Public relations is at the core of coal and gas industry influence which has governments actually incentivising the burning of the planet. Grant Ennis, who has just released the book Dark PR, explores how corporate disinformation campaigns allow this to happen.
Privatised Corporate Media has become the business of “creating and not reporting news”. Facts and their verification fail to even begin to be required in favor of imagination. Profit is the goal and ratings the means to achieve it in a market where the money larely flows from a minority at the top down and not from the majority at the bottom up. Peter Costello has pivoted Ch9 to the Murdoch’s business model to hopefully attract a larger portion of that cash flow from the usual suspects. Red Alert is just an example of new and normalised sensationalism and propaganda sold to us as news.
The backlash over Nine Entertainment’s “Reds Under the Beds” campaign continues as they defend their stories by pointing to “panel of experts”. Who are these experts?
Source: What’s the scam with Nine’s “Panel of Experts”? Red alert, it’s ASPI – Michael West
It was revealed that: “More than 2030 people died after receiving a Centrelink debt notice, also known as robo-debt, according to new data released by the Department of Human Services.”
Source: Many suffered a robodebt of death – » The Australian Independent Media Network
To state the obvious, only paedophiles are paedophiles.
Homophobic “grooming” fantasies are not evidence of paedophilia. They are a political tactic and they target working-class queer people. We need to defend each other from these lies.
Source: Far-Right tactic to target queer people a frightening trend
Will Albanese back Australia or Washington on Julian Assange? If he is “sincere,” as the more doe-eyed Labor Party supporters say, what is he waiting for? If he fails to secure Julian’s release, Australia will cease to be sovereign. We will be little Americans. Official.
The USA accused China of taking organs of prisoners they are opting to allow the “donation” of them. After all America supports Privatisation as opposed to Socialism. There is demand in and profit the their “free market” as opposed the mythical socialist one.
In January 2023 two Democratic representatives, Judith Garcia and Carlos Gonzalez, proposed a bill that would offer prisoners in Massachusetts a new way to win reduction in their sentences: by donating their bone marrow or vital organs.
Source: Prisoners Donating Organs to Get Time Off Raises Thorny Ethical Questions – scheerpost.com
I backed Bernie in 2016 when he ran for the Democratic nomination for president against Hillary Clinton and backed him again in 2020. I took some crap for doing this from Clinton people, but I’m glad I did it. The system needed shaking up. It needed Bernie’s candidacy even if he wasn’t going to get the nomination.
I love Bernie because he has more guts than any politician I know. Hell, he has more guts than just about anyone I know.
But I’m still not going to be labor secretary again.
Libertarians and conservatives talk a lot about freedom, but the most important kind of freedom is freedom from domination — and if you take that seriously, you should oppose capitalism.
We hope that “Eight Contradictions in the Imperialist ‘Rules-Based Order’” should stimulate debate and discussion and in the broader Battle of Ideas against toxic social philosophies that seek to suffocate rational thought about our world.
Source: Eight Contradictions of Imperialist ‘Rules-Based Order’
Australia’s American Ambassador Kevin Rudd is being quoted
“Murdoch is not just a news organisation. Murdoch operates as a political party, acting in pursuit of clearly defined commercial interests, in addition to his far-right ideological world view.”
Source: Why is Rupert Murdoch’s Lie Machine Poisoning American Democracy? | The Smirking Chimp
The lying of Fox News and its damages to Dominion are significant. But the real damage is much deeper and more dangerous. And no lawsuit—not even manifold legitimate indictments of Donald Trump—can stop it. Only the decisive defeat of the Republican Party, and a Democratic Party empowered and committed to addressing the real problems plaguing American democracy, can stop it. That is a very tall order. And everything hangs in the balance.
Source: Opinion | Dominion, Tucker Carlson, and the Very Big and More Dangerous Lie | Common Dreams
I believe Tucker Carlson is one of the most notorious traitors to the United States — not to mention common sense — since the days of Joe McCarthy.
Source: Tucker Carlson, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News: A network of treason, sedition and lies | Salon.com
Asking Indigenous peoples to simply elect one of their own democratically to sit in an extra chamber advising future government irrespective of what party wins elections. Isn’t a hard task to ask. I think it would be more productive to have more Indigenous advising State Governments via a Treaty in QLD and nationally through the Voice then having none at all in the room which could only make situations worse and a continual revolving door of post generational trauma that persists for another 235 years. Perhaps we could have a civil discussion about what many call Australia Day then, closing the gap, and improving living standards for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Having a voice might also increase the chances of more First Nations people becoming engaged in politics and see aspire to see perhaps a First Nations State Premier or Prime Minister one day?
Source: Voice and Treaty Must Happen Hand in Hand – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In the wake of the PwC Robodebt scandal, the Senate has voted for an inquiry into the four most powerful firms in the world – PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY. What’s the scam?
The scam is the Big4 have been revelling in double-digit revenue growth thanks to the gutting of the public service yet there are egregious conflicts of interest between their government consulting, multinational tax avoidance and audit divisions. The Big4 have managed to fashion themselves as both the gatekeepers and the poachers of global commerce.
Source: Finally an inquiry into the Big4 – Greens bring it, Labor supports it – Michael West
Peter Hartcher has now been into war talk and urging war on China for years courtesy of his stewardship of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Foreign Affairs editorship.
People should get this straight. The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age are editorialising in favour of a war between Australia and China.
The Herald and the Age, unbelievably, are countenancing a war with China. And not just countenancing, urging a war with China.
The editor of the Herald, Bevan Shields, should hang his head in shame for encouraging the publication of this provocative and dangerous rubbish.
As Nine newspapers attempt to spread panic about a Chinese invasion, Professor John Quiggin explains why the logistics of such an event happening are unrealistic.
Source: ‘Red Alert’ is a paper tiger
Federal opposition leader, who trails the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in opinion polls, is not on list of party dignitaries expected at the launch
.png?width=990&auto=webp&quality=75)
You think a guy wearing animal skins and horns was admitted to the sacred halls of the U.S. government and given a guided tour by nice security guards on January 6, 2021? Why would you doubt it? After all, Tucker Carlson showed you those sweet and tender moments of a tourist in quite distinctive garb being escorted from place to place by government employees, right. And those pictures were taken from a video provided to Mr. Carlson by Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader of the House of Representatives? Don’t believe your own eyes anymore? Don’t believe your elected representatives? Are you really that cynical? Or that high? Or that addled by mainstream media?
Crazed insurrectionists swarming all over the Capitol Building and shitting on Nancy Pelosi’s desk? You think a thing like that could happen in the United States of America? And you call yourself a patriot? Better get right with what’s real, don’t ya think?
Source: Nothing Is Real, and Nothing to Get Hung About | The Smirking Chimp
This week, when the New York Times featured an opinion piece by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, it harmonized with a crescendo of other recent pleas from prominent American supporters of Israel. Bloomberg warned that Israel’s new governing coalition is trying to give parliament the power to “overrule the nation’s Supreme Court and run roughshod over individual rights, including on matters such as speech and press freedoms, equal rights for minorities and voting rights.” Such a change would, Bloomberg added, undermine Israel’s “strong commitment to freedom.”
Strong commitment to freedom? That would sure be news to the more than 5 million Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Far from being a “Jewish democratic state,” Israel has evolved into a Jewish supremacist state. In the real world, “Israeli democracy” is an oxymoron. Denial does not make that any less true.
Source: Opinion | Israel’s Liberal Supporters Are Taking Their Denial to a New Level | Common Dreams
The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that protests against the government of Binyamin Netanyahu’s plans to gut the Israeli judiciary are now spreading in elite military reserve units. A petition circulated in their ranks saying,
“As long as these dictatorial and methodical pieces of legislation continue, with the aim of rescuing a criminal from prison [i.e. Netanyahu], we will not serve, or carry out the orders of crooks, corrupt criminals and parasites, who stand behind this coup against the very nature of our system.”
Tucker Carlson is a true Murdochian who rose to fame by saving Murdoch from journalism
That text message wasn’t some one-off: the court documents are full of juicy little examples of Carlson bashing Trump. During the 2020 presidential election, for example, Carlson told his producer that Trump was a terrible businessman. “All of [his businesses] fail,” he texted. “What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that.” In another text, sent the day after the Capitol riots, Carlson described Trump as a “demonic force, a destroyer.” And in yet another text he called Trump’s presidency a “disaster.” Weirdly none of those opinions made it onto his show.
Source: So Tucker Carlson secretly hates Donald Trump … is anybody surprised? | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian
It seems Lachlan and his father Rupert have significantly different views “in public” than they do “in private”. Rupert’s views and concerns were expressed very clearly in demanding Fox News “pivot” in order to save its ratings and share value from severely Bungie diving. In order to do that truth, facts, and their real beliefs needed to be abandoned in favour of what their audience wants to hear and not what it needed to. Lachlan well he simply abandoned showing his beliefs years ago when he proved to be a failure as an executive and investor years ago. He burnt millions with One Tel, Ch10 and is now aiming for strike 3.
At the March 9 Morgan Stanley 2023 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, Fox Corp. CEO and Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch downplayed the seriousness of Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News, saying that “the noise about the lawsuit is not about the law and is not about journalism, and more about politics and that is reflective of the polarized society we live in.”
Robodebt the cyber-machine pretending to take values out Welfare decisions. Only a Penacostalist could come up with a smokescreen like that. Let the computer be the judge said Pontious Pilate Morrison “I wash my hands and stand aside of any decision”
If public trust is to be restored, at the very least, the people responsible for this major breach of the law, the illegal Robodebt scheme, should face the hardest penalties available under our legal system.
Source: No accountability or public shaming for Robodebt criminals
Albanese talks integrity and transparency but walks back on it
The bottom line is Leo Hardiman was forced to quit his well-paid 5-year contract, by constructive dismissal, in less than a year because Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government would not give him what he needed to speed up the processing of freedom of information requests and reviews which are used to help keep the government accountable.
Carbon offset is replacing the pollution of one company with the non-pollution of another. Carbon credits are the trading mechanism for carbon offsets. Or put another way, a company that directly or indirectly emits a lot of carbon dioxide has two choices. It can continue to do so, and be penalised for not helping to reduce its carbon footprint (e.g. by regulators, government or shareholders), or, it can buy carbon credits to offset its own emission from someone who have earned such credits.
Source: Carbon credits and offsets – What’s the scam? – Michael West
“I understood this a few years ago. And my view became that we should understand that Australia is part of the United States. It is part of this English-speaking Christian empire, the centre of gravity of which is the United States, the second centre of which is the United Kingdom, and Australia is a suburb in that arrangement. Julian Assange
Peter Costello’s “Mainstream Media” Turns its back to reality for “Ratings”
The mainstream press is unashamedly beating the drums of war while deliberately turning away from what is actually happening, economically and politically in the region, writes Dr William Briggs.
Source: China less of a threat to democracy than the mainstream media
A few things are worth noting in this frothy mix of fantabulation and establishment fire breathing. In the quest to gather such a panel, no effort has been made to consult the expertise of a China hand. That lobby, able to provide a more nuanced, less heavy-footed approach, is being shunned, their advice exorcised in any effort to encourage war.
Source: War over Taiwan: Australia’s Gang of Five – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age just produced an immense example of conflict-of-interest journalism. A former prime minister called it “the most egregious and provocative news presentation” he had ever witnessed in over 50 years of public life.
Costello’s Media wants part of that money and is competing with Murdoch for it.
Two foreign governments, those of the U.S. in particular, but also the U.K., have significant financial inputs into ASPI. ASPI also has extensive links with arms manufacturers, of which just a few are listed on its own site.
Source: Red Alert? Follow the money instead: ASPI is a front for US propaganda – Pearls and Irritations
“As a country that has experienced the devastating effects of Apartheid, we cannot turn a blind eye to the gross human rights violations being committed against Palestinians. It is imperative for South Africa to take a stand and speak out against these atrocities. We therefore, call upon all political parties to support this resolution to downgrade South Africa’s embassy in Israel.”
Source: South Africa downgrades Israeli Embassy over Ongoing Apartheid (and they should know)
Prime Minister Albanese has announced plans for a new department within Home Affairs as a strategy against the growing threat of cybercrime, writes Paul Budde.
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life.
Source: If only our current PM said this… – Pearls and Irritations
The LNP went down without so much as a whimper on May 21 2022. It was a defeat one could blame on many factors; race, misogyny and right-wing MPs of the Liberal and National parties. And those same people are still around today. You know who I mean – yesterday’s men who still believe it’s their right to rule.
The Liberal’s defeat could also be blamed on factors such as a lack of policies, flawed leadership, consistent failures while in power, and poor economic management. However, the main reason was that the public had finally caught up with the Americanisation of our politics. Its leader Scott Morrison played a lone hand in a presidential-style campaign.
Scenarios Peter Jennings, a former deputy secretary for strategy in the Defence Department, says the nation needs to prepare for. It’s what made us the aggressor and took us to Vietnam
Video: What is Red Alert?(opens in a new tab)theage.com.au/national/what-is-red-alert-20230306-p5cpnx.html
Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott discuss the Red Alert project.
Red Alert brings together five experts including Peter Jennings, former head of ASPI. None of the five is a China scholar or expert.
Source: The defence establishment and Fairfax take on China – Pearls and Irritations
Source: Senate Republicans Rip Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 Riot Coverage | HuffPost Latest News
Meanwhile, some 3.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, mostly in segregated cantons behind Israel’s “Apartheid Wall” and the newly constructed “Apartheid Road,” and in towns and cities penned between Jewish settlement blocks and behind a network of segregated roads, security barriers, and military installations. For Palestinians who live there, apartheid signals not merely segregation, but the inhumanity of life under occupation: the beatings, shootings, killings, assassinations, lynchings, curfews, military checkpoints, house demolitions, forced evictions and deportations, forceful separations, forced disappearances, uprooting of trees, mass arrests, extended imprisonments, and detentions without trial.
“There’s quite a bit of video you haven’t seen and that video tells a very different story about what happened on January 6” while images flashed on-screen showing some members of the mob milling around and taking photos after besieging and breaking into the building.
Source: Debunking Tucker Carlson’s dishonest January 6 exposé | Media Matters for America
Carlson aired clips of the Capitol riots provided to him by Speaker McCarthy, resulting in outrage from some members of McCarthy’s own party.
Source: Republicans Break With Kevin McCarthy, Tucker Carlson Over Jan. 6 Footage
The statement differs from a set of facts tendered by police during Coco’s case last year, which saw her sentenced to 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months. She has launched an appeal against the sentence.
Surely the capping of the government passing new fossil fuel endeavors needs to reflect what it expects of others. After all the government isn’t excluded from setting an example we all must follow?
The safeguard mechanism would lead to the biggest 215 polluters being forced to cap their emissions, with companies that breach the limit required to buy carbon offsets or trade their emissions with other firms.
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.