Tag: ART

American Politics

Listen to him

So, what is in a name? Not much, instead, what Trump says or doesn’t say should be the focal point of this presidential campaign. Donald Trump has not said he will accept the outcome of the 2024 election if he loses. Indeed, he said there would be a “bloodbath” if he loses the election, so Mike Pence may wish to stay home on January 6 2025. Donald Trump said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member, so it is safe to say Vladimir Putin is rooting for Trump to win the 2024 Presidential Election. Then there is Donald Trump’s desire to be a dictator, even only walking it back to one day (that is all a dictator needs), as well as using Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric of referring to Latin American people as being vermin. Donald Trump’s stated economic agenda of reducing taxes, including abolishing corporate tax, has been dismissed by economists and business leaders as nonsensical and will increase inflation, not to mention the economic disaster he caused during his first term.

Joe Biden is right: Listen to what Donald Trump says, and what you hear will terrify you.

Listen to him

Israel, Israel Crimes

Why has the Australian Parliament failed to debate the tragedy of Gaza? – Pearls and Irritations

Parliament House 2 Landscape panorama

Australian parliamentarians are responsible for the wellbeing of Australia’s multicultural society but in the last eight months the majority have failed to understand the reaction of those citizens who have experienced colonisation, occupation and war. These Australians are more likely to identify with oppressed people, so they expect their parliamentarians to articulate commitment to international humanitarian law. And of course, as we know many Australians are opposed to militarism as a means to resolve conflict. It is important to recognise those few political representatives who have tried to initiate difficult debate about how Australia should respond when a hitherto trusted ally ignores international law to engage in ethnic cleansing? Australians want to see their representatives and senators engage in informed consideration of complex issues that require sensitivity and courage. Time is running out for many parliamentarians to fulfil their obligations and Australians are watching and waiting for greater responsibility .

Source: Why has the Australian Parliament failed to debate the tragedy of Gaza? – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Famine risk increases as Israel makes Gaza aid response virtually impossible – Oxfam – » The Australian Independent Media Network
  • A food survey by aid agencies in May found that 85 per cent of children did not eat for a whole day at least once in the three days before the survey was conducted, with dietary diversity worsening.
  • Living conditions are so appalling that in Al-Mawasi, there are just 121 latrines for over 500,000 people – or 4,130 people having to share each toilet.
  • Just 19 per cent of the 400,000 litres of fuel a day needed to run the humanitarian operation in Gaza – including transportation, the provision of clean water and sewage removal – is being allowed in and is not delivered every day.
  • According to the UN, aid deliveries have dropped by two-thirds since Israel’s invasion of Rafah. Since 6 May, just 216 trucks of humanitarian aid entered via Kerem Shalom and were able to be collected – an average of eight a day
  • It’s estimated that hundreds of commercial food trucks are entering daily via the Kerem Shalom crossing. Although important for increasing food availability in Gaza, the consignments include items like non-nutritious energy drinks, chocolate and cookies, and food is often sold at inflated prices that people cannot afford. Lack of dietary diversity is one of the key drivers of acute malnutrition and has been assessed as ‘extremely critical’ in Gaza
  • People are paying nearly $700 for the most basic tents and there is so little space left, that some have been forced to set up tents in the cemetery at Deir al-Balah

Source: Famine risk increases as Israel makes Gaza aid response virtually impossible – Oxfam – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Israel, Israel Crimes

Netanyahu
Geoffrey Robertson
Geoffrey Robertson

Human rights barrister

Let’s be clear, Peter Dutton: prosecuting Netanyahu is not antisemitism

Israelis protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for a deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Israelis protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for a deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.Credit: Getty Images

As everyone who uses the word should know, antisemitism means hatred of Jewish people in general, and it is the vilest and most destructive form of race hatred. It is not constituted by condemning the policy or the war tactics of the Israeli government. Dutton’s attempt to conflate the two, and his call on the Australian government to withhold support from an independent international justice process, is shameful.
And history would note the irony that a law forged at Nuremberg to prevent repetition of the sufferings of millions of Jewish people was, 77 years later, dodged and despised by none other than the leader of Israel.

Israel

The New York Times explains how gangsters now Govern Israel – Pearls and Irritations

Once you get into the text, however, the review is withering, arguing that the lawbreakers have become the law makers:

“Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and the official in Netanyahu’s government with oversight over the West Bank, was arrested in 2005 by the Shin Bet domestic security service for plotting road blockages to halt the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. He was released with no charges. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, had been convicted multiple times for supporting terrorist organisations and, in front of television cameras in 1995, vaguely threatened the life of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered weeks later by an Israeli student.”

Subsequently, the writers note that:

“Prime Minister Rabin was murdered after rabbis passed what amounted to a death sentence on him for his support of the Oslo peace process.”

Source: The New York Times explains how gangsters now Govern Israel – Pearls and Irritations

Israel, Israel Crimes

Biden and Congress Are Destroying International Law for Israel – ScheerPost

Colonialism failed indigenous Australians who have had a continuous genetic and lived connection to the land for 75 years. Their land rights were usurped and unrecognized from 1778- 1992. Australians recently had the opportunity to recognize and reverse the injustice done in the referendum on the Voice but voted “No”.

Zionists have been Colonizing and voting “No” at the point of a gun continuously for less than 100 years and have been doing it in the 21st Century with the support of America in denial of the majority of nations and peoples of the world

Whether it is through more subtle means, as Biden prefers, or the all-out and blatant assault on the rule of law preferred by Republicans, the end result will be the same. This is a moment of truth for the ICC and for international law in general. The world has already failed Gaza, as it has failed Palestine for a century. If there can at least be some justice after the fact, there might at least be something to build a better world on.

Source: Biden and Congress Are Destroying International Law for Israel – ScheerPost

Israel

Primetime genocide apologists and the annihilation of Gaza – The Shot

Yesterday, the Australian Senate voted 56-12 to condemn the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, because it allegedly “opposes Israel’s right to exist, and is frequently used by those who seek to intimidate Jewish Australians via acts of antisemitism”. And yet there was no similar motion condemning (or even adequately acknowledging) the ongoing slaughter that stands in opposition to Palestine’s right to exist. If your suss-O-meter isn’t firing yet, it is well and truly broken.

“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”. Today, you will not find a clearer example of the phenomenon Macolm X was referring to than Israel’s wholesale slaughter of Gaza and the mesmerising cover provided by truth-discordant imperial apologia we sometimes call “the news”. 

Reject it all. It is swallowing your humanity. 

Source: Primetime genocide apologists and the annihilation of Gaza – The Shot

Israel

Blackout Imposed on Israeli Military Aircraft in U.K.

The British government has imposed a block on all information about Israeli military planes landing in the U.K.

Amidst speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is set to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers, the new blackout could be intended to protect British ministers from possible prosecution for complicity in war crimes, including defence secretary Grant Shapps.

Kenny MacAskill, Alba MP for East Lothian, asked last week how many Israeli Air Force (IAF) planes had landed and taken off from Britain since Oct. 7.

Shapp’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) responded: “For operational security reasons and as a matter of policy, the MoD does not offer comment or information relating to foreign nations’ military aircraft movements or operations.”

However, this is a new policy. MacAskill had asked the same question in February and the MoD revealed that nine IAF planes had visited the U.K. over the previous four months.

Source: Blackout Imposed on Israeli Military Aircraft in U.K.

Israel

Heartbroken by Israel – CounterPunch.org

Long ago, I came to believe that being a Jew, even a secular one like me, entailed certain responsibilities. A people who had suffered so much yet survived were obligated, if not honored, to serve as witnesses and supporters of other oppressed people and to live in the public interest, to model ethical lives. Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, and Sandy Koufax all made me proud, while I felt ashamed of Roy Cohn, Alan Dershowitz, and Henry Kissinger.

I accepted his offer to meet and talk. We became friends. Over more than 40 years he’s joined Rabbi Landman as my spiritual advisor, officiating at my wedding, while offering rational possibilities in chaotic times. Of course, given the world we’re in, we’ve been talking far more urgently of late. Yes, Hamas are thugs and vandals, but how is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any different in his behavior?

The truth is we shouldn’t have to choose between them. It’s important to get rid of them both, while, at least in our thinking, separating two power-mad and murderous ruling bodies from their people, most of whom just want peace. How can we use the “ethical monotheism” of Judaism to find common ground and a country for each? We don’t have that answer and don’t even know if it’s possible, but at least we should know what the only true goal is: to end the present horror. And that would be good for the Jews, with or without God.

Source: Heartbroken by Israel – CounterPunch.org

Israel

Human Rights? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The Declaration of Human Rights was written as a response to the inhumanity of the Holocaust which saw the killing of 13 million people because of their race, their religion, their ideologies were not acceptable to the Nazi regime in Germany. The races targeted were Jews and Gypsies, two marginalised groups, marginalised not just in Germany, but in much of Europe, and marginalised for centuries, Jews for their religious beliefs, Gypsies were ‘the wandering spirits of the earth’. On ideologies, these included homosexuals and people with disabilities.

Palestinians are marginalised in Israel, but not just in Israel, also in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Egypt where they are placed in Refugee camps, denied employment, treated as second class people and have really nowhere to go.

It seems those who ignore history are likely to repeat it while those who know history can only look on in wondrous amazement.

Source: Human Rights? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison: A blight on Australian politics – Pearls and Irritations

Scott Morrison

The Vulgar God botherer who spoke in tongues and denied everything. Was he paid forward for AUKUS?

His record as a bungling advertisement of malice also included his time as immigration minister, when he became Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s attack dog in the “turn back the boats” policy. Refugees and asylum seekers arriving by sea were demonised, lacerated and condemned, to be towed out, made to disappear in watery depths or – much the same thing – taken to Pacific Island concentration camps (Nauru, Manus Island) to be sadistically tortured, sexually molested and left to moulder. When the New York Times interviewed Morrison on becoming prime minister, the paper noticed something grotesque: “His office features a model migrant boat bearing the proud declaration ‘I Stopped These’.”

Pity, then, that the man himself has not been stopped, a vulgar reminder about where Australian politics went grossly wrong, and where its vulnerable, already trimmed sovereignty went.

Source: Scott Morrison: A blight on Australian politics – Pearls and Irritations

Israel, Israel Crimes

Israel’s Ministers attend this conference in favor of the Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza. That “joke” about beach front properties was always MORE THAN REAL

https://aje.io/86vyrq

https://aje.io/av8a82?update=2660615

Families of the captives also slammed this conference [calling for building illegal settlements in Gaza], saying the ministers who were dancing there, were “dancing on the blood” of 136 Israelis who are still being held inside of Gaza.

Protests [for the release of captives] are taking place on a near-nightly basis with the families trying to block roads, and holding signs that say, “Give up anything”, to get the captives back.

They have been reiterating this for around 115 days, saying that Israel’s government is simply not hearing their plight. They do not feel heard or seen.

They feel that the government is not keeping in line with what they have previously told them and they say that any deal that is on the table, any concession that needs to be given up [to get the captives back] – the time to do so is now.

Israel, Israel Crimes

Gaza: What Is Victory? – CounterPunch.org

Netanyahu insisted that once the war ends, Israel’s IDF will remain in control of Gaza. He said that Israel will have “overall security responsibility” over the Gaza Strip. “IDF forces will remain in control of the Strip, we will not give it to international forces.” In addition, Netanyahu has, in the words of The New York Times, “made clear he has no intention of resigning after the war in Gaza ends.”

Control signifies victory. Such control involves the further “concentration” of a shrinking Palestinian population and habitable land area. Israel may likely be forced to establish a quasi-permanent military presence – an unofficial “occupation force” – in preserve “security.” This also assumes, for example, that the U.S. will not cut a deal with Egypt to absorb the forced displacement of, say, one million Palestinians or those of the West Bank to Jordon.

Source: Gaza: What Is Victory? – CounterPunch.org

Informed Comment, Israel

Chris Hedges: The Evil Israel Does is the Evil Israel Gets – ScheerPost

On Friday, the United Nations Security Council voted 13-1 for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and unconditional release of all hostages. The U.S. voted against the resolution. The U.K. abstained. The draft resolution was not adopted due to the U.S. veto.

Source: Chris Hedges: The Evil Israel Does is the Evil Israel Gets – ScheerPost

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Pollock was a great investment, Lachlan Murdoch potentially a great expense

Blue poles, by Jackson Pollock.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 30/1/23 Jackson Pollock an investment, Lachlan Murdoch and Expense,

Indigenous abuse, Indigenous Affairs, Uncategorized

Australia governments urged to stamp out enslavement and exploitation of Aboriginal artists | Art and design | The Guardian

Senior women artists from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara

When Art became an organized industry and entrapment (ODT)

via Australia governments urged to stamp out enslavement and exploitation of Aboriginal artists | Art and design | The Guardian

Filed under:
Australian

Marree Man: The enduring mystery of a giant outback figure – BBC News

 

A 2016 picture of the Marree Man artwork in South Australia

via Marree Man: The enduring mystery of a giant outback figure – BBC News

Informed Comment

When no one is left | The Monthly

Source: When no one is left | The Monthly