Circus of Champions

Hey look over there!
the shock jocks screech
roll up, roll up, punters
at today’s imperial circuses
Cecil the lion is sacrificed
on millions of web pages
may the dentist be devoured!
all together, outrage!
(slash the minimum wage
there’s a TTIP to push through
rotten Bouffant Bronwyn’s
helicoptering soon forgotten
no need for scrutiny by you).

I stand with Adam Goodes
and cheer his imaginary spear
in the arena of discontent
where all the rules are bent
a lawyer sneers at racist masses
in Murderdoch’s business rag
the ruling class has free passes.

Same time tomorrow, folks –
delectably unethical
the news cycle will supply
another glorious spectacle.

July 2015

Related Links

The New Imperialism of Globalized Monopoly-Finance Capital
Fascist Ideology of the Self: Mailer, Rubin and Hoffman
The “lawyer article” referred to in the poem.

Hasbaroid

Hasbara

Hasbaroid, he was a hasbaroid
Scummier than you and me
Hasbaroid, for a hasbaroid
Palestinians must not be free.

Hasbaroid, he was a hasbaroid,
One talking point too many
Hasbaroid, for a hasbaroid
Palestinians must not be free.

And he bored us a lot
and he had a job
of selling lies for Israel
to cover up its crimes.

He was a hasbaroid

Hasbaroid, he was a hasbaroid,
his friends were unaware,
hasbaroid, he was a hasbaroid,
nobody even cared,

Hasbaroid, he was a hasbaroid,
One talking point too many
Hasbaroid, for a hasbaroid
Palestinians must not be free.

and he bored us a lot
and he had a job
of selling lies for Israel
to cover up its crimes.

He was a hasbaroid
He was a hasbaroid

June 2015
(Apologies to Devo)

Related Links

The elevation of an Israeli minister to deal specifically to BDS is a clear signal that Israel regards BDS as a significant threat to its apartheid, violent oppression of Palestinians.
New funding for hasbara:

“In addition, as Hasbarah Minister, Erdan will be given 100,000,000 shekels ($25.7M) in his first year of office exclusively for coordinating international events to counter the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. ”

Lapkin’s turgid asseveration trots out the current hasbara talking points and attacks the left, BDS and antizionists who oppose a racist Jewish state.
Omar Barghouti:
‘Netanyahu has declared, in effect, that BDS – the Palestinian-led movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions – is the new Iran.’
Israel’s latest hit mission against divestment on campus – intimidating pro-Palestinian students and threatening their careers. Israel sure knows how to delegitimise itself.
Ali Abunimah exposes Beinart’s hypocritical lib zio hasbara.
As if Ynet hasn’t donated itself as a mouthpiece for scurrilous Israeli regime propaganda forever.
Hasbara directed at fundamentalist Christians

“While the global, Palestinian-led BDS movement for Palestinian rights has proven to be a truly tough challenge for Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid, we think there is substantial exaggeration in the recent panic-driven, racist and patently propagandistic Israeli attack on the movement.”

Adelson described three components of his Campus Maccabees concept: donors who will fund the operation; activists on the ground willing to take the fight to the campus; and researchers who will supply information about the anti-Israel groups and recommend possible legal avenues to block their activities.
Perpetrator of multiple war crimes, Elliott Abrams, pushes dirty propaganda against BDS in Newsweek
Decode the US hasbara against BDS
Current StandonUs team from the organisation that brought you pepperspraying of JVP members, portraying themselves as victims
Liberal zionist hasbara: Zonszein attempts to blame BDS for stifling of dissent in Israel.
Peter Beinart trounced by Yousef Munayyer in debate. Liberal zionism is yet again revealed as an immoral, undemocratic ideology.
South Africa’s “finest young leaders” invited on Israel lobby junket
‘Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO-Monitor, a group that tracks anti-Israel activity of Israeli non-profits including Breaking the Silence, told TheBlaze Sunday that “any credibility given to Breaking the Silence is another blow to Israeli perceptions of the U.S.”’
Zionist AMCHA Initiative group fails to have a student-led course on the history of Palestine at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) shut down
Israel’s mockery of foreign war correspondents backfires
Hasbara and the Case for Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel
Israeli government reps spying on activists at conferences
Israel has a long-standing policy of using cultural events to burnish its international image.

“We are seeing culture as a hasbara tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture,” Israeli foreign ministry official Nissim Ben-Sheetrit explained in 2005.

Negative views of Israel soar in the UK, new survey shows
Israel criticized for touting Nepal rescue while Gaza is still in ruins
Israeli defense minister promises to kill more civilians and threatens to nuke Iran

Dealing with Climate Change from a Health Perspective

Possums are survivorsInformative presentation at WOMADelaide Planet Talks 2015 presents an excellent panel discussing some of the proactive things we can be doing to mitigate the health effects of climate change – divest from fossil fuels, reduce population by educating girls, sustain biodiversity, get engaged with bottom up community-based solutions and much more.

Can Human Beings be Well When The Planet is Sick?

  • Dr Paul Willis
    Director, RiAus.
  • Dr Ingo Weber
    practising anaesthetist, former chair SA Doctors for the Environment.
  • Emily Johnston
    PhD student, University of SA, co-founder Adelaide’s ‘Science in the Pub’.
  • Moderator: Bernie Hobbs
    science writer and broadcast, ABC Science Online.

This session of Planet Talks is also available as a Radio National podcast.

Invasion Day 2015

Australian Settler Coat of Arms

Acknowledging white settler supremacist destruction of Indigenous people and habitat. It is telling that the white settler Abbott rewards Prince Phillip when there are millions of Australians who deserve an award before him. What has Prince Phillip ever done for Australians except cost us money?

Cane Toad Time

Toadscape

You know it’s summer in the Sunshine State
when from beneath your desk
there’s a shuffling sound
a gruffly plop and scrape
then you look down
straight into the gloating gob
of the most gruesome pest around here
worse than the pollies, rats and mice
it’s the common cane toad,
that dastardly settler-borne scoundrel.
Out, out, you damn hopping creep
before for the five iron I reach
and augment your next ungainly leap.

Jinjirrie, December 2014

For anyone who hasn’t seen the definitive cane toad movie: