Jacques and Jennifer talk about the thieving incursions that artificial intelligence (AI) is making into our lives, and the increasing rule and dominance of big tech.They argue that human creating processes in the real world are important for both producers and audiences, and for the social back-and-forth that happens in our human world. This cannot be replaced by AI mimicry of 'end products'.Furthermore, with all the fakery put out on the net, it is increasingly difficult for people to understand what's going on, and AI plays a central role in undermining our social and ecological life.In the context of the 'evil triangle' of (1) big tech and AI, (2) turbo charged capitalism/ neo-liberalism, and (3) managerialism, the push back against AI is more important than ever.NB: Jennifer and Jacques begin the program with a few words about their dear friend, Lew Zipin, who recently passed away.ReferencesWatch this space 

Jennifer speaks with Hanna Shomali and Alice Drury about an event they have organised to raise funds for and support people in Gaza.'Voices under fire: Stories from Gaza' will feature readings of poetry and first hand accounts of Palestinians who have been forced to flee, who have died, and who are still trying to survive in Gaza.The event will be held at Trades Hall in Carlton on Thursday 6th of November at 6.15pm.You can book hereOther linksAustralia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN)Gofundme for Amer Al Massri’s family (as discussed in the program)(NB: Hanna has passed on that the amount raised so far through Gofundme has been spent on the family's survival over the last few years).

Jennifer and Jacques discuss the latest 'ceasefire' deal and the intrinsic impossibility of lasting peace without putting first Palestinian rights to their stolen land and their self-determination.LinksEvent: Voices under fire - Stories from GazaWe teach Life Sir - Rafeef ZiadahAustralian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN)Free PalestineReferences"The Gaza ceasefire deal could be a ‘strangle contract’, with Israel holding all the cards" Marika Sosnowski Oct 10, 2025 Pearls and IrritationsThe Guardian view on Trump and the ceasefire deal: hope at last, but the real work is just beginning Guardian Editorial 10 Oct. 2025Chris Hedges: 'There is no shortage of failed peace plans in occupied Palestine, all of them incorporating detailed phases and timelines, going back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter. They end the same way. Israel gets what it wants initially — in the latest case the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — while it ignores and violates every other phase until it resumes its attacks on the Palestinian people.'   

Jewish author, Marilyn Garson, talks about her experience working with people in Gaza for four years from 2011 through to 2015, as documented in her book, Still Lives. This period included Israel's devastating 50 day bombardment of Gaza in 2014.  As told in Jewish Not Zionist, on returning home to Aotearoa/New Zealand she worked to build Jewish solidarity with the Palestinian people, but met ongoing vehement opposition from her synagogue. Nevertheless she connected with like-minded Jewish locals, and eventually co-founded 'Alternative Jewish Voices'.As told in this interview, Marilyn continues to advocate for justice for the people of Palestine - a justice consistent with her Jewish faith, but not with the violence and oppression of the Zionist State of Israel.NB: This episode was pre-recorded shortly before the current ceasefire deal.Book launch linksRegister for book launch in MelbourneBook launch events in Sydney, Melbourne, and onlineInformation on FacebookBuying Marilyn's books after the launchhttps://shop.redflag.org.au/https://nibs.org.au/ (NB: website may be under renovation)Local Jewish groups for PalestineLoud Jew CollectiveThe Jewish Council of AustraliaJewish organisations calling for sanctions against Israel 

Supriya Pattanayak is Vice Chancellor of Centurion University of Technology and Management in India. She explains its unique, progressive model of working closely with communities in innovative ways, to address their needs and aspirations.Real-life problems are addressed locally with practical applications of knowledge that create goods and services of value to communities especially the systemically disadvantaged tribal communities. Guiding  principles include sustainability, positive social impact, and community empowerment, along with a learning model based on applied learning.The university's ongoing success gives substance to its tag line: 'a world of hopes and possibilities'.LinkCenturion University of Technology & Managementyoutube Centurion Cares

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the 'performance' of the federal Labor government and how its rhetoric about how well it is doing doesn't quite match reality. Examples are responses to the genocide in Gaza, climate policy, the aged care system, and the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. They highlight that the fragile trust of Australians should not be taken for granted.

Annika Reynolds, National Climate Policy Advisor with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), talks about some important recent developments in Australia's climate policy. These include approval for Woodside to extend the life of its North West shelf gas project by 40 years, the release of the national Climate Risk Assessment report, and the setting of Australia's emissions reduction target for 2035.At this point, our federal government is falling short of policies and decisions to avert the worst climate catastrophe for future generations. It is time for the government to act on the scientific evidence, and for us to take collective action to hold it to account. LinksNational Climate Risk AssessmentAustralian Conservation Foundation (ACF)

Starting with the recent clashes on Melbourne's streets, Jacques and Jennifer look at some of the major converging fractures in our society and discuss what we can learn from Europe's Nazi past and from current events in the US.

Jennifer interviews Dr Bob Davidson, who is an honorary Research Fellow at Macquarie University, about the neoliberalism takeover of our human services over the last 40 years or so.The NDIS is discussed as an example. Bob highlights some of the fundamental failures of this neoliberal project, including too many service providers, bad actors, a range of scandals plaguing human service areas (including aged care and early childhood education), absence of transparency about the use of public money by private operators, lack of access or existence of some services even when people are eligible, the loss of community or collective-oriented programs, and onerous adminstrative load on individuals accessing the scheme.While criticising the neoliberal approach to human services, with governments stepping back from their responsibilities, Bob believes that the human service system can include some for-profit providers.ReferenceBob Davidson 2024, 'Neoliberalism and human services: the National Disability Insurance Scheme', in Captured: How neoliberalism transformed the Australian state, eds: Phillip Toner, Michael Rafferty, Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the downward spiral of our universities over the last 40 years of neo-liberalism, with the decline accelerating during the COVID pandemic, and only getting worse since.Universities are said to be at breaking point with the corporatist, managerialist focus on cost cutting, exploitation of staff, and selling low quality courses to students.They end the program with suggestions for professors and students from Giorgio Agamben who wrote 'Requiem for students'.ReferencesGiorgio Agamben (2020)  translation of short intervention on the blog Diario della crisi at the website of the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 23 May 2020.Graeme Turner (2025) Broken: Universities, politics and the public good, Clayton: Monash University Publishing.Stuart McIntyre, Andre Brett & Gwilym Croucher (2017) No end of a lesson: Australia’s unified national system of higher education, Carlton: Melbourne University Press.Lew Zipin (2019) ‘How council-management governance troubles Australian university labours and futures: Simplistic assumptions and complex consequences’, Social Alternatives, vol 38, issue 3, pp. 28-35.Caitlyn Cassidy (2023) Appallingly unethical-Why-Australian universities are at breaking point, The Guardian, 11 April 2023.

Jennifer and Jacques discuss the federal government's recent Economic Reform Roundtable, commonly known as the 'productivity roundtable'.They discuss where it went wrong - though a good idea in principle, including assumptions that cutting costs for big business (e.g. via lower tax and regulation) will necessarily lead to higher productivity and not just bigger profits.The hosts unpick the notion of productivity itself, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which gives no or little value to most caring work and upaid environment protection.Finally they criticise the centrist push of our political leaders to do nothing meaningful.ReferencesRichard Denniss (2025) Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us Australia Institute - Vantage Point Emma Holten (2025) Deficit: how feminist economics can change our world London: WH Allen - Penguin/Random

Jennifer is joined by Belinda Curtis who is National Manager Dementia-Friendly Communities, with Dementia Australia.Belinda begins with an overview of dementia, and corrects a few misconceptions. Importantly, dementia happens within real life social and physical settings, reaching beyond individual medicalised notions. The creation of dementia-friendly communities enables people with dementia to continue being socially connected and making their own unique contributions.Belinda describes the community development processes that start with the wishes and needs of community members, and the strengths and resources they bring to create dementia-friendly communities.LinksDementia AustraliaDementia AustraliaNational dementia helplineDementia action weekCommunity development conferenceRegenerating Communities conferencePro-palestine marchesAPAN - eventsFree Palestine - events 

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the urgent need to regulate Artificial Intelligence (AI). They are prompted by the Productivity Commission's hare-brained idea that we should not regulate it too much so as not to inhibit its development (and add $$$ to the coffers of big tech, they add).ReferencesHolten, Emma, (2025) Deficit: How Feminist Economics can change our world, London: WH Allen (Penguin Random House Group)Bates, Laura (2025) The New Age of Sexism: How the AI revolution is reinventing misogyny, Sydney/Melbourne: Simon and SchusterRegenerating communities: Community development conference 2025

Jennifer is joined by guests Cecilia and Enny who talk about their work in communities in Timor Leste, supported and resourced by xpand Foundation. Their work with 'Foundation Rai Matak' and 'WithOneSeed Foundation', focuses on projects that rejuvenate local ecologies, return wealth to local economies, and resource and empower local people and communities.The work is described as creating hope into the future.LinksXpand FoundationRegenerating Communities: community development conference

Jacques and Jennifer explore the possibilities of 'community development' for creating social change.They first look at what we mean when we use the word 'community', and the 'development' of community. Then they move to the idea of 'relationality' as probably more meaningful and useful than the over-used 'community' (as introduced in the very first episode of 'Think Again'). This may include grassroots, horizontal relating, and verticle relating (up and down the system ) - with the most effective sites for change depending on the issue, context and point in time.Next, the hosts introduce the historical European principle of 'subsidiarity' - that higher levels of government defer to local levels (or community) if this is more effective. Finally, they highlight a dual imperative for community work - one that is human-personal and the other to pursue structural justice. Regenerating communities conference - October 2025References Demos UK (2021) The Social State: from transactional to relational public services…Ebrahim & Weisband (2007) Principles of Distributive Subsidiarity and Democracy… connect the lines between citizen activism, networks, accountability, and postmodern public ethics.’ (p.331).1981 Webster’s Third International Dictionary (Vol. III, p. 2279) 'subsidiarity' is a theory in sociology: functions which subordinate or local organizations perform effectively belong more properly to them than to a dominant central organisation’

After two previous programs about Iran dealing with its last 70 years of political transformations and its recent and present involvement in the Palestine, Israel and US conflagration, Jacques has a conversation with former journalist and writer Shokoofeh Azar now living in Victoria and involved in our Borderlands library. We learn about the present situation under autocratic Islam/Mullah governance, the reaction of opposition groups to the Israel/US attacks and the hopes of large sections of the population for freedom and the collapse of the oppressive regime.

Jacques and Jennifer look at the homogenous, so-called 'balanced' middle ground adopted by our two main parties and mainstream media - in particular, in relation to the illegal actions of Israel, and local efforts here to clamp down on pro-Palestine solidarity under the guise of a controversial definition of anti-semitism that includes criticism of the State of Israel.They also look at the complicity of international corporations in Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and military attacks on the people there.https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/profiting-from-genocide?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=778851&post_id=167313571&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=noz8m&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email https://johnmenadue.com/authors/federica-marsi/   Read about the report here: https://ow.ly/Ho5r50WnpGr  

A conversation with Taryn Lane, Manager of Hepburn Energy, the first community-owned renewable energy (wind now complemented with battery and solar) in Victoria. She has published a book Hopeful Action: A handbook for Community-led Climate Transitions offering a combination of practical and philosophical 'hints' to take along your community development journey trying to make our world and our presence in it sustainable. Access to the book is below... https://issuu.com/communityclimateaction/docs/hopeful_action_digital 

Jacques and Jennifer continue discussion about the current conflict centred on Iran, to offer a fuller historical and geopolitical context than provided in dominant narratives and the mainstream media.What is clear is that much of the blame belongs to the interference of self-interested western powers, namely the US and Britain. Scott Burchill 24/06/2025 Regime change and blowback in Iran in Pearls and Irritationshttps://avigail.substack.com/p/lies-lies-and-more-lies?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=749647&post_id=166442094&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2qztnn&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email All the Shah�s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer. John Wiley and Sons, 2003Review Essay of Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men, Masoud Kazemzadeh, Ph.D.MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XI, NO. 4, WINTER 2004https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/07/the-time-has-arrived-for-a-comprehensive-middle-east-peace/  Jeffrey Sachs and Sybill Fares

Jacques and Jennifer look at the some of the history and motivations of western powers behind current global conflicts that Australia is once more becoming embroiled in - namely Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, and recent military exchanges between Israel and Iran, and US attacks on Iran.Australia seems fixated on the idea that the US is our friend who we must always support and follow, even while President Trump loudly proclaims 'America First'.