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UPDATE, OCT 24: Thank you for your questions! I’m turning off submissions now because there are 100! I will read them over the next few days and answer them in a new article. Then I’ll turn the comments back on for those of you having discussions. See you then!

Hello readers! It’s time for another reader Q & A. But first — thank you.

October marks the third anniversary of this newsletter. Its success is a miracle: I run it like a blog from 2005. No paywalls: only volunteer paying subscribers. No AI – ever! Original research, writing, and photography. No ads. No limits: you can read about anything from transnational organized crime to Beverly Hills, 90210. And your great contribution: an open comments section full of thoughtful people!

If you liked the internet the way it used to be, my newsletter is the place for you.

Too often, campaigns that touch the third-rail topics of taxes and healthcare talk about tax cuts while making vague promises of more doctors. Amid the flurry of democratic activity across Canada this Fall, a refreshingly frank commitment in British Columbia’s provincial election stands-out. The incumbent BC NDP is proposing to pay for specific healthcare reforms, by raising taxes on those most able to afford them.

Affecting the top 4 percent of incomes, the proposal will raise income tax rates for the top two tax brackets and introduce a new bracket on income over $1 million. This will help pay for the NDP’s platform commitments to expand access to homecare, long-term care and surgical care, among other proposals.

Over the last decade, Europe’s political establishment has pursued an agenda of mass immigration while neglecting the welfare of its own citizens. The European Right has either contributed to this failure or warned, with varying degrees of success, against unchecked migration and the erosion of national sovereignty. In recent weeks, the consequences of these policies have been on display in the streets of Paris, Milan, and other cities across Europe.

Though the unrest in France emerged largely amid grievances over the rising cost of living, deteriorating public services, and underfunded schools, the demonstrations quickly gave way to violence. Immigrants, Islamists, and organized radical-left activists are committing arson, looting, attacking the police, and breaking into buildings. This domestic terrorism, which is occurring in some of Europe’s most beautiful cities, is a unique evil, perpetrated by those united in hatred of their neighbors and their countries’ heritage. These revolutionary movements are not seeking to reform policy or institutions, but to delegitimize the very civilization those institutions embody.

For years, European political elites have welcomed unchecked immigration and social disorder. Young Europeans, particularly those in Western Europe, have come of age living under institutions that repeatedly fail to provide the security, opportunity, and public services they were promised.

Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.

On October 20, the Broadbent Institute hosted NDP Leader Avi Lewis in conversation with economist Isabella Weber on a democratic socialist vision for Canada’s economy.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Midterm elections in the United States are scheduled for November 3. Concerns that the elections might be canceled, coerced or subverted at any stage of the process are becoming increasingly valid as the Trump administration takes steps to possibly disenfranchise voters or otherwise control the outcome to prevent a Democratic Party majority in Congress.

Generals always fight the last war. The media theorist Marshall McLuhan made a similar point when he argued that we understand the effects of new technologies in terms of past ones. He called this rear-view mirror thinking. Right now, Western countries are suffering from a collective exercise in rear-view thinking about the effects of digital technology on mass migration. Rather than seeing the unique functions of digital technology, we have assumed it has the same homogenizing effects as prior information technologies. That exercise of rear-view thinking is accelerating cultural replacement.

Let’s take stock of where we are. Since the 2010s, it has become clear that we are living in the end of the end of history. Having studied the West for decades, China and Russia decided not to imitate it but to pursue their own civilizational paths. Islamic civilization had long been pursuing its own. As the geostrategic ambitions of those three civilizations became clear, the concept of “the West” gained fresh life.

Capturing publicly created land value while supporting investment in Australian AI infrastructure September 2026 Dr. Michael D’Rosario Director of Research and Policy Prosper Australia 1. Executive summary Australia is entering a phase that will determine the success of the national sovereign AI strategy and have major ramifications for international competitiveness, as it decides how to […]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s thoughtful and inspiring speech delivered at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, deserves to be remembered for a long time to come, especially in an age increasingly dominated by ideological slogans and short attention spans. The speech combines impressive erudition and soaring rhetoric with an astute, if inevitably controversial, analysis of the contemporary international scene. More fundamentally, it seeks to come to terms with the foundational virtues and principles that have defined Western civilization since its origins in Greek antiquity.

The Athens speech only indirectly addresses the biblical pole that has also profoundly informed and shaped the Western heart, mind, and soul. Given the immediate purposes of Rubio’s speech, it is somewhat understandable that his remarks seemingly set aside the invigorating tensions—but not irreconcilable differences—between Athens and Jerusalem, and between magnanimity and humility, that have given life and purpose to the Western adventure. But a careful reading of his October 7 address suggests that Rubio is fully aware that one foundational pole cannot thrive today without the other.

The American Mind’s podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Turmoil in France and South Africa – Can the Right Recover the West? | The American Mind Podcast

My book 'Requiem for Gaza' is out NOW!

Premier Ben Carroll’s announcement to build more than 25,000 homes for first-home buyers is a welcome step towards tackling Victoria’s housing crisis. However, Prosper Australia has expressed major disappointment that homes built on public land, with public money, could be sold straight back into the private property market. Prosper Australia Executive Director Rayna Fahey said […]

On this episode of Follow the Money, Amy Remeikis, Greg Jericho and Ebony Bennett discuss violence, decency and dissent in Australia’s democracy following the alleged violent attack on Dr Helen Haines MP, who remains in critical condition in hospital.

This episode was recorded on Wednesday 21 October.

1800RESPECT is the national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service. Call 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, chat online or video call via their website.

If you or anyone you know needs help, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or online at www.lifeline.org.au.

Guest: Amy Remeikis, Chief Political Analyst, the Australia Institute // @amyremeikis

Guest: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett

Show notes:

Woodside’s third quarter update, released today, reveals it charged 40% more for its products, predominantly liquified natural gas (LNG), over the past year.

The giant polluter has been branded “one of Australia’s biggest winners” from the war in the Middle East and today’s result proves that while ordinary Australians are struggling, Woodside is profiting handsomely from the US military action against Iran.

Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute, says the obvious answer to ensuring Australians get a fair share for their resources is to introduce a 25% tax on gas exports.

Australia Institute research shows the tax, initially proposed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, could raise $17 billion a year.

“Huge profits yet again for Woodside, while governments tell Australians that they can’t have the health care that they want,” he said.

“Woodside gets huge amounts of Australia’s gas for free, while disabled Australians get their NDIS supports cut.

“A 25% gas export tax would give Australians a fair return on their gas, while also reducing Australia’s gas prices.”

Polling conducted by the RedBridge Group shows support for taxing gas export extends across party lines, including among voters often seen at opposite ends of the political spectrum, such as the Greens and One Nation.

“The government’s gas reservation scheme will not raise a cent for the Australia public and will barely affect Woodside,” Dr Jericho said.

DOGE was never going to balance the budget.

DOGE was never going to unwind $38 trillion in U.S. federal debt nor reverse the sovereign-debt spiral engulfing every unelected advanced economy. No amount of administrative efficiency can meaningfully alter a fiscal architecture that is already mathematically insolvent.

Even if DOGE had been fully empowered—no obstruction, no lawsuits, no bureaucratic sabotage—it still could not have put the country back on a sustainable path. Because the problem is the structure of the global system and the incentives that hold it in place.

Soros sees the sublimation of political authority into transnational authority. That is how the NGO-Administrative Complex grows, by steady erosion of incentives, forcing governments into dependence on technocratic, supranational coordination to survive the same crises their own policies (and their own voters) can no longer manage. Which means we must confront a terrifying inevitability: A global financial order is coming.

Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.

My book 'Requiem for Gaza' is out NOW!

From whence come the industrious people?

Why spend months reading Marx’s so-called ‘notebooks’ in Theories of Surplus Value, Part 1 (TSVI) when you could skip to where those notes find coherence in the polished manuscript of Capital, Volume 1 (hereafter KI)?

Dr Tobias Cremer, Member of European Parliament, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss how Europe is responding to the second Trump administration, the Australia-EU Free Trade Agreement, and how to build democratic solidarity in the face of rising authoritarianism.

This episode was recorded on Wednesday 14 October.

Guest: Tobias Cremer, Member of European Parliament

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Show notes:

Shorter America: Betting on death; Racist raids; Everything is fine by Emma Shortis, The Point (October 2026)

Navigating Choppy Waters: Australia and the EU Chart a New Course by Margherita Matera & Philomena Murray, Australian Institute of International Affairs (March 2026)

After America: Australia and the new world order by Emma Shortis, Australia Institute Press (May 2025)