How did the cultural left win the war on marriage equality, asks Kevin Donnelly at The Drum? His answer? Radical leftists completed what he claims Antonio Gramsci called “the long march through the institutions”, to control the heights of debate.
Columns / Guy Rundle
Dispatches from around the globe by Crikey‘s commentator-at-large Guy Rundle.
Janet Albrechtsen on Margaret Thatcher and The Iron Lady
This week, Planet Janet is angry at the new Margaret Thatcher’s film The Iron Lady in which Meryl Streep plays the Tory supremo in her prime. Planet thinks it’s a lefty trick.
Rundle: Europe re-engineered on the run, but don’t mention the war
It is extraordinary, unprecedented, the European project that everyone was so solemn about being re-engineered on the run like, well, like the dodgy banks that put us in this mess in the first place.
Julian Assange given a legal lifeline, Supreme Court to hear his appeal
WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange won a small battle against the push to extradite him to Sweden, with the High Court allowing him the opportunity to petition the Supreme Court to hear his appeal.
A scared UK public sector take to the streets
Today was the day it all came home to people in the UK. The whole public service was out on strike, across the nation.
McMullan testimony a toxic mix of nihilism, self-righteousness and victimhood
Paul McMullan’s appearance before the Leveson inquiry was stomach turning testimony, but it was the best insight yet into what went so badly wrong at the heart of News International culture.
Europe farce and furious on the downhill slope
In the past two weeks the possibility of a eurozone default, collapse and disarray, has gone from formally possible, to actually possible, to a real and imminent danger.
Sienna Miller stars with winning Leveson performance
Down to the Royal Courts of Justice again, those bizarre fairytale towers in the middle of the Strand, their gravitas all gone the moment you learn they were created in the 19th century, the modern state wrapping itself in ancient stone.
Europe’s stuck, nothing changes in Italy, and the Pope must die
So Europe remains stuck in a common currency whose structural flaws it cannot resolve — and certainly cannot resolve without major reform in Italy, where the breathing space offered by the appointment of Mario Monti has been resisted.
Bffo and Molotovs, but real anarchists are in Brussels
Amid the drifting tear gas at the entrance to Syntagma Square, the black bloc are doing their best, with the petty weapon of the Molotov.
Italy’s Monti appointment a concession to bewilderment
The very fact that Monti and Papademos can step so easily into their appointed roles is clear evidence that the European political crisis began long before they got the call.
Irresistible force, immovable object — EU’s big bang theory
For the first time since the European debt crisis began last year, the prospect of a break-up of the euro became a very real and present possibility today.
New PM in Italy, but not yet; new PM in Greece, but not yet …
Europe remains — wait for it wait for it — yes, in crisis today, with the announcement that Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi will resign — but not yet, and announcements that Greece will soon announce a new prime minister and Cabinet — but not yet.
Even Izzy Dye can run Greece as long as there’s a vote
Greece, the eurozone, the EU and the G20 were in crisis yesterday, as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou lost the support of his deputy PM, five members of his cabinet, and several Pasok MPs, leaving the entire country, and the continent, in a state of disarray.
Occupy could lead to the Church turning on its own
Christian groups have announced that they will form a “ring of prayer” around the Occupy London/St Paul’s protest, after church authorities went ahead with a plan to gain a legal injunction against the protest and have it removed.
Europe and how a colony on the moon can save it
Europe is on the brink — and it’s a measure of how fast-moving the crisis is that I must add the phrase “at time of writing”.
The middlingness of this year’s Booker Prize list
The West is broke, the Middle East is in flames, the world is going to hell on a hire bike, but let’s get to what really matters — the Booker Prize.
Occupy’s big no was a big yes to something else
As the “Occupy” protests and meetings spring up at the end of a wire, or around each hot spot, the thing they’re opposing is not characterised by certainty but by quivering doubt.
Rundle: a little bit of the Cameron crew Fox off, hero to zero
You hardly knew where to look in London this week. The government didn’t fall, but a section of it sheared off, and fell into the sea.
Rundle: Amanda Knox and the absurdity that is the law
Perhaps one should ration oneself to once a year, for the phrase “in a hundred years, people won’t believe …”. If so, I’d like to use mine now, for the trials and tribulations of Amanda Knox.
Rundle: on Bolt, it’s Marcia Langton v Marcia Langton
The debate between the two Marcia Langtons looks set to continue for years to come.
Bolt decision represents an ideological bind
The Andrew Bolt judgment (Boltgate? Gatebolt) has had and will have a lot of keystrokes devoted to it over the next while, but most of them will be from either the liberal-left, the cultural left, or the Right.
Greece should leave the EU and turn Europe on its ear
Monetary union, that most unlikely of thrills, took Europe for another hair-raising ride, with the German parliament voting 523-85 in favour of the terms of another rescue package for beleaguered Greece
The pole stars to navigate a future only just begun
Watching the news, two stories catch one’s eye, and remind one of how much things are changing, and how fast. The journey from bits to atoms is not as simple as that from atoms to bits.
Red Ed’s new capitalism — it’s not easy being green
Grinning, young, confident, Labour leader Ed Miliband strode across the vast forecourt of the Liverpool Conference Centre, towards a date with destiny — his first leader’s speech to the party conference.
