John Rainbow

Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you. Live and let live. And use sunscreen.
@[email protected]

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

@baeoflight It'll come back with patience and persistence. Good luck

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

@baeoflight Those numbers are impressive. Keep it up

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

@BenjaminMillar Sydney looking gorgeous tonight too.

[Scott Burchill @IRanalyst]

One of the enduring myths of Australian foreign policy is that Australia is reluctantly required to support the United States and Israel out of strategic necessity and cultural solidarity, or that we are somehow pressured into doing so when we would prefer to be more independent and self-reliant.

The opposite is true. Australia is an enthusiastic participant in the Western club which has produced AUKUS, condemned Russia and Iran for their provocations and aggression, and covered up for Israel’s crimes. In Clinton Fernandes’ phrase, we are more than happy to be Washington’s “sub-imperial power” in the Southwest Pacific.

Canberra is literally incapable of either speaking or acting unilaterally, as if we have no unique national interests. Australian foreign policy is now willingly vicarious.

Every comment on Israel-Palestine, for example, is now issued with our “international partners” such as New Zealand, the UK and Canada - putting us at odds with almost all of our regional neighbours in Southeast Asia. In the face of the ongoing slaughter of civilians in Gaza, the most Tel Aviv can expect from Australia is a “deeply concerned” tweet from Foreign Minister Wong.

Unlike Iran, don’t expect the Israeli Ambassador to be dragged into DFAT to be dressed down over Finance Minister Smotrich’s claim that it is ok to starve Gazans to death or sodomise and torture them in prison camps.

Israel’s “right to self-defence”, relentlessly parroted by both Wong and Albanese for over 300 days, has helped to disguise horrendous crimes: the annihilation of Palestinians and the theft of their land are now clear for all to see. The bombing of schools, mosques, hospitals, universities, refugee camps and “safe zones” is now so routine, it barely elicits news coverage.

Iran, on the other hand, has no right to self-defence against Israel’s murderous attacks on its military officers in Syria, or its allies and scientists in Tehran. Regardless of repeated provocations including Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader and lead ceasefire negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, it is told by Secretary of State Blinken not to escalate tensions in the region: apparently all said with a straight face.

Criticise Israel’s crimes against humanity and defiance of international law and expect to be called antisemitic, a shield which has protected the country from critical scrutiny for almost 80 years.

This is not a result of pressure from the Israel lobby or Murdoch’s Zionist cheerleaders in The Australian. None is required. These are the actual preferences of Australia’s foreign policy elite, regardless of widespread popular revulsion.

International law and the international courts have become weapons to be turned on official enemies in Moscow or military thugs in Africa but do not apply to Netanyahu’s apartheid government (the conclusion reached by all the major human rights groups in the world, including in Israel, but which Albanese still refutes). This is an exemption that has totally discredited Washington’s “rules-based international order” which Canberra loves to invoke.

We have become little more than an echo chamber of Washington on Russia-Ukraine and maritime security in East Asia, despite having very different interests at stake with China. And now, following the foolhardy commitments of AUKUS, we seek a security agreement with Indonesia at the cost of speaking out about Jakarta’s ongoing crimes in West Papua.

There is just so much to be proud of.

[Rex Patrick @MrRexPatrick]

.@AlboMP & @RichardMarlesMP have very deliberately chosen deeper strategic dependence on the US/UK. Greater self-reliance is abandoned. They think that’s smart, but it’s colonial thinking. There’s always a price - political and economic dependence as well. #AUKUS #auspol

[Master-Synaps @Master_Synaps]

@MrRexPatrick Let's socialise profit instead of losses as we do now. Be like Norway. We can extract much more than political donations from miners and processors. Make them pay the people who own the resources, not the politicians who betray their duty of care.

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

And prepare for depression and doom and dread,
We're going to unpack our troubles from our old kit bag
And wait until we drop down dead.

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

Credit Noel Coward
There are bad times just around the corner,
There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky
And it's no good whining
About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won't roll by,
With a scowl and a frown
We'll keep our peckers down

[Sandra K Eckersley @SandraEckersley]

@PeterDutton_MP @Israel_katz Good grief man. 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, ICJ accuses the IDF of war crimes, Israel is debating whether Palestinian prisoners can be legitimately gang raped by IDF soldiers and you are still banging on about what happened last October? It’s AUGUST already. #auspol

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

BREAKING: VP Kamala Harris just confirmed that she will be showing up to the planned September 10th presidential debate, whether Trump attends or not. Amazing move by the Harris campaign! Trump is already looking like a coward. Your move, Donald.

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

To relieve tired eyes. French Italian Alps

[Michael J Wyllie @michaelJwyllie]

Dear ABC chair Kim Williams, can we please have #theDrum back on instead of Hard Quiz reruns. Thanks.

[🌻🇺🇦Catlady Fella @MamasSqueezebox]

@BMeiselas This pretty much sums it up.

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

@iborgward @TheKennyDevine Ok. Please stop now.

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

The ICJ has called on all countries to stop trade relations with Israel that entrench the occupation of Palestine.

I wonder if this will include the drone engines we send to Israel? The armoured steal to settler militias in occupied Palestine? The weapon parts of the F35?

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

@iborgward @TheKennyDevine Thanks for that

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

Rare partnership, rainbow and lightning

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

People are saying that the US/Israeli assault on Gaza is shredding international law. This is obviously true, but it also misses a key point: international law was always primarily intended for the imperial core.

This arrangement arose in the wake of WWII, largely because the imperial powers wanted to avoid a repeat of the egregious destruction they had inflicted on one another. But it did not stop them from inflicting (or continuing to inflict) precisely this kind of violence on the people of the periphery.

The ink had barely dried on the Geneva Convention when the imperial powers conducted or actively supported mass death campaigns in Indonesia, Korea, Guatemala, Vietnam, East Timor, El Salvador, etc; they assassinated or couped elected leaders in Chile, Ghana, Iran, Brazil, the DRC, etc.; they enabled apartheid South Africa and its violent counter-insurgency operations across the continent; and then Iraq, Libya, Yemen...

Truly spectacular violence was inflicted - with mass civilian casualties - in most cases against people who wanted nothing but to regain control of their own land, labour and resources, because these movements conflicted with the interests of imperial capital. All of it was done in violation of international law, and all of it with zero consequences for the perpetrators.

US, British and European war criminals walk among us. They do prime-time talk shows and retire peacefully to their ranches and villas. International law, such as it is, is generally utilized only against their enemies.

We cannot continue to live in such a world. The double standards are obscene and intolerable. It dehumanizes all of us. But the lesson we must take from Gaza is that moral progress and the realization of human rights will never come from the ruling classes of the imperial core. The vision of universal values will never be a gift from Western elites. It was articulated by working class movements and in the crucible of anti-colonial struggle, by people who insisted that rights are for all and not just for a few.

The world we yearn for, as our souls scream against the dehumanization of the Palestinians, will only ever be realised with the success of that struggle. That is the horizon. That is the objective.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Tonight, we made history.

This is just the beginning.

[John Rainbow @lunarbow]

https://t.co/f4Bddof3ks