“Here, courtesy of my Byron Bay friend Jan, what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (in my youth called the Australian Broadcasting Commission) has to say about Hugo Lennon.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-28/who-is-behind-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-rallies/105657548?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web Postscript on the idea that “far left” and “far right” are “all the same” The story of Queensland medical doctor the late John McCarthy refutes this idea. It is true that John’s political views – which were more or less shared in the 1970s, albeit off the record, even by such people as former governor-general Bill Hayden, have not stood the test of time. The collapse of the Soviet Union could not be intellectually integrated by the then probably most influential Trotskyist  theoretician, the Belgian economist Ernest Mandel. Specifically  Mandel’s belief that the Soviet nuclear arsenal provided “a measure of protection” to the Soviet state as such appears illusory. But John McCarthy’s devotion to justice and in particular to what are now known as “first nation Australians” was unquestionable. His companion of that time, the later well-known Marcia Langton, would not dispute that, in my opinion. If she and John had remained together she herself might not have become a celebrity but  on the other hand John also may not have departed this world at the … Continue reading →