Stephen Mitchell

Writer. What I lack in hard facts, I make up for in imagination. Not exactly reliable, I admit.

[Adam @AdameMedia]

Before the genocide, Gaza was home to 2.3 million people.

Now? 1.7 million.

They murdered 600,000 people… and they know it.

One of the worst genocides in history played out in real time before our eyes.

[dylan saba @shaabiranks]

https://t.co/2ra6Neqnvq

[Rex Patrick @MrRexPatrick]

#UPDATE: After 4.5 years, 2 Federal Court cases, and $400K spent by the government on lawyers, the Information Commissioner has ordered A-G Mark Dreyfus to hand over #SportsRorts advice prepared for former PM Scott Morrison by former A-G Christian Porter. #FOI #auspol

[Stephen Mitchell @utterstevie]

@PatMcGorry I'm not sure we're far off. Gina Rinehart wields immense political influence and Dutton's her man.

[Ben Schalman @OfficialT_P_V]

DAY TEN:

We still have no details of who firebombed the Adass Israel synagogue or a motive.

However, we are somehow sure it was an act of antisemitism and terrorism.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

@atrupar I mean, if you believe war is murder, and predatory health insurance is murder, and that capital punishment is murder, and all these things are bad… then your belief is valid… but if not…

[Jayson Gillham @jaysongillham]

I've written an opinion piece for @theage about my ongoing case with the @MelbSymphony and its significant implications for artists' rights in Australia.

When I performed a new work dedicated to Palestinian journalists in August, I provided context to the audience about its meaning. The next day, the MSO cancelled my upcoming performance.

But what's most concerning is their legal position: they're arguing that performing artists have no workplace protections under discrimination law at all.

Not just regarding political expression, but on any ground – gender, race, sexuality, religion, disability, or any other protected attribute.

This isn't just about me. If accepted, this position would affect every artist working with Australia's major orchestras. Our cultural institutions should be bastions of free expression, not enforcers of silence.

Read my full piece in The Age to understand what's at stake for artistic freedom in Australia:

https://t.co/Ou6YhTAEBa

#ArtisticFreedom #WorkersRights #ClassicalMusic
@cairnduff_sam @EmblemArtists

[Eva Lishus 💚🖤❤️🤍 @deliciouslybad]

Anti Israel is not anti Semitic.

I'm Jewish. Israel can go fuck itself.
They are war criminals.

Where's the rolling news stories about the Islamic school bus that was torched?

No?
Doesn't fit your narrative?

Fuck Australia too.

#auspol #ThisIsNotJournalism #FreePalestine

[💧Mary Kostakidis @MaryKostakidis]

It’s so important to differentiate. Zionists don’t. But don’t fall into that trap. There are Jewish people in Israel and all over the world who are not Zionists and do not support Israel’s policies and actions.

[@chriswallace.bsky.social @c_s_wallace]

It’s #SavvaDay! 🤩

https://t.co/6UdcCGsd7y #auspol

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Quite a sign when Stephen Walt, one of the most renowned scholars of international relations in the world (and Harvard professor), writes an article in Foreign Policy arguing that "Noam Chomsky has been proved right": https://t.co/SAmSGsXDJJ

Walt agrees with Chomsky that "the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights" is "nonsense".

As he explains, all of US history proves the contrary, from the "genocidal campaign against the indigenous population" the country was founded upon, to the fact it intervened militarily "to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East."

Walt also agrees with Chomsky that this is enabled by a massive brainwashing campaign on the US population: "government institutions work overtime to 'manufacture consent' by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative."

Walt concludes: "If I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading [Chomsky's] book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down. I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up."

[💧Mary Kostakidis @MaryKostakidis]

Soldier: What I saw in Gaza will define our future - Haaretz
'The truly surprising thing is the quickness with which everything looks normal and reasonable. After a few hours, you find yourself trying hard to be impressed by the magnitude of the destruction, muttering to yourself sentences like "This is madness," but the truth is that you get used to it pretty quickly.'
'It becomes banal, kitschy. Another heap of stones. Here was probably a building of an official institution, those were homes and this area... All the way to the horizon. To the sea. The eye moves along to a building that is still standing. "Why haven't they taken down this building?" my sister asks on WhatsApp
''..this is also not an indictment against the Israel Defense Forces. That has a place elsewhere, in editorials, in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, at universities in the United States, at the UN Security Council. The important thing is to reflect what is happening for the Israeli public. To bring things to the surface. So people won't say afterward that they didn't know..'
'.. The destruction is enormous, and it's here to stay. And this is what people need to know: This thing will not be erased in the next 100 years. No matter how hard Israel tries to make it disappear, to blur it, the destruction in Gaza will define our lives and our children's lives from now on. It's testimony of unbridled rampaging. A friend wrote on the wall of the operations room: "Quiet will be answered by quiet, Nova will be answered by Nakba." The army commanders have adopted this graffiti.
''To all of us, from those in the control room to the last of the fighters, it's clear that the government doesn't know a damn thing about how to proceed from here. There are no goals to advance to, no political ability to retreat..''Where's the line between understanding the "complexity" and blind obedience? When have you earned the right to refuse to take part in a war crime? That's less of interest. What's more of interest is when will the Israeli mainstream wake up, when will a leader arise who'll explain to the citizens what a terrible mess we're in, and who will be the first kippah-wearer to call me a traitor. Because before The Hague, before the American universities, before the condemnation in the Security Council, this is first and foremost an internal matter for us. And for 2 million Palestinians.'

From the Comments:
'The trouble is Haaretz can do outstanding Journalism but it's read by only 4.5% of the Israeli public. That's just too bad; but thanks for trying !'

'Haaretz is a newspaper of record. The accurate account of events that it provides to its readers today lays down the archive that future readers will come to when they try to understand how they got to where they are.'

'Let me make this clear, with no equivocation. Every single Israeli knows exactly what is happening in Gaza. There is barely a person here who doesn't have a family member, friend, or neighbour in Gaza over the past year. Social media here in Israel is flooded with video posts by soldiers. Everybody knows. And almost everybody approves, to one degree or another, with the slaughter, with the sheer vengeful brutality. Israeli society isn't uninformed. Israeli society isn't interested in Palestinian lives. It never has been. I am so happy that my daughter refused to serve in the IDF. Her conscience will remain clean.'
https://t.co/kpaaFRTxTo

[Penny Allman-Payne @senatorpennyqld]

This should be the final nail in the coffin for the failed mutual obligations scheme.

Income support recipients are already forced to try to survive on poverty payments. Robbing them of the meagre incomes they rely on is unforgivable.

Labor must immediately suspend the scheme.

[Lee-Anne Walker🎀🌳🎨🎶🌸 @Lee_AnneWalker]

If you look at Simon Birmingham’s voting record, you wouldn’t call him a ‘moderate’ - he’s just another neoliberal with a more affable, less repulsive manner.

#Insiders

[@chriswallace.bsky.social @c_s_wallace]

‘When Albanese threw out the EPA, he didn’t just throw his minister under a bus. He threw the whole damn country under the same bus.’

Cracking @JennaPrice column!

https://t.co/xtlqWe66rY #auspol

[Kym @Poupon123]

Children banned from SM...

however their images can be exploited on SM for political gain. right

[Chris Floyd @empireburlesque]

I've been saying throughout this entire century– in print and on line – that Joe Biden is nothing but a corporate bagman, a corrupt, mendacious, bigoted empty bag of wind. Anyone who paid the slightest attention to his actual career, to what he actually *did* – as opposed to the

[Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor]

Mexican President Sheinbaum fires back at Trump in a statement: "Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours."

[jeremy poxon @JeremyPoxon]

Keep up the good work, boss

[Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers]

Some info on that KordaMentha CFMEU audit if anyone's interested