The latest example of media bias and a lack of journalistic integrity in Australia follows Dan Andrews’ decision to cancel the Commonwealth Games, writes Belinda Jones.
A world drowning in misinformation, depression, existential isolation, conspiracy cults, wellness circuses, creeping fascism, resurgent white supremacy, and the degradation of humanity’s collective attention span isn’t exactly crying out for more social media. That’s like turning to booze to deal with a drinking problem. Or capitalism to fix the climate crisis. You see this thing ruining all this important stuff? Perhaps we need more of it? It’s a fucking wonder we get our pants on each morning.
Today, the world’s actually powerful – read: the obscenely wealthy – do not need to do this (fight over bodies) because they instead own the levers to our scattered, atomised minds.
Source: Whoever wins, we lose – The Shot
Previously, in Part One of ‘Sinking Billions’:
‘Undergunned and Overpriced’ – Missing records, billions in over-runs, and flawed ships – how the Australian Defence Department’s new Frigates project is a boondoggle for a British weapons-maker.
Declassified Australia is highlighting by this series of articles the extensive influence of industry insiders within government, the lack of transparency, and the absence of effective governance.
In the second part of her coverage of the Australian Defence Department’s new Frigates project, Michelle Fahy says it is a jobs merry-go-round for former military officers, bureaucrats and weapons makers.
About 400,000 years ago, large parts of Greenland were ice-free. Scrubby tundra basked in the Sun’s rays on the island’s northwest highlands. Evidence suggests that a forest of spruce trees, buzzing with insects, covered the southern part of Greenland. Global sea level was much higher then, between 20 and 40 feet above today’s levels. Around the world, land that today is home to hundreds of millions of people was under water.
Scientists have known for awhile that the Greenland ice sheet had mostly disappeared at some point in the past million years, but not precisely when.
We were told Iraq wasn’t about oil. Now will we be said about Lithium?
A traditional, potentially violent rivalry over the resources of yet another country, is in the offing. Only this time, the narrative will be slightly different: the competitors, notably the United States, habitually prone to cant and hustling, will argue that the mission to secure such minerals will be less a case of manifest destiny than environmental duty. The cry will be: Save the Planet; Invade Afghanistan.
Source: The Afghanistan Lithium Great Game – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“For decades, we left everything behind and came forward resolutely to defend Israel, and now we find ourselves fighting for democracy.” Brett Wilkins Jul 21, 2023 1
Source: ‘Unprecedented’: Over 1,000 Israeli Air Force Reservists Threaten to Quit Over Judicial Coup
The latest JFK disclosure is further proof the CIA has lied for decades about its relationship to Lee Harvey Oswald. No wonder it doesn’t want the last of the records to see the light of day.
Source: The CIA Opposes JFK Record Releases Because Each One Is More Damning Than the Last
Trump is the dumbest motherfucker on the planet. It doesn’t look like he’s doing any Stable Geniusing lately. Keep threatening Smith. He’s going to get more charges added if he keeps this up. How does his little pinhead brain even think this is OK?
Source: ‘Stupid’: Scarborough Appalled By Trump’s Newest Threat To Jack Smith | Crooks and Liars
Australia isn’t British. It’s a 240-year-old nation built on other people’s land. For clarity alone in 2023, what should be recognized in our Constitution and founding statement is who we are. If we respect those First Peoples, on whose land we sit let’s acknowledge that. 90 % of Australians agreed in 1967 and do today. Those who say No accept “might is right” rather than any belief in “Universal Human Rights” for which WW2 was fought. These same No-Sayers accept that Australia has currently No Bill of Human Rights, the very concept our Diggers really fought and died for. King and country make us look very misguided today when even King Charles is happy to see us become a Republic.
The nations we currently stand shoulder-to-shoulder with are Russia, China, and Nth Korea, and peculiarly the UK who are supporting Ukranian rights against the Russian invasion. To the rest of the world, we are seen as simply dominated by a minority of backward racists
“Put simply, the Constitution is the rule book of the nation. It is the highest of written laws that determine how all other laws are made, and by whom – the state or federal parliaments. As the foundational document for the Australian Federation or, as some describe it, the birth certificate of our modern nation, above all other laws and decrees, the Constitution defines our modern nation. Yet it does not recognise Indigenous people. Who would say that First Nations people – a people and a culture that has lived and flourished on and with this country for tens of thousands of years – should not be included in Australia’s Constitution? Australia’s forefathers may have denied this, and did so violently. But today, Australia can be different. For our ‘young’ nation to mature, constitutional recognition is vital. It is a matter for all of us – a chance to redefine our Australian identity and to right a wrong from the past. When Australia embraces the longest continuing culture on the planet as what constitutes us – the building blocks of our national DNA – we will share a unique identity in the world – an identity we can all be proud of.
Source: “Put… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
There may be some Coalition politicians and Murdoch employers who are motivated by genuine racism to oppose the Voice to Parliament. Some might believe First Nations Australians are unworthy. Some probably believe in “reverse racism.” That, of course, is the belief that there is a correct direction for racism to travel.
Source: Racism, the ‘No’ campaign and the Americanisation of Australian politics – Pearls and Irritations
The KKK is in Australia and they have their invisible hoods on.
A One Nation supporter who mailed 20,000 pamphlets including false claims about the Voice to Parliament without including election disclosures has denied breaking any laws.
Source: One Nation supporter creates ‘clearly wrong’ Voice pamphlet
In order to progress as a peaceful and compassionate society, we must break free from the shackles of centuries of racism and bigotry, writes Frances Letters.
Source: No pride in prejudice
Wake Up Australia
In the wealthiest country on the planet, too many people still lack access to housing.
Source: Housing Is a Human Right — We Need to Recognize It | The Smirking Chimp
Australian companies worth billions of dollars are slipping into private hands at an alarming rate. Stephen Mayne explores what’s driving it and why it’s a worry.
From Iran to Azerbaijan, Iraq to Nigeria, Russia to Venezuela, British foreign policy is largely captured by the global climate polluter, writes Mark Curtis. By Mark Curtis Declassified UK
Declassified recently revealed that BP has pumped Iraqi oil worth £15 billion since the U.K. and U.S. militaries invaded the country in 2003.
Governments in London and Washington long denied the Iraq war was about oil. Yet BP returned to the country in 2009 after a 35-year absence and was awarded a significant interest in Iraq’s largest oil field near British-occupied Basra in the south of the country.
Source: BP’s Wars, Coups & Dictators
Been there done that Abbott’s Australian Shame has been spread the work has been done
A pair of United Nations commissioners have accused the United Kingdom of violating its international human rights and refugee law obligations after the country’s Conservative Party-led Parliament approved legislation cracking down on asylum-seekers.
Israel’s rulers use culture as a propaganda tool while waging war on the cultural life of Palestinian society. The best way to challenge the normalization of Israeli apartheid on every front, including the cultural one, is through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions.
Source: After Israel’s Jenin Attack, It’s Time to Strengthen the BDS Movement
Murdoch wants to own America before he dies. Unfortunately, he gave birth to a myriad of copycats who have watered down, fragmented his ratings and made him a bit more susceptible to bargaining and the influence of others.
That night, Fox host Laura Ingraham denounced the target letter as a “political prosecution” in which the “Biden DOJ [is] making a total mockery of our legal system” in order to stop Trump’s 2024 campaign. Newly anointed 8 p.m. host Jesse Watters urged House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to take action to stop Smith, perhaps by eliminating the funding for his office. And Sean Hannity hosted Trump himself, giving the former president an unimpeded platform to rant against the potential charges.
Trump allies have threatened that if he regains the presidency, he will invoke the “unitary executive” theory as the basis for using the Justice Department to persecute his political enemies, take over the FBI, usurp the authority of independent agencies like the FTC and even the Federal Reserve, and substitute loyalists for independent civil servants.
Note the AFR apologized for it’s taking the RACIST money $20,000 for the No campaign Ad. Or did they donate it? They quickly said it won’t happen again. However, that’s in no way stopped the No campaign from finding others to take their money to publish BULLSHIT that lies ahead.
There is nothing that agitates some whitefellas more than an intelligent, articulate and charismatic blackfella.
The No campaign has featured Thomas Mayo in a crude racist full page ad in the AFR with Michael and Kate Chaney. They are also circulating a nasty video mash up which uses selective footage to depict Mayo as a threatening and dangerous subversive.
Source: What gets some whitefellas angry and anxious – Pearls and Irritations
Fordham is a real “dickhead”, Our PM goes on 2GB, unlike LNP’s Tony Abbott, Dutton and Morrison who spent time boycotting the people’s ABC to be abused not by a “news and information” station but the voice of right-wing radio.
Fordham was ready to kick the shit out of our PM for standing up for the universal human right of Indigenous Australians to be recognized for who and what they are in this country’s history and to turn our shame around and change what we have been doing to them without respect for 240 years. Fordham is simply a self-serving racist prick who offered listeners nothing but a cheerleader for the shameless.
Fordham and his ilk are the ones “risking” constitutional recognition, playing games with the referendum while insisting they have Indigenous Australians’ interests at heart. Are we really expected to believe Fordham is “worried about this failing”, as he continues to put forward bad-faith arguments against the Voice?
Source: Risking it | The Monthly
The rich used to eat, dress, and even speak entirely differently from the masses. Today they wear T-shirts and sneakers just like the rest of us. But that doesn’t mean we’re all equal. It only lays bare the real source of inequality: actual money.
Source: Cultural Capital Is No Substitute for Cold, Hard Cash
Behind public statements supporting climate action, key companies engaged in extensive lobbying against Labor’s flagship climate policy, reports Callum Foote.
Forked Tongues: heavy emitters exposed as hypocrites on climate action,
What could be better for democracy than taking the big money out of election campaigns? Both Victoria and NSW have made moves in this direction, but the feds have done nothing. Until now. The Albanese government’s working on plans for reform.
Source: Political donation reform sounds good – but be careful what you wish for
We did absolutely nothing when the Liberal Party in opposition refused to allow Treasury to audit their budget replies back in 2013 in preference to their “privately chosen ” auditors. It continued for over a decade of LNP government and even continues today. No doubt all this was promoted by the likes of Peta Credlin and her husband Brian Loughane in the backroom.
The big four accounting / consulting firms PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG have likely cost Australia $billions of dollars via over charging state and federal governments and aiding abetting national and foreign companies with tax avoidance which is stealing from the Australian public.
Documents reveal how the oil company offered to finance Bogota’s military as it was killing opponents during the 1990s and collaborated with a general accused of kidnap, torture and murder, John McEvoy reports.
Files unearthed exclusively by Declassified in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, shine a new light on British oil giant BP’s financial arrangements with the Colombian military during the 1990s.
At the time, the Colombian armed forces were one of the worst abusers of human rights in the Western hemisphere.
The documents show how BP not only offered to finance the military units operating around its oil sites in the department of Casanare, but also proposed funding Colombia’s “national defence activities” across the country.
On top of this, the files demonstrate how in 1994 BP collaborated with General Álvaro Velandia Hurtado, then the commander of the Colombian army’s notorious 16th brigade, on “conflict resolution” in Casanare.
An expert in military intelligence, Velandia has been accused of involvement in a series of brutal human rights abuses including the kidnap, torture and murder of a social activist in 1987, and collaboration with a Colombian death squad.
Source: BP Financed Colombian Military
You’ve probably recognized some of the celebrities at the picket line. Jason Sudeikis, Hillary Duff, Kevin Bacon, Bill Nye. These actors, similar to writers on strike, are demanding increased pay and protections from artificial intelligence. But the vast majority of striking members are far from household names, actors who are all but certain to survive the major economic consequences of both strikes as they drag on for weeks or even months. Instead, they’re working-class individuals forced to live “paycheck to paycheck,” according to SAG LA’s Vice President Michelle Hurd—and they want the world to know a few facts.
Biden hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House on Tuesday. Herzog is addressing a joint session of Congress today, which a handful of progressive Democrats are boycotting. The same members of Congress also boycotted the address of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a far right Hindu nationalist who is implicated in an anti-Muslim pogrom.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Monday that 50 per cent of cancer patients do not receive treatment due to the strict Israeli blockade imposed on the enclave.
Yes, Israel Is an Apartheid State. That Means It’s A Racist One, Too.
Source: Yes, Israel Is an Apartheid State. That Means It’s A Racist One, Too.
The latest facts on business turnover from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) refute the Government’s critics, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: Contrary to Coalition claims, business is booming across Australia
The No campaign has been accused by Professor Greg Craven of cynically using his early remarks to portray him as being opposed to the Voice. Craven has said he was “thoroughly irritated” to be quoted. He said he was critical of the early drafting of the amendment but had supported it since the wording was settled.
Source: Yes and No and a Bit of Mischief ! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
So incensed was I with the Leader of the Opposition’s response to the Royal Commissions report into the Robodebt Scheme that for a brief moment, I actually felt sorry for him.
However, in an equally brief deliberation, I realised that it was us, the people, that my sorrow was better directed. We deserved more than what Peter Dutton gave us. The Leader of the Opposition’s standing is fundamental to our democracy because he leads the alternative Government and therefore represents its philosophy and policies.
But alas, when responding to matters of importance, he attacks with all the ferocity of an angry Abbott or a lying Morrison. Let me explain his reaction to the Commission’s report in four instances.
Source: A Robodebt response from a leader full of loathing – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Environmental lobby group takes two Federal government finance bodies to court over concerns they are funding destructive projects — and not being upfront about the consequences, Zacharias Szumer reports.
Source: Michael West Media – investigative journalists – always independent
Nobel Prize winner speaks to the Albo-ALP Government. But are they listening?
Australia still has the chance to end the secrecy surrounding multinational profit shifting and set a new standard for others to follow. Anything less than the GRI standard, already released in draft legislation, will be a victory for the tax avoiders.
Source: PwC scandal: Anthony Albanese must stay strong on tax transparency
“Donald Trump tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and keep control of the government despite losing an election,” said one ethics expert. “There may be no more serious offense in a republic.”
Source: Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community | Common Dreams
Controversy surrounds the fate of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, with some so-called experts claiming its release to be safe. Dr Binoy Kampmark reports.
While the Democrats in Washington, D.C. conduct a bizarre debate about whether Israel is a racist state, The World Bank has released some findings from its The Palestinian Psychological Conditions Survey (PPCS). They are summarized by Alia Aghajanian, Arden Finn, Gianluca Mele, and Nadir Mohammed.
In a survey of 5,876 Palestinians in the Palestinian West Bank and the Gaza Strip during 2022, the researchers found that over all, 58% of adult Palestinians report symptoms that are categorized as indicating depression as it is defined by the World Health Orgaization’s wellbeing index.
If you think the war is about NATO I would recommend getting a taste of the bile and vitriol that politicians, propagandists and pundits pour out on the main Russian TV channels nightly, making Sky after Dark look like a Greens branch meeting. They regularly make genocidal claims in line with Putin’s belief (observed as early as 1992) that Ukraine isn’t a real country deserving an independent existence.
For an anecdote that puts another nail in the proxy war claim, go no further than War and Punishment, by exiled Russian journalist Mykhail Zygar, who has excellent sources among Kremlin insiders. As Zygar tells it, Putin and his billionaire crony and bagman Yuri Kovalchuk cooked up the invasion during the Covid pandemic, when Putin spent lots of time pondering on how to retrieve Russia’s imperial glory.
Source: Ukraine: Putin’s war or proxy war? – Pearls and Irritations
When will the put this “stable geni” back in the bottle? America’s script writers aren’t all out on strike
Washington Post investigative journalist Jonathan Greenberg replied: “Every hour brings new proof that any lie will do for MAGA dimwits & the fascist media propaganda networks that amplify the GOP’s bottomless deceit as ‘news!'”
If only Al Capone knew what he could have done.
Former US president Donald Trump says he expects to be arrested and indicted within days for what would be the third time this year.
Source: ‘I am a TARGET’: Donald Trump expects to be arrested within days
America votes No
On his way to Beijing to repair bilateral climate change relations John Kerry announced to the world the US would ‘under no circumstances’ pay climate change ‘reparations’ to the developing world. Why such a statement?
The retired Fat Cats of Fadden didn’t throw an imaginary life-bouy to the LNP. 52K never even bothered to vote. The mainstream media blew a smoke-screen for Dutton claiming some sort of comeback from the brink. The ALP didn’t lose a beat. The Polls, in fact, show the opposite is the case. Dutton isn’t in a less precarious holding pattern but an even greater one today,
The Opposition credits its unremarkable byelection win at the weekend in one of its safest seats almost entirely to these cost-of-living pressures, even though the self-funded retirees who inhabit the mansions on the canals in the Gold Coast electorate have benefitted handsomely from higher interest rates fattening their investments.
Source: Paul Bongiorno: Tainted cost-of-living debate needs reality check
Fighting for ego, a job, and survival Morrison has nowhere to go but run OS while still on LNP’s social welfare benefits. It’s currently his personal Jobkeeper plan which is about to run out as did Stuart Robert’s and now Alex Hawke’s? Pre-selection challenges have arrived will their hats and full of the Australian public’s donations and jobs finally run out?
His closest allies won’t have that luxury as members of a faction Canberra insiders called the “Morrison club” fight for political survival.
Recent experiences with public-private partnerships in Canadian cities, like Ottawa’s light-rail disaster, reveal how the model prioritizes profit over quality, leaving citizens with higher costs and worse services.
Source: Public-Private Partnerships Are a Deal With the Devil
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