💣 War propaganda | China

[Conza]

Fairly certain she's a socialist; but oddly also a Bitcoiner - and has some solid takes on anti-war.
No joke (video clip)
​

"The Australian government has released the declassified version of its highly anticipated 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR), and the war propagandists are delighted.

Sydney Morning Herald’s Matthew Knott, most well-known for being told by former prime minister Paul Keating to “do the right thing and drum yourself out of Australian journalism” over his role in Nine Entertainment’s despicable Red Alert war-with-China propaganda series, has a new propaganda piece out titled “Defence review pulls no punches: China the biggest threat we face“...

And the summary version of the great article:

Thoughts? Accurate, not? They need a distraction given all the domestic issues re: cost of living etc... and now that covid has been over done.

 

[nosteppy]

Johnstone is what might be referred to as a "nazbol": someone who is so opposed to Western liberalism they combine elements of the far left and the far right. Her war takes are effectively "West Bad": she doesn't direct it against anyone outside of the West who has started wars over the past decade or so, so her position is very suspect. In this situation, she opposes the government's propaganda because she is pro Chinese imperialism, not because she hates war. It's basically identical to people who claim to be "against the war in Ukraine" who never blame Russia for the invasion: they're not actually "anti-war", their "anti-war" takes are opportunistic and simply voiced because it serves their geopolitical interests, usually anti-Western and anti-liberal in character. On the surface, it may appear they share the same values as you, but if you scratch them it's fairly clear to see what's actually underneath.

Many socialists are anti-war, legitimately, and advocate a "workers of the world, unite!" position that is usually critical of all imperial ambitions. But Johnstone is definitely not in that camp.

 

[Conza]

Right. Will keep an eye out for that. In any case, the war propaganda is obvious and she covers it well.

Literally no-one else I see saying as much? Or hitting as hard?

It's basically identical to people who claim to be "against the war in Ukraine" who never blame Russia for the invasion: they're not actually "anti-war", their "anti-war" takes are opportunistic and simply voiced because it serves their geopolitical interests, usually anti-Western and anti-liberal in character.

In short, in international disputes in particular, in the immortal words of W. S. Gilbert:

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream.​

— Murray Rothbard

Neither nation-states actions are justifiable. That is the only justifiable libertarian position imo.

If Smith and a group of his henchmen aggress against Jones and Jones and his bodyguards pursue the Smith gang to their lair, we may cheer Jones on in his endeavor; and we, and others in society interested in repelling aggression, may contribute financially or personally to Jones’s cause. But Jones has no right, any more than does Smith, to aggress against anyone else in the course of his “just war”: to steal others’ property in order to finance his pursuit, to conscript others into his posse by use of violence, or to kill others in the course of his struggle to capture the Smith forces. If Jones should do any of these things, he becomes a criminal as fully as Smith, and he too becomes subject to whatever sanctions are meted out against criminality.
— Murray N. Rothbard, War, Peace, and the State