World Politics
Virtue Signaling In The Pacific Islands
Beating the war drums
If you haven’t noticed, Western media outlets have been making all the right noises about a potential war with China.
Lots of hugging and belated virtue-signaling in the Pacific Island region.
ABC News Australia reports:
SBS News reports:
“Kamala Harris launches Pacific push to significantly deepen US presence amid China tensions.”
The Quad is in place. Murdoch’s Sky News and Fox News are salivating like a wolf over raw red meat over every hint or tease of war provocation, imagined or otherwise.
The rest of the mainstream media sheepishly follow. Did you think brainwashing and propaganda only go on in Russia and China?
US military penises, as always, are dotted all over the seas on China’s doorstep.
Imagine if Chinese ships and aircraft were parked outside Hawaii, Florida, Maine, and Seattle, and you will understand what the US military presence looks like outside China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Pacific Islands.
Is this not provocation enough? No, we have to add dramatic hypocrisy to the mix and call China an aggressor for trying to invest in constructive infrastructure projects in the Pacific Islands, and help them deal with the ravages of climate change.
And because the Pacific Islands will follow their interests first, they will go with whichever superpower is able to help their country the most.
Who knew money talks?
But Murdoch doesn’t do irony, and he is counting on all of his readers to be ignorant and stupid enough to not join the dots.
And plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle are gleefully contributing to the cold war narrative of the great free democratic West versus authoritarian China and Russia.
It’s not just Steve Bannon. It’s not just Peter Dutton.
One of the results of these last years of anti-China rhetoric, dating back from Trump’s disastrous trade war, is a huge uptick in random violence against all Asian-looking people.
Floyd Mori has written about this on Illumination:
You don’t have to be Asian to care about the fact that random old people are getting attacked and killed as scapegoats on city streets. You only have to be a basically decent fucking human being.
We do not want a nuclear war with China or any other country. It will be your kids along with many dead Chinese kids who will be the end result of such a suicidal policy.
But that is exactly what the Murdoch media machine is drumming up. Ask yourself, who will benefit? A handful of billionaires?
The time to get your head out of the sand is now. Speak out against violence against Asians. Reject the cold war narrative of us versus them. The world is not black and white.
In fact, I don’t even buy the democracy versus authoritarianism narrative. America and the “west” have way too many issues to be pointing their finger at China. We have more commonalities than differences.
How about we cooperate and tackle the pandemic and climate change and wealth inequality together, considering these are global security issues?
Murdoch and the billionaire class prefer war, and they will use your kids as cannon fodder. It will not be their kids on the front lines.
Be very afraid. Now is not the time to be a passive reader. Murdoch will stop at nothing short of World War III.
© Carlo Zeno 2022
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