What actually happened; A school teacher in Australia won the Queensland music awards and in her acceptance speech said:
“Our own government is complicit in war crimes by supporting Israel both in words and actions by allowing the export of weapons and weapon parts to Israel to directly kill innocent Palestinian men women and children”.
Which is true. It’s not like she’s saying anything dangerous, false or deceptive. It’s not even that controversial. It’s a direct observation of that is happening. Israel is killing Palestinians, and Western countries are funding that. That is a fact.
Now here is how this is being reported by every major Australian news media outlet:
Headline: Brisbane council strips funding of music awards after winner’s anti-Semitic rant
Brisbane Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner, has today declared the Council will strip its $25,000 funding of the Queensland Music Awards (QMA) over what he says is the event’s promotion of anti-Semitism. Jazz composer and Brigidine College arts department director, Kellee Green (pictured), won a major music award at Tuesday’s QMA event for a seven-minute pro-Palestinian song entitled ‘River to Sea’. The Brisbane teacher followed up the win with a speech during which she accused the Federal Government of supporting war crimes.
In part of her speech, Ms Green reportedly stated, “Our own government is complicit in war crimes by supporting Israel both in words and actions by allowing the export of weapons and weapon parts to Israel to directly kill innocent Palestinian men women and children”. Lord Mayor Schrinner says the promotion of anti-Semitism at the awards was “utterly shameful and divisive”. “Music should be a positive force that brings people together, not tear them apart,” he said.
“The decision to hand a major prize to an offensively titled anti-Jewish song raises serious questions about whether the awards have been hijacked by extremists. “Allowing such vile hate speech to occur shows the awards seem to be no longer capable of achieving their own stated goal to ‘promote diversity and inclusion’. “I want Brisbane to be a safe and inclusive destination for everyone and the kind of divisive and offensive actions on display at last night’s awards have no place in our city. “As a result, we will be immediately withdrawing our funding and support for these awards.” The QMA has not yet commented publicly on the controversy. The awards also receive funding from the Queensland and Federal Governments.
It’s not just this article. This is the narrative being pushed everywhere in Australia, major publications are reporting the mildest pro-palestinian sentiment in the same way, as if it anti-semitic extremism and as if the genocide isn’t happening. All criticism of Israel has been redefined as criticism of the Jewish community (which is false, if anything it is anti-semitic to imply that Israel speaks for all Jews). Teachers are being fired and universities are being defunded and censored for speaking out against genocide.
This actually terrifies me. Just the extent of obvious and open twisting of reality going on and the gaslighting happening. The fash are getting bold. We are being trained to accept bolder and bolder illusions and to accept greater and greater crimes against humanity. What’s next? Will we be drowning in floods and they’ll be arresting us for saying water exists?
We as a society are in a very dark zone at the moment. It isn’t just the US, it isn’t just Trump, it isn’t a new thing. This has been what the capitalist West has been working towards for decades. The whole thing is rotten from its foundations and I can’t help feeling something even worse is boiling up from it.
The only silver lining I can see from this is the denial of reality in a fascist society makes it unable to survive in said reality. You can’t can’t adapt to an environment you can’t accurately assess.
The question is how long will it go on and what further damage to humanity will be done before the fascist delusion finally collapses on itself?