103 Comments
User's avatar
jamenta's avatar

We are ruled by Monsters.

M F's avatar

The control, the violence, the dehumanization directed at dissent is exactly as minorities of color have always experienced, only at this moment deliberately let loose against whites and white liberals who dare not to fall in jackboot step.

MakerOfNoise's avatar

Over here in West Israel, we are also ruled by "monsters".

Feral Finster's avatar

Why does this surprise you? The australian government has no priority other than keeping the Americans happy, and the Americans sure are touchy about Israel.

CK's avatar

In the “States”, federal thugs are murdering protesters and exporting “suspicious” persons without warrants or probable cause.

Feral Finster's avatar

Yes, and they simply ignore court orders that they don't like.

What does anyone propose to do about it? Screaming "no fair!" is about as ineffective as quoting Bible verses to an armed robber.

Similarly, whether Australia has a bill of rights is irrelevant, since nobody will enforce it.

SW's avatar

In 1791 Abolitionists boycotted sugar in protest of plantations in the Caribbean owned by wealthy Brits and Americans. Israel can not control a boycott anymore than slave owners could force people to buy sugar.

The government has proven it can beat people up in the street like it did in Selma, Alabama but it couldn’t force them to ride the buses.

Loam's avatar

I call it "USrael".

Brianna Amore's avatar

Gee who couldn't see this coming THE MOMENT news about the Bondi Beach massacre happened? It was as predictable as the USA going full fascist after 9/11.

David Avenell's avatar

Our mainstream media have covered the Bondi shootings with far more enthusiasm and outrage than they have ever offered to the genocide in Gaza.

Now to be clear, I believe that the killing of 15 innocent people on that day was horrific, if not depraved and / or evil.

In fact I think the one surviving shooter might warrant a return of the death penalty – after all, if he goes to jail he’s unlikely to ever be rehabilitated and Australians would be obliged to feed him and take responsibility for healthcare needs while Australians are waiting, sometimes for years, for relatively minor medical procedures.

I recently read or heard ( unfortunately I can’t remember where I came across this figure. Could have been Lancet ) the the true death toll in Gaza to be possibly as high as 500,000, and yet the MSM never mentions that fact.

To somehow try and find an equal level of hatred and brutality between those two wildly disparate numbers is offensive.

Events of this sort deserve a proportionality of opprobrium and outrage.

grahamlyons's avatar

I would suggest it is closer to 1.4 million.

David Avenell's avatar

I don't think anyone will ever know the true number given the untold numbers buried under thousands of tons of rubble.

Plus Dennis Kucinich described in a very disturbing piece, that the temperature at ground zero for 2,000 lb bomb is high enough to smelt steel and also to vaporise a human being:

https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/war-dust-and-collateral-inhalation

grahamlyons's avatar

Evil Zionist scum surely Hellbound.

David Avenell's avatar

I lean to the sort of Buddhist ( ish ) point of view that we are all in hell now. I'm sure I saw a sign a few years back that said "Abandon all hope ye who enter here".

Trick is, to find a way out.

grahamlyons's avatar

Well, it has to be said that much of what is presented to us represents satanic inversion, e.g. Convid1982 perpetrators like Morrison, Andrews, Paluschuk and SA's Marshall receiving honours, while so many people were killed or injured by their vax. Or "Professors" Christian Drosten, Neil Ferguson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance walk free while Reiner Fuellmich languishes in prison.

At any rate, no-one gets out of here alive.

Citizen's avatar

I think the Lancet said well over 200,000. At minimum.

doug elford's avatar

The Jewish Hasbara is strong.

AIPAC owns the USAss Congress. Who owns the Australian politicians ?

Tom High's avatar

Could you send us another submarine, please, after we get done with a few more citizen beatings?

drednorzt's avatar

*CoughGoughWhitlamCough

David Avenell's avatar

Since you ask Doug, they're owned by a consortium made up of the Zionist lobby, the Fossil Fuel lobby, the Mining lobby, the Gambling lobby, the Pharmaceutical lobby, Big Ag, the MIC and just about anyone else with a enough cash to donate to "Campaign Funds".

The Greens are the only party with clean hands, along with a few Independents.

We do, at least, have Minor parties and Independents In Aus.

Citizen's avatar

Make no mistake, we have the same type of lobbies here, they just aren't as well known as AIPAC. Chris Minns, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and no doubt many others have all had their pictures taken wearing their rulers' tiny hat of choice.

dale ruff's avatar

Not all of them. On the last vote on the Sanders' bill to ban arms to Israel, the majority of Democrats voted for it; all Repubs against. Let's not pretend War is Peace and lump all of congress together; if we do, we lose.

Feral Finster's avatar

Sort of like how Team D was against genocide in Yemen, only to flip once Biden took over.

dale ruff's avatar

Sort of the opposite: voting for a law to end arms to Israel is not like how Biden softened on Yemen.

"How policy compared to Trump era

Policy area Trump Biden

Offensive strike support Yes Ended

Refueling coalition jets Yes Ended

Intelligence targeting aid Yes Restricted

Defensive arms sales Yes Continued

Aircraft maintenance Yes Continued

So involvement narrowed — but did not end."

There was opposition in Congress but it did not prevail. My point is my ignoring the opposition, we undermine it. Sander's let the losing fight to end arming Yemen: "Co-introduced the resolution (with Mike Lee and Chris Murphy).

Led floor advocacy.

Voted YES to end U.S. military support.

He also voted YES on related efforts to block Saudi arms sales.

So his position was consistently:

End U.S. military involvement and arms support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen.

"Bottom line

Sanders consistently voted to end U.S. military support and arms sales tied to the Yemen war.

The majority of Senate Democrats voted the same way.

Measures passed Congress but were vetoed and never implemented." When you ignore the anti-war movement, you undermine the anti-war movement. "Bottom line

Sanders consistently voted to end U.S. military support and arms sales tied to the Yemen war.

The majority of Senate Democrats voted the same way.

Measures passed Congress but were vetoed and never implemented."

Gonna say it again: if you can't lend a hand, get out of the way, with all due respect.

Kathleen McCroskey's avatar

From the River to the Sea - Palestine will be Free! (We can hope)

Nancy Pickle's avatar

So disturbing, this makes me sick to my stomach and brings tears to my eyes for the poor brave protestors. The smug look on the cops face in the video with the bike says it all about the kind of animal attracted to that line of work. I hope these people are banned from reincarnating on our beautiful planet once they finally die. Anyone else notice that this brutality seems to happen only in the Anglo-American Empire, I remember it well from the Truckers covid protest in Canada. Oh yes, there is Syria, but we are paying for the terrorists killing civilians there too, and in Gaza. That says it all about our governments once again. We truly need a revolution and Israel must be returned to the Palestinians - in its entirety.

Brianna Amore's avatar

If you think police brutality only happens in the Anglo-American Empire then I have a bridge in Crimea to sell you.

Spunty's avatar

Yes, but we're supposed to be the good guys.

Bill's avatar

That’s the propaganda we are fed

Ghosted Commenter's avatar

And there are a lot of suckers who still believe it!

Loam's avatar

Genocides are an exclusively Anglo-American trademark.

Brianna Amore's avatar

So the Armenian Genocide was an Anglo-American trademark?

Huh. You might want to check your sources on that.

Loam's avatar

No. But do the math and you'll see who gets on the podium.

Brianna Amore's avatar

That's not what "exclusively" means.

Nancy Pickle's avatar

True, and I don't really believe that it has always been the Anglo-American Empire. It just strikes me that it is the case in the present. Our governments have been involved in one way or another in most if not all of the vile behaviour since WWII, the British Empire for longer. The comment wasn't an essay meant for formal publication, merely an expression of outrage at what I have been witnessing and learning over the past few years. I say it because I feel responsible that we are still letting it happen, it hasn't stopped. Caitlin's point, look at what happens to those who protest in our countries.

Brianna Amore's avatar

Of course. Empires are all terrible, that's what makes them empires. And every single empire in history was built and maintained on bodies and blood. That's not to discount that the Anglo-American Empire isn't just as guilty, not at all. However only now is the world just seeing the truth of it all.

Feral Finster's avatar

Nobody in Crimea wants Ukraine.

denise ward's avatar

Overdosing of testosterone is very dangerous for everyone.

Diana van Eyk's avatar

It's so wrong that people are being beaten up for opposing an ongoing genocide. I will never be able to wrap my mind, or my heart, around this.

ComradeCoconut's avatar

Because their leaders were caught in the Mossad operation like the Americans

Making Sense of the Madness's avatar

And this 5-Eyes country, the same one that passed antisemitism speech laws for censorship, is the very same one hosting Upscrolled which is a non censorship platform. People have zero capacity for critical thinking and it’s painful to watch.

Stuart Estrine's avatar

The only thing that will set Australia right is a general strike, now. There is no negotiation capable of stopping fascism.

Spunty's avatar

Why do so many of these police thugs look (and act) like they've just come from participating in a white supremist, neo- Nazi rally?

Ghosted Commenter's avatar

I know a relative of a friend of mine who harbours such views. He was the top recruit in his class at Goulburn. It is no accident! The Police know who they want in their ranks.

Loam's avatar

Perhaps because they are serving the interests of neo-Nazis?

R B's avatar

Free America from israel parasites

Bhavana Lymworth's avatar

The violence being unleashed around the planet right now amounts to war: global uprising by the people against the monsters, and it looks like war.

We cannot think that war looks like what it looked like in WW1 and WW2. It looks like what we see every day now, somewhere, as people awake, and rise up and resist.

We must continue to resist.

Thank you so much, Caitlin and Tim. Your words give me courage, every day.

Loam's avatar

Of course we're at war. A class war. The exploited against the exploiters.

Marci Sudlow's avatar

Here in the US they are liable to shoot or kidnap you.

Max Girard's avatar

If the government makes "from the river to the sea" illegal,

wouldn't mention of that phrase in the law be a violation of that law?

What should be outlawed is the word anti-semitism or anti-semite

because we have no way of knowing what it means. Since the Palestinians are Semites, any mention of anti Palestine would be anti Semitic.

dale ruff's avatar

Out law speech that provokes hatred and thus justifies and motivates discrimination and violence. Hate speech (not speech we hate but speech that is the prelude to hate crimes, and historically, if unchecked, genocide) if tolerated destroys freedom and human rights. That is the lesson of history. Speech that promotes justice for Palestine is rooted in love for the victims of Israeli genocide, which is justified with hate speech: a clear example of such speech is dehumaniing speech such as when "“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

So long as we accept it is ok to kill animals, dehumanizing speech will be designed to legitimize exterminating people. When Trump called immigrants an investation, this was hate speech as the standard reaction to an investation is to wipe it out.

Indu Abeysekara's avatar

Australia's ruling class is faithfully following their masters - USA and Israel. They spent an inordinate time and resources and enacting draconian laws, in the process of grieving and mourning the Bondi shootings, which shouldn't have happened, of course. All this done without a thought for the Palestinians who are subjected to an on going indescribable horror of a genocide.

If the Prime Minister and his government had any morality, any decency, would they have invited the head of a genocidal regime for a state visit ? We should boo them out where ever they go, as happened to JD Vance at the winter Olympics.

The people aren't even allowed to protest in solidarity with the victims of a genocide as seen in how the police handled and restricted the rallies. Are we going to have our own ICE?

The people of the world are globalising the Intifada whether the oligarchs or their minions like it or not!