National Observer - Australia and World Affairs articles from December 2001

National Observer - Australia and World Affairs archives from December 2001

Women in front line combat -- a defence issue or a discrimination issue? (Editorial Comment).
December 22, 2001... It was announced in May 2001 that a Defence Department committee, headed by Major-General Simon Willis, has recommended that women be admitted to army combat roles "if they match men's physical standards". The recommendation was to be...

The steady increase in income tax collections through bracket-creep. (Editorial Comment).(Brief Article)(Editorial)
December 22, 2001... Bracket-creep is a phenomenon that has existed as long as graduated income tax and inflation. To the extent that increases in income take place purely through inflation, those increases fall within progressively higher tax brackets. For...

The erosion of national sovereignty.
December 22, 2001... Jonathan Swift told the story of an island on which there was a spring whose water, when tasted, drove men mad. The water was so attractive that everyone drank it, except for one philosopher who was too wise to do so. In the end, however, the...

The Cheka, G.P.U. and O.G.P.U.: Bolshevism's early secret police.(All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution and Sabotage, State Political Directorate, and Unified State Political Directorate)
December 22, 2001... Less than a year after the Bolshevik Revolution had propelled Lenin from obscure exile to supreme rule of Russia, the first truly major figure in Soviet surveillance, Felix Edmondovich Dzerzhinsky, delivered himself of a statement remarkable...

Second thoughts on feminism.(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2001... In the last part of the twentieth century a powerful feminist movement developed in the United States. Its influence spread to Australia and other countries. Although it is certainly true that in some respects the position of women...

Political correctness in the British armed forces.
December 22, 2001... A Schwerpunkt in the present British culture war is political-military history, traditions and associations. It targets not only military history and traditions, but also the present armed forces. No previous British Government has contained...

General Augusto Pinochet in perspective.
December 22, 2001... According to the collective wisdom of the Washington political classes, the media "experts," and the self-anointed champions of human rights, a great new day has dawned for the "rule of law". One of the most vicious villains of all time, they...

Peking's planned Anschluss with Taiwan: illusion and reality in China's civil war.
December 22, 2001... "The unknown man who invented the word `heat' devoted many generations to error. Heat has been treated as a substance, simply because it was designated by a substantive". --H. Poincare, "The Foundations of Science". It is quite in order...

The stolen generation's true believers take one step back. (Legal Notes).
December 22, 2001... Sir Ronald Wilson's 1997 report, "Bringing Them Home", claimed that up to one in three Aboriginal children were forcibly removed or "stolen" from parents during the period 1910 to 1970 for basically racist reasons. Indeed, the report described...

Bertrand Russell: the Ghost of Madness, 1921-1970. (Book Reviews).
December 22, 2001... BERTRAND RUSSELL: THE GHOST OF MADNESS, 1921-1970 by Ray Monk New York, Free Press, 2001, pages 680 and index. In 1961, the eighty-nine-year-old Bertrand Russell assured humanity that J.F.K., Khrushchev and Harold Macmillan had become,...

The Vatican and the Red Flag: the Struggle for the Soul of Eastern Europe. (Book Reviews).
December 22, 2001... THE VATICAN AND THE RED FLAG: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF EASTERN EUROPE by Jonathan Luxmoore and Jolanta Babiuch London, Geoffrey Chapman Press, 2000, pages 351 and index. A collaboration between a Polish politician's daughter and a...

There to the Bitter End: Ted Serong in Vietnam. (Book Reviews).
December 22, 2001... THERE TO THE BITTER END: TED SERONG IN VIETNAM By Anne Blair Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 2001, pages 298 and index. The Vietnam War, and especially the reasons for its loss, from both military and political standpoints, will continue to be a...