere, the toxic subprime financial crisis relied on a thriving network of actors who helped enable demand for an inherently […]

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy

The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory — the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades — delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society. Stephanie Kelton’s brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country. Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis. MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximise our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.

The Mirror

2021 Media Kit is now available. Please email publisher@xtra.co.nz if you require a copy.

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