JOHNSTONE

It's actually a completely damning indictment of all western media if you think about it, and really of our entire civilization. The fact that an actual, literal psychopath whose entire goal in life is to try to get as many people killed by violence as he possibly can at every opportunity is routinely given columns and interviews in The Washington Post, and is regularly brought on CNN as an expert analyst, proves our entire society is diseased.

Reading by Tim Foley.

ATTENTION JOURNALISTS:

It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs.

If you do cite them (and, again, don't), then at the very least you need to disclose the conflict of interest their funding causes in your reporting, and you need to make it abundantly clear to your audience that it is a conflict of interest.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Stop calling the Iraq War a "mistake". When you make a mistake, you make changes to ensure that mistake is not repeated. Nobody responsible for that invasion suffered any consequences of any kind, zero policy changes were made, and the unipolarist ideology which led to it has become more entrenched than ever.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Watching Keating tear strips off all those war pornographers was so satisfying because it showed Australians the appropriate emotional posture to have toward these disgusting freaks. That's the bare minimum level of contempt they should always be treated with. Australians who don't want a war with China are still unclear about how to respond to this deluge of mass media war propaganda our country is being smashed with, and Keating showed exactly how to respond; he provided a solid model for us all.

Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

David Frum and Max Boot, two neoconservatives who helped grease the wheels for the invasion of Iraq, have some thoughts they'd like to share with us as we approach the 20th anniversary of that horrific and unforgivable war. Both of these perspectives can be read in widely esteemed mainstream publications, because everyone who was responsible for inflicting that war upon our species has enjoyed mainstream influence and esteem to this very day.

Reading by Tim Foley.

In reality, Australia is not arming itself against China to protect itself from China. Australia is arming itself against China to protect itself from the United States.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Comments from both Washington and Beijing have suddenly become much more pointed and aggressive in recent days, with talk about hot war now being discussed as not just a real possibility but in many cases as a probability. Let's have a look at some of the most significant recent developments.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Do you see what they're doing there? These professional China hawks are explicitly trying to frame peace as a strange "aberration", and war as the status quo norm. They're saying Australians require a "psychological shift" and a "mobilisation of mindset" from thinking peace is normal and healthy to thinking war is normal and healthy.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Australian media are awash with reporting on the war-with-China propaganda series by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that I've been writing about for the last few days. Which is really quite extraordinary, because it's not an actual news story.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The latest New York Times report on the Nord Stream pipeline bombing is something else. According to NYT's anonymous US government sources, the pipelines were blown up by a "pro-Ukrainian group" who had no known connections to any military or intelligence agency, but somehow had all the information, skills, diving equipment and military explosives necessary to carry out such an attack. 

It's actually insulting how stupid it is. It reads like a small child lying about who broke the lamp in the living room; "Uhh, some bad guy came in and broke it, then he left. He was wearing a black cape and had a twirly mustache." At least respect us enough to make up a better lie than "Yeah it turns out it was just some random people with a boat, man! It's crazy I know!"

They literally wrote an entire article without ever addressing how bizarre it is to just keep referring to the alleged perpetrators as just a "group". Like that's a thing. "Yeah you know, one of those Groups we've all been hearing about in the news. You know Groups, they sail around the world destroying international undersea energy infrastructure."

Reading by Tim Foley.