Murdoch Propaganda Pushes Australia To Double Its Military Budget For War With China by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2023-02-16 at 21:41:49 )

Murdoch Propaganda Pushes Australia To Double Its Military Budget For War With China by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

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In the latest escalation in Australias increasingly forceful campaign to manufacture consent for war with China, the Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia has aired a jaw-droppingly propagandistic hour-long special which advocates a dramatic increase in the nations military spending.

Australians are uniquely vulnerable to propaganda because our nation has the most concentrated media ownership in the western world, the lions share of it by Rupert Murdoch, who has well-documented ties to United States government agencies going back decades. The propaganda campaign against China has gotten so aggressive here in recent years that I have repeatedly had complete strangers start babbling at me about the Chinese threat in casual conversation, completely out of the blue, within minutes of our first meeting each other.

The Sky News special is one of the most brazenly propagandistic things I have ever witnessed in any news media, with its opening minutes featuring footage of bayonet-wielding Chinese troops marching while ominous cinematic Bad Guy music plays loudly over the sound of the marching. In its promotional clip for the special, Sky News Australia tinged all footage pertaining to China in red to show how dangerous and communist they are. These are not decisions that are made with the intention of informing the public, these are decisions that are made with the intention of administering war propaganda.

Tonight. 730 on SkyNewsAust-Peter Stefanovic (peterstefanovic) February 14, 2023

The first expert Sky News brings on to tell viewers about the Chinese menace is Mick Ryan, an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which is funded by military-industrial complex entities like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and is also directly funded by the United States government and its client states, including Australia and Taiwan. Sky News of course makes no mention of this immense conflict of interest while manufacturing consent for increased military spending, calling Mr. Ryan simply a "former major general." This is on the same level of journalistic malpractice as running an article by Colonel Sanders on the health benefits of fried chicken but calling him "Harland David Sanders, former fry cook."

The next expert Sky News presents us with is Australian former major general Jim "The Butcher of Fallujah" Molan, who oh-so-sadly passed away last month. I have written about Mr. Molan previously specifically because the Australian media love citing him in their propaganda campaign against China, last time when he was pushing the ridiculous claim that China is poised to launch an invasion of Australia.

The other experts Sky News brings in are former Central Intelligence Agency Director and United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Taiwans Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, Taiwans Director of Chinese Affairs Dr Lai Chung, Japans ambassador to Australia Yamagami Shingo, Australian Shadow Defense Minister Andrew Hastie, and John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a virulent propaganda firm which is once again funded by United States-aligned governments and military-industrial complex war profiteers.

So it is about as balanced and impartial a punditry lineup as you would expect.

At the 8:15 mark of the special, Sky News repeats the unevidenced propaganda claim that former Chinese president Hu Jintao was politically purged during the 20th Communist Party Congress last year.

At 19:15 Jim Molan talks about the need to fight and die with our allies the Americans while patriotic cello music plays in the background.

At 21:30 we are shown images of Australia being bombed alongside the Chinese flag (very subtle, guys).

At 24:25 Sky News accidentally does a version of the "look how close they put their country to our military bases" meme with a graphic display of all the United States war machinery that surrounds China. The United States would never tolerate being encircled by the Chinese military like that and would immediately wage war if China tried; it is clear that the United States is the aggressor in this conflict and China is reacting defensively.

"The United States plays a major strategic role in the Indo-Pacific," says Sky News anchor Peter Stefanovic as the screen lights up with graphics showing the military presence surrounding China. "With 375,000 personnel, there is a vast network of operations that extend from Hawaii all the way to India."

In its attempts to propagandize Australians into consenting to war with China, Sky News Australia accidentally does the "look how close they put their country to our military bases"-Caitlin Johnstone (caitoz) February 16, 2023

At 26:30 we are shown a digital representation of Chinas satellite systems in space, with the Chinese satellites colored red to help us all appreciate how evil and communist they are.

At 27:45 we are shown illustrations of how much smaller Australias military is than Chinas or Americas to help us understand how important it is to increase the size of our nations war machine, ignoring the fact that Australias total population is a tiny fraction of either of those countries.

At 32:45 we are told that the AUKUS pact will "beef up Americas military presence in the north of Australia," and that “America has long used Australia as a key strategic outpost," showing images of Pine Gap and other parts of the United States war machine which dot this continent. "Now, there is more to come," says Stefanovic, with United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin describing the surge in United States military presence we are to expect in Australia.

At 34:10 the Australian Strategic Policy Institute guy explains why the United States is so keen to use Australia in its planned confrontation with China, saying the continents geography puts it in "the Goldilocks location" of being close enough to China to be meaningful but far enough away that its war machinery can not be easily struck.

At 35:15 Stefanovic warns that "our nation could quite literally be brought to its knees" if a war to the north sees shipping lanes cut off since Australia is so heavily dependent of imports. You would think this is an argument about the importance of maintaining a peaceful relationship with China, but instead it is used to foment fear of China and argue for the need to be able to defeat it in a war.

I have only just started watching this Sky News Australia special about the urgent need to prepare for war with China and it is already jaw-droppingly propagandistic. Watch this clip featuring bayonet-wielding Chinese troops marching to ominous music like Star Wars stormtroopers.-Caitlin Johnstone (caitoz) February 15, 2023

And at 45:50 we finally get to the real purpose of this Sky News special: the need to "dramatically increase" the Australian military budget, and the need to manufacture consent for that increase. Australia currently has a military budget of $48.7 billion, a little less than two percent of the nations GDP. The late Butcher of Fallujah tells Sky News that "we need to at least double our defense expenditure" to four percent, and the specials pundits openly discuss the need for Australians to be persuaded to accept this using narrative management.

"The Australian government needs to talk to the Australian people about the kinds of threats it faces," says Mick Ryan. "It needs a more compelling narrative to convince the Australian people that they need to spend more on defense."

"I think it is important that we are having a conversation with the Australian people which makes it clear that we live in a world which is more fragile than we have for a very long period of time," Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles tells Sky News. "And what that is going to require is a defense posture and a defense force which is in truth gonna cost more than it has in the past. We are gonna need to increase our defense spending."

To be clear, this is not just a call to increase military spending, this is a call to propagandize Australians into consenting to more military spending. It is not very often that the propaganda comes right out and explains to you why it is propagandizing you.

Australian War Propaganda Keeps Getting Crazier-60Mins has churned out yet another fearmongering war propaganda piece on China, this one so ham-fisted that it goes so far as to run a brazen advertisement for an actual Australian weapons manufacturer.-Caitlin Johnstone (caitoz) November 16, 2021

I always get people complaining that I focus too much on the United States war machine when I live in Australia, but anyone who has paying attention knows the behavior of the United States war machine is as relevant to Australians as it is to Americans. They are beating the drums for a future war of unfathomable horror all to please a dark god known as unipolarism, and it threatens to destroy us all.

The time to start resisting is now!!!

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Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!!! - Cousin Lucky