Profits_of_doom_cover_350Vulture capitalism has seen the corporation become more powerful than the state, and yet its work is often done by stealth, supported by political and media elites. The result is privatised wars and outsourced detention centres, mining companies pillaging precious land in developing countries and struggling nations invaded by NGOs and the corporate dollar. Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein travels to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, Papua New Guinea and across Australia to witness the reality of this largely hidden world of privatised detention centres, outsourced aid, destructive resource wars and militarized private security. Who is involved and why? Can it be stopped? What are the alternatives in a globalised world? Profits of Doom, published in 2013 and released in an updated edition in 2014, challenges the fundamentals of our unsustainable way of life and the money-making imperatives driving it. It is released in an updated edition in 2014.
forgodssakecover Four Australian thinkers come together to ask and answer the big questions, such as: What is the nature of the universe? Doesn't religion cause most of the conflict in the world? And Where do we find hope?   We are introduced to different belief systems – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – and to the argument that atheism, like organised religion, has its own compelling logic. And we gain insight into the life events that led each author to their current position.   Jane Caro flirted briefly with spiritual belief, inspired by 19th century literary heroines such as Elizabeth Gaskell and the Bronte sisters. Antony Loewenstein is proudly culturally, yet unconventionally, Jewish. Simon Smart is firmly and resolutely a Christian, but one who has had some of his most profound spiritual moments while surfing. Rachel Woodlock grew up in the alternative embrace of Baha'i belief but became entranced by its older parent religion, Islam.   Provocative, informative and passionately argued, For God's Sake, published in 2013, encourages us to accept religious differences, but to also challenge more vigorously the beliefs that create discord.  
After Zionism, published in 2012 and 2013 with co-editor Ahmed Moor, brings together some of the world s leading thinkers on the Middle East question to dissect the century-long conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians, and to explore possible forms of a one-state solution. Time has run out for the two-state solution because of the unending and permanent Jewish colonization of Palestinian land. Although deep mistrust exists on both sides of the conflict, growing numbers of Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Arabs are working together to forge a different, unified future. Progressive and realist ideas are at last gaining a foothold in the discourse, while those influenced by the colonial era have been discredited or abandoned. Whatever the political solution may be, Palestinian and Israeli lives are intertwined, enmeshed, irrevocably. This daring and timely collection includes essays by Omar Barghouti, Jonathan Cook, Joseph Dana, Jeremiah Haber, Jeff Halper, Ghada Karmi, Antony Loewenstein, Saree Makdisi, John Mearsheimer, Ahmed Moor, Ilan Pappe, Sara Roy and Phil Weiss.
The 2008 financial crisis opened the door for a bold, progressive social movement. But despite widespread revulsion at economic inequity and political opportunism, after the crash very little has changed. Has the Left failed? What agenda should progressives pursue? And what alternatives do they dare to imagine? Left Turn, published by Melbourne University Press in 2012 and co-edited with Jeff Sparrow, is aimed at the many Australians disillusioned with the political process. It includes passionate and challenging contributions by a diverse range of writers, thinkers and politicians, from Larissa Berendht and Christos Tsiolkas to Guy Rundle and Lee Rhiannon. These essays offer perspectives largely excluded from the mainstream. They offer possibilities for resistance and for a renewed struggle for change.
The Blogging Revolution, released by Melbourne University Press in 2008, is a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe why live and write under repressive regimes - many of them risking their lives in doing so. Antony Loewenstein's travels take him to private parties in Iran and Egypt, internet cafes in Saudi Arabia and Damascus, to the homes of Cuban dissidents and into newspaper offices in Beijing, where he discovers the ways in which the internet is threatening the ruld of governments. Through first-hand investigations, he reveals the complicity of Western multinationals in assisting the restriction of information in these countries and how bloggers are leading the charge for change. The blogging revolution is a superb examination about the nature of repression in the twenty-first century and the power of brave individuals to overcome it. It was released in an updated edition in 2011, post the Arab revolutions, and an updated Indian print version in 2011.
The best-selling book on the Israel/Palestine conflict, My Israel Question - on Jewish identity, the Zionist lobby, reporting from Palestine and future Middle East directions - was released by Melbourne University Press in 2006. A new, updated edition was released in 2007 (and reprinted again in 2008). The book was short-listed for the 2007 NSW Premier's Literary Award. Another fully updated, third edition was published in 2009. It was released in all e-book formats in 2011. An updated and translated edition was published in Arabic in 2012.

Political scandal in New Zealand offer lessons for the world

My weekly Guardian column:

It’s extremely rare to have the genesis of a political smear campaign uncovered for all to see, just like it is uncommon to read the correspondence between senior government officials and media backers to attack opponents and critics. And yet, that’s exactly what is unfolding in New Zealand.

New Zealanders are currently witnesses to an expose of unprecedented proportions. These details are contained in investigative journalist Nicky Hager’s new book, Dirty Politics: How Attack Politics is Poisoning New Zealand’s Political Environment. The work has caused an earthquake, entrapping more players every day. New actors like Kim Dotcom are revelling in the outrage, and US journalist Glenn Greenwald has beeninvited to speak in Auckland a few days before the September poll.

The story revolves around prime minister John Key, the conservative leader facing re-election. Hager has obtained information, emails and Facebook messages from the files of right-wing blogger Cameron Slater, founder of the Whale Oil website. The documents show a deep and intimate connection between Slater and Jason Ede, former senior advisor to Key.

The situation is made worse by the allegation that a senior cabinet minister, Judith Collins, established close ties to Slater to bash enemies. Hager claims that the blogger, with the assistance of Ede, breached an unsecured opposition party Labor computer to obtain private information. Labor party head David Cunliffe says the allegations are “the closest New Zealand’s got to its own kind of Watergate”.

Hager is an experienced journalist with a history of receiving leaks from deep inside the establishment. His 2011 book, Other People’s Wars, was an explosive examination of New Zealand’s extensive involvement in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the “war on terror”. A close associationwith Wikileaks, along with constant attempts to challenge the country’s outward perception of being a quiet nation with few geo-political ambitions, places Hager as a leading, independently minded reporter getting past the spin so dominant in modern politics. He shows how smear, fear and arrogance have become key ingredients of Key’s administration.

Wellington-based blogger Danyl Mclauchlan wrote in mid-August on the significance of Hager’s latest scoop:

“Whatever the wider implications, the book has had a profound effect on me, personally. Something that doesn’t come across in the news coverage about Dirty Politics, and Cameron Slater, Jason Ede, Jordan Williams, Simon Lusk et al is just how fucking awful these people are. They spend their lives trying to poison and contaminate our politics. They enjoy seeing people suffer. They get excited by the idea of breaking up the marriages of their political enemies and ruining their lives.”

These sentiments explain why Dirty Politics and its warning extend well beyond New Zealand’s borders. The revelations detail a form of attack-dog politics that’s now common-place in global affairs.

In the book’s preface, Hager explains how Key was desperate to continue his success by constructing a charming public persona while pursuing “ more personal attacks and negative politics than any in living memory.” I asked Hager to tell me more:

“It is about political PR and particularly what the US Republican party strategists have called a two-track approach. This is where the leaders are presented as positive while other people, the second track, conduct personal attacks and dirty tricks against their opponents. There were particularly nasty people doing the government’s dirty work and it didn’t look good for the government when they were exposed.”

This style of politics will be familiar to even a casual observer of insider journalism. It’s a worldwide trend. Journalists routinely receive “exclusive” leaks from government insiders that provide perfect ammunition to attack the other side. Hager shows how in New Zealand, the relationship between government and its media allies suits both their agendas – it simply is the method of today’s corporate politics.

I’m currently in America, where things are eerily similar. Watching Fox News is like a rehearsed ballet: every show over the last week has claimed that president Obama’s response to the murder of journalist James Foley has been so weak because he issued a statement before going back to his golf game while on vacation – host Judge Jeanine’s monologue epitomised the channel’s sentiment.

Arguing over Washington’s response to the ISIS threat is legitimate, but it’s hardly accidental that Obama is being damned for not bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria before dinner-time. Fox News has a history of telling its hosts (and even guests) what to say and think – it’s Republican party PR as journalism.

This brings us back to New Zealand. Hager has been pleasantly surprised by the best-selling success of his book – his biggest yet. He says that the small, local media market risks being abused by powers with ulterior motives. “Our small, mostly foreign-owned media risks being a push over for well organised PR campaigns”, Hager argues. “Political manipulation is helped by poor media. But this isn’t a criticism of the journalists themselves, who of course want to do good work.”

Without a central leaker, Hager would have no book. He salutes their bravery. “We mustn’t fall for the idea that whistleblowers are doing something wrong. They are the natural reaction to undemocratic government.”

The same applies to Australia. We desperately need a healthier leaking culture to uncover the murky dynamics between corporate, media and government interests. It’s a shame so few journalists are willing to foster this environment and protect sources beyond the reach of intelligence agencies so keen to monitor dissent.

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August 25th, 2014 in General