The best western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilisation is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don’t seek widespread approval. It’s worthless.
Can a nation survive as a democratic republic without an honest and trusted news ecosystem? Is it an actual fact that truthful and reliable news — combined with the kind of cultural trust people have in both government and each other as the result of a shared reality — are both historic and necessary preconditions for a democracy to work at all?
With inflation on the rise, Australian unions are calling for a modest pay increase for minimum-wage workers. The government, backed by bosses and bankers, says such a move will increase inflation, but the truth is they just don’t want to pay.
The covering up of corruption and scandals by the mainstream media is highlighting the importance of independent journalism more than ever, writes Paul Begley.
This despite their claims that taxes will fall. They will fall however for top income earners who, under Stage 3 tax cuts, will get thousands of dollars back in their kit. These are the sad facts of the Coalition , performance. But what of vision for the future? There is none. All is based on a spurious, spun line, “trust us, we are superior economic managers”. The transfer of public wealth from poor and middle income earners to wealthy Australians continues apace, as does the $12bn in subsidies for fossil fuel companies, mostly foreign multinationals which pay little or no tax.
If truth is the first casualty of war, it is also under constant attack in the Morrison-Joyce regime’s love-in with spin enabled by Murdoch and a media oligarchy who help the Coalition demonise China and Russia, “shape the narrative” of foreign affairs, to distract us from its terminal, internal disunity and its own catastrophic incompetence.
Shout? You can hear him in Beijing. Or Kharkiv.
No-one will ever teach Morrison that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. Not that he cares just how awful he is with his harangue of the Opposition Leader for “being a small target”“or just small”?
But it won’t be his reducing of Question Time to howling abuse, that decides this election, nor will it be his despicable treatment of women, particularly his office backgrounding against Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame, although that could play a big part.
It is unlikely that any of Morrison’s chest-beating posturing on foreign affairs, reciting US talking points, will convince anyone that a PM who can’t control his own party is a strong man who will keep the nation safe. Nor will the happy family man fantasy even begin to atone for the leaked texts which reveal how much he is reviled by his party including his deputy PM.
The decider could be the sixteen billion dollar election war chest. Unless, of course, voters worry where the money’s coming from.
That widespread and deep-rooted failure of critical thinking in American society today has helped make Trump and his enablers, like other liars before them, successful in the war against truth. In the words of the mid-20th-century cartoonist Walt Kelly’s comic-strip character, Pogo the Possum, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” That’s a powerful enemy. Whether there’s an effective way for the forces of truth to oppose it is far from clear.
The corrupt process must be exposed and all Assange supporters must speak up. The United States should not be allowed to use the Espionage Act or any other mechanism to snatch up anyone, anywhere and charge with a crime of dubious legality. If they are allowed to do so in this case they will certainly do it again. Anyone who wants to expose high crimes will find themselves in Assange’s position. People who oppose the empire and its machinations are all at risk if Assange is extradited and stands trial in the Eastern District court. He is a political prisoner and others will be too if the prosecution proceeds. It is no exaggeration to say that we are all Julian Assange.
Even before anything is actually unveiled or proven successful, the venture is valued at over a billion dollars. There is, however, an extremely good chance the whole thing will be a flop, in which case Trump and his pals will still make hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to the way the deals are structured . . . and of course the average investor/Trump supporter will be left with little of value.
Credlin’s apology wasn’t her St Paul moment she was forced to apologise because of Section 18C and the complaints put in to the UNHRC. Unlike Andrew Bolt she accepted the verdict and didn’t take it to court to be publicly found guilty. Credlin is far smarter.
Sky News host Peta Credlin’s apology to the South Sudanese community for comments which incorrectly linked them to a Covid-19 outbreak was a condition of a resolution to a human rights commission complaint against her. On Friday, Credlin issued a four-minute on-air apology for blaming the community for an outbreak in Melbourne and making other harmful comments. Her apology came almost 18 months after the offending statements were broadcast on 26 June 2020. Two individuals, who were also acting on behalf of other members of the community, made a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission on 3 November 2020 regarding Credlin and Australian News Channel (ANC), the company which operates Sky News Australia. Peta Credlin Sky News host Peta Credlin issues lengthy apology to South Sudanese community over Covid comments Read more The complaint related to the 26 June 2020 segment, and an apology Credlin made three days later. The complainants alleged the segments were discriminatory, contrary to s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, and lodged a complaint on behalf of themselves and “other members of the South Sudanese community in Victoria who are aggrieved by the making and by the making and broadcasting of the Credlin Imputations”.
My thought for the day Leaders who cannot comprehend the importance of truth as being fundamental to the democratic process make the most contribution to its demise. (John Lord )
Our National Archives hold a great many secrets. What the courageous Professor Hocking and her supporters have done is to turn that mighty key to the vaults that house and secrete so much of our past, including our shameful treatment of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, just for starters. Her win in the High Court stands other seekers of truth, justice and history in good stead. Since her brave intervention, we all have a better chance of accessing these archives.
Speaking of submarines, Christian Porter has resigned. I know that previous sentence may not seem to make sense to those of you who don’t follow politics closely but the current modus operandi of the government is to distract us from the previous disaster by pointing us in the direction of another disaster until one of them has something that we can focus on where there is more than one side of the argument. To demonstrate with a complete hypothetical:
Like the people who seem to be able to embrace the idea that we need to worry about mental health while not actually doing much to help people with mental health issues, as well as feeling like the budget has to get back to surplus but we need to give high income earnings tax cuts, as well as telling us that we can’t afford the NDIS but franking credits refunds to people who don’t earn a taxable income are no problem*, Gladys seems to be able to hold two seemingly contradictory positions at the same time. Yes, she was unlucky in love and that Maguire guy pulled the wool over her eyes, but she should stay Premier because she’s very astute and makes good decisions.
My thought for the day Sometimes, I allow myself the indulgence of thinking I know a lot. Then I realise that in the totality of things, I know little. I feel a sense of shame.
Andrew Clyde said calling the January 6th riot an insurrection was a “bald-faced lie” and that it looked more like a “normal tourist visit.” It would seem that Andrew Clyde knows a thing or two about making bald-faced lies.
Falsehoods have flooded public discourse in recent years through outlets including talk radio, cable TV channels and social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram. The proliferation of these falsehoods has seemingly normalized the practice of spreading lies. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit on March 26 over the network’s airing of false claims that the election had been stolen by Joe Biden with the help of Dominion.
My thought for the day Do you shape the truth for the sake of a good impression? On the other hand, do you tell the truth even if it may tear down the view people may have of you? Alternatively, do you simply use the contrivance of omission and create another lie. I can only conclude that there is always a pain in truth, but there is no harm in it. (John Lord )
If you take the personalities out it and ask yourself the simple question: Who is more worthy of being listened to? A family who has been put there by Divine Right, or an actress from a television show. You realise that it doesn’t matter who’s telling the truth because the Queen and her family are our heads of state and we should never question anything they say even if it is a complete load of bollocks and we know they have a history of racism and historic support of the Nazis. Yes, we should support the Royal family whatever they do because otherwise, it’s just mob rule… Or as some like to call it, democracy.
Truth Must be avoided at all cost in Australia and whistleblowers punished. Is that what we need to teach our children?
A small number of special forces soldiers who blew the whistle on alleged war crimes at an official inquiry have been issued termination notices against the advice of the military watchdog.
The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of reason never ceases to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation. ( John Lord )
Nancy Pelosi announced Monday afternoon that she has authorized a 9/11-style commission to further probe the events of that day as well the various dynamics and actions that led up to it. In a letter to congressional colleagues Monday, Pelosi said that an initial probe and report presented by (ret.) Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré focused on the security failings of January 6, as well as the case presented during the impeachment hearings in the House and the trial in the Senate make clear that a more comprehensive investigation is warranted. “It is clear from [Honoré’s] findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened,” Pelosi stated.
Last week, prosecutors announced charges against a California man who was arrested on Jan. 15 for possession of pipe bombs and other weapons. Ian Rogers was apparently intent on attacking Democrats and other “enemies” of Donald Trump and his movement. Law enforcement also seized as evidence a card from Rogers that read “White Privilege Trumps Everything” and had the number “0045” (Trump was the 45th president) repeatedly listed as its account number.
While Ms Herriford’s lemonade stand did make a profit last year, she wanted to be clear that she does have a loan owing to her mother worth $14 – around $439,999,986 less than the loans owed by the Trump Organisation.
Anyway, back in Canberra the Saviour was able to quickly explain the situation in aged care facilities:
The challenges are not unique to Australia so don’t try and blame the Federal Government who is responsible for the regulation of aged care.
It’s inevitable that Covid-19 will get into aged care facilities because of the high rate of community infection.
It’s being brought in by staff and not spontaneously appearing in the residents who are under lockdown and not allowed to leave.
Brendan Murphy still agrees with Morrison even though he’s no longer CMO but he’s always available for a press conference.
“When it rains, everyone gets wet.” This I presume is because the profit motive is so strong and the regulations so lax in Aged Care Facilities that there’s no necessity to fix the holes in the roof.
Doctor: There’s good news and bad news.
Patient: What’s the bad news?
Doctor: We amputated the wrong leg.
Patient: Oh my god! What’s the good news?
Doctor: The other one’s getting better.
Now more and more people can finally see what few of us have been repeating for years: The entire world has its neck squashed by the U.S. boot. The entire world “cannot breathe”! And the entire world has to fight for its right to be able to breathe!
Just twelve months ago, I was thinking about what a challenge writing was going to be. I mean, I expected that we were going to have a Shorten Labor government and, while I was sure that it would only be a matter of time before I’d be able to apply my satiric style to them, I was sure it was going to be more of a challenge. Let’s be real. With the Coalition the satire practically writes itself.
Take, for example, Scottie telling us that it’s time to get out from under the doona and that we need to get things moving again while it’s still too dangerous to fully re-open Parliament…
The problem is: democracies can’t function properly if there isn’t a shared truth, no matter how broad, among the voting public.
And yes, the split in our shared reality didn’t happen overnight. It has eroded for years with the help a strident, polarising Murdoch media and talkback radio, much of which is spread widely online.
But social media’s ability to filter the facts, and experience, has accelerated this trend to a crisis level.
This is something being learned the hard way in the US, when life and death decisions are being taken on worldviews that are only half-shared within the nation.
The plot and lies thicken. Propaganda is quick the truth takes longer to come out and Trump can’t stop it. (ODT)
Critics said the Post reporting undermines the Trump administration’s claim that it assassinated Soleimani due to an “imminent threat” to American interests—and indicates the general’s killing was part of what was meant to be a far more sweeping effort to damage the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“This suggests a mission with a longer planning horizon and a larger objective, and it really does call into question why there was an attempt to explain this publicly on the basis of an imminent threat,” Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank, told the Post.
London: Renewable energy has overtaken fossil fuels to become Britain’s largest source of electricity in a historic shift that could signal the “beginning of the end” for coal across Europe.
National Grid data released on New Year’s Day revealed coal represented just 2.1 per cent of Britain’s overall electricity output in 2019.
By comparison, black and brown coal fuelled 74 per cent of Australia’s energy mix in 2018.
After Donald Trump accused Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of “trafficking in vicious anti-Semitic screeds” at a rally in North Carolina, the crowd erupted in the chant “Send her back! Send her back! Send her back!” Trump later claimed he did not agree with the chants and that he had tried to cut them short. A tape of the event, however, makes clear that this was a lie. Moreover, Trump refused to retract the racist tweets that set in motion this frenzied mass expression of racism by renewing his call for the four Congresswomen he attacked to leave the country if they do not embrace his worldview of patriotism and American exceptionalism. In fact, he mentioned to reporters that he was “enjoying” the latest controversy over his comments, which have drawn international condemnation.” This was a spectacle that had the markings not only of a current white nationalist rally but also echoes of the hate-filled spectacles that took place in Germany and Italy in the 1930s and 1940s.
“Hi there, this is your head of Public Relations, Scott Morrison with a very important massage:
“In 2017 over 3000 Australians died by their own hand. It’s affecting our young people, it’s affecting our veterans, it’s affecting boys and girls in remote indigenous communities. It’s affecting middle-aged men 45-50 living in suburbs, the highest rate of suicide in the country. Now just this week acting on OUR initiative to make a towards zero goal a national priority, I appointed Christine Morgan as the national suicide prevention officer and that should be enough so we don’t have to worry about doing things like raising Newstart because HOW GOOD ARE JOBS? We certainly don’t have to worry about Robodebt because people should pay back money which they can’t prove they don’t owe and certainly nobody can prove that they topped themselves because of the debt.
“As for those on Manus and Nauru, we don’t have to worry because our towards zero only includes Australians, so they won’t go into the statistics…”
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