I think it is safe to assume that Binoy Kampmark is not part of Team Australia, he is more likely to be part of Team Islam or Team Something Else.

It troubles this foreign import that Australians are patriotic and he does not think it is necessary for imported people like himself to be patriotic at all. Then he wonders why Australians are leery of foreigners like himself with funny foreign names. People like Binoy want to live with us but not be part of us. They are more interested in maintaining their national and cultural uniqueness than integrating into Australian society. I am sure that Binoy is patriotic, but to who's flag I do not know. The term "Australian" to people like Binoy merely denotes a geographic address, not a commitment to a people that he in any way identifies with as being his people.

You do not want to be part of Team Australia, Binoy, and Team Australia wants no part of you.

A hundred or so "Australians" are now fighting for ISIS because they think just like Binoy Kampmark. Like Binoy, they have no sense of identity as Australians and they needed to go overseas to find people who they could identify with, people who are so screwed up that they fitted in nicely.

Countries like Iraq and Syria are coming apart at the seams because most of the population thinks like Binoy Kampmark. Tribal, religious and cultural identities were far more important than any sense of belonging as a united state, and Binoy must be applauding their lack of patriotism. The terms "Syrian" and "Iraqi" mean little to the warring multicultural tribes now happily killing themselves off in these countries, and I am sure Binoy looks forward to the same thing happening in Australia

Carz,

I think you missed my point. My point was that the author only attacked Liberal leaders. There was absolutely no attempt at impartiality. If the author was to write as a private citizen that wouldn't be a problem. Anyone is allowed an opinion. But now we have come to the point where academics are comfortable using their work titles to push a purely partisan line. It shows that intelligence has nothing to do with today's academia. You just have to push the Leftist line and you win scholarships to Cambridge and get jobs at university.
Take a look at the author's list of prizes:
http://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/kampmark_binoy

One doesn't mind becoming part of Team Australia" as long as one doesn't have to become part of "Team Abbott" one must remember "Team Adolph" of a few years back, and look where that team ended up.

Ojnab,
Adolf was a socialist. Yes, the same type as communist socialists. There are some differences but they had a lot in common: one party rule, use of force to suppress dissent, restricted freedom of the press, redistribution of wealth.

Last I heard Abbott was rolled trying the re-introduce freedom of the press after the former socialist/communist Gillard introduced it.

How has our public discourse sunk so low? How can so many people have such a complete lack of understanding about political theory?

Maybe the quality of our political scientists has something to do with it.

Maybe the fact that political scientists with an obviously migrant background can come to Australia, succeed, be sponsored to go to one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world but when finished has learned only to criticize those same institutions and the society that gave him the opportunity in the first place.

Even if gratitude is too much to ask, could we at least have an absence of hostility to the civilization that provided these opportunities?

Trendy lefties like Binoy Kampmark lean whichever way the fashionable winds blow.

Trendy lefties were once the super patriots of nationalism and militarism. Remember the Prussian students and the sabre scarred faces? But WW1 was a real shock for them so they suddenly changed positions and went to the opposite extreme. Now patriotism and militarism in any form are complete anathema to them. There are no shades of grey to these characters, something is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong.

As Dane pointed out, Hitler was a socialist. The primary diference between Hitler's brand of socialism and "International" socialism was that Hitler's brand was "nationalistic." Nationalism versus Internationalism is the primary schism in the socialist world, but other than that, they are pretty much alike. As one German soldier (Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier") who fought in Russia put it "We were fighting and dying to destroy a system of government that was identical to our own."

Opposition to nationalism and patriotism therefore defines the trendy lefty and Binoy Kampmark fits the stereotype. Trendies suck up to each other in the Arts and will always give immigrants like Binoy preference in academia because it is a way of displaying true International socialist credentials and their fashionable contempt for their own people. Remember the Helen Demidenko/Darvil affair, where an Aussie female author had to pretend that she was a immigrant to win an award as a new author? Any book showing contempt for Australians is also feted as a true work of art. So sneering at the concept of "Team Australia" conforms to the stereotype and marks them indelibly as true anti patriot, cosmopolitan Internationalists.

The Australian movie industry got on the anti Australian bandwagon with titles such as "Wake in Fright" and "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" and then they wondered why Australians stopped watching Australian movies. Now they can't exist without taxpayer subsidies from Labor governments. Fairfax press does not get ABC type subsidies so their circulation is plummeting as Aussies figure out that Fairfax newspapers despise Australians also.

What value systems? What cohesion?
Squeers,
Ever since the Left has been able to get hold of the reigns, these value systems & cohesion have been legislated out the window. I'm old enough to still remember, perhaps you're much younger hence your being denied that privilege.
There was a great big academic/lawyer moron in the early 7o's who became popular with the hangers-on morons, after all they were waiting for their messiah & when he did show up they gave him their full support to fleece us for them. It's been like this ever since & now this Govt is copping flak & ridicule because the hangers-on can see the bandwagon slowing. Natural reaction really.