Australians are particularly vulnerable to propaganda because the country has the most concentrated media ownership in the Western world, dominated by Nine Entertainment and the Murdoch-owned News Corp.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
60 Minutes Australia has been playing a leading role in saturating Australian airwaves with consent-manufacturing messaging in support of militarising to participate in a U.S. war against China.
A segment they ran a year ago, “Prepare for Armageddon: China’s warning to the world” features an image of Chinese President Xi Jinping overlaid with war planes and explosions and captioned “POKING THE PANDA.”
Another from a year ago — “War with China: Are we closer than we think?” Ten months ago — “China’s new target in the battle to control the Pacific.” Six months ago — “Inside the battle for Taiwan and China’s looming war threat.” Two months ago— “Is the Navy ready? How the U.S. is preparing amid a naval buildup in China.”
All of these segments have millions of views on YouTube alone. Now this past weekend 60 Minutes Australia has aired back-to-back segments headlined “The real Top Gun: U.S. military in heated stand-off with China” and “Five countries secretly sharing intelligence say China is the No.1 threat,” both of which are as jaw-droppingly propagandistic as anything I’ve ever seen.
“It might sound like twisted logic, but military forces everywhere argue that the greater the firepower they possess, the greater the chance of maintaining peace,” opens 60 Minutes Australia’s Amelia Adams. “In other words, massive weaponry is the best deterrent to war. Right now, the theory is being tested like never before, and much of it is happening in Australia’s backyard, the Indo-Pacific region. The United States wants the world, and more particularly China, to know of its increasing presence there, and to do that it’s putting on a spectacular show.”
What follows is 19 minutes of overproduced footage displaying this “massive weaponry” while Adams oohs and ahhs and gives slobberingly sycophantic interviews to U.S. military officials.
“There’s something utterly mesmerising about the F-35 jet,” Adams moans. “The sound, the heat, and the power put this supersonic stealth fighter in a league of its own.”
“Colonel these are some very impressive machines you’re in charge of!” she gushes to an officer on an aircraft carrier.
“Yes ma’am,” the colonel replies.
Contrast this glowing ecstatic revelry with Adams’ open hostility later in the segment toward a Chinese think tanker named Henry Wang, who she claims was trying to “rewrite history” for dismissing panic about a Chinese military buildup by pointing out (100 percent correctly) that China is spending a lower percentage of its GDP on its military than Western nations.
“Every command, every maneuver, is being fine-tuned on this vast blue stage, where China has proven to be a bad actor, playing a long game of intimidating Pacific nations,” Adams proclaims over helicopter footage of U.S. war ships. “But the U.S. and its allies aren’t having it, bolstering their defenses — and it’s an impressive display.”
I defy you to find me footage more brazenly propagandistic than this, from any point in history. This is supposed to be a news show, run by people who purport to be journalists, yet they’re engaging in propaganda that looks like it came from a Sacha Baron Cohen spoof of a Third World dictatorship.
As I never tire of pointing out, the claim that the U.S. has been militarily encircling its No. 1 geopolitical rival defensively is the single dumbest thing the empire asks us to believe these days.
The U.S. is surrounding China with war machinery in ways that it would consider an outrageously aggressive provocation if the same thing were done in its neck of the woods, which means the U.S. is plainly the aggressor in this standoff, and China is plainly reacting defensively to those aggressions.
While the first segment unquestioningly regurgitates Pentagon narratives and gives supportive interviews to military officials, the second segment unquestioningly regurgitates talking points from the Western intelligence cartel and gives supportive interviews to Five Eyes spooks.
“Showing off deadly weaponry in massive war games is a tactic China and the United States both use to try to avoid full-on combat,” says 60 Minutes Australia’s Nick McKenzie in introduction. “But the truth is the two countries, as well as other nations including Australia, are already battling it out in an invisible war. There are no frontline soldiers but there are significant skirmishes. Until now these conflicts have been kept quiet, but key members of a secretive alliance of top cops from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand are about to change that.”
“Their group is called the Five Eyes, and tonight they want you to know what they see,” says McKenzie, which is the same as saying “We’re telling you what the Five Eyes intelligence agencies told us to tell you.”
McKenzie literally just assembles a bunch of Five Eyes officials to tell Australians that China is bad and dangerous, and then disguises the Western intelligence cartel advancing its own information interests as a real news story.
“There is one threat that alarms our partners more than any other,” McKenzie says over dramatic music, asking “Which state actor is the key threat to democracy in Australia and amongst the Five Eyes partners?” and presenting a montage of Western intelligence operatives answering (you guessed it) China.
“The Americans describe a growing menace on our doorstep flowing from China’s increasing influence in the region,” McKenzie says, before asking an American official, “Do you see the Chinese state preying on Pacific island nations?”
“I believe so, yes,” the official responds.
Western journalism, ladies and gents.
Man, Australians are really getting pummeled with war propaganda. This is basically war porn for the U.S. military. pic.twitter.com/RRO0Htkewp
— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) May 24, 2023
Australians are particularly vulnerable to propaganda because Australia has the most concentrated media ownership in the Western world, dominated by a powerful duopoly of Nine Entertainment (which airs 60 Minutes) and the Murdoch-owned News Corp. This vulnerability is being fully exploited as the time comes for the Western empire to beat the war drums against China.
We keep being hammered by this narrative that “massive weaponry is the best deterrent to war,” when all facts in evidence say the exact opposite is true. It was the military encroachment against Russia and the conversion of Ukraine into a NATO military asset which provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, and all the militarization against China that we are seeing is only inflaming tensions and making war more likely.
And, I mean, of course it is; even a casual glance at the Cuban Missile Crisis reveals that powerful nations don’t take kindly to having menacing forces placed near their borders. So much of the propaganda indoctrination we’re subjected to in the 2020s revolves around convincing people to believe that Russia and China should react completely differently from the way the U.S. would react if foreign proxy forces were being amassed along its borders.
So yes, Amelia Adams, claiming that aggression and militarism is the best path toward peace is absolutely “twisted logic.” It is as twisted as it gets. Because it is false. This is obvious to anyone who hasn’t yet been successfully indoctrinated into this omnicidal belief system.
We need to do everything we can to fight against this indoctrination now, because if we wait until the war actually starts it will likely be too late to resist.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Support CN’s Spring
Fund Drive Today
We are supposed to believe that farmers are the major culprit for climate change after watching this military global war extravaganza. The WEF just wants their land and to eliminate any agricultural competition.
All this Yellow Peril journalism can’t be good for Australia’s large Chinese immigrant population. :-(
The statement “massive weaponry is the best deterrent to war” is disproven by American behavior these past 70 plus years. We have all the weaprony deterrents that one can ever use. Still, those damned bogy men keep showing up.
Very droll Bruce. LOL
USA has the largetst armed forces on this planet & uses that to blackmail other nations like a.o. Russia & China while most western countries ‘ease out’ like the EU & just follow the US master BLINDLY like the ‘braindead ‘EU. We see that again in the RU-UA war while UA is threatening WW III while being PUSHED by USA & EU. NO COMMON SENSE & just aggressive WARMONGERING by UA followed by a braindead EU & USA who hope to destroy RUSSIA & CHINA initially with SANCTIONS but its ultimate GOAL is challenging both Russia & China to take the 1st steps to an open war!
Some words that John Mearsheimer recently said keep on bouncing around in my head, that Chinese are realist and we are not, or something like that. I agree with him, yet, even a bright mind like him sees China as a “the real threat” not Russia, that US should focus on containing China and not Russia.
Is it China truly a threat to us? and if it in which way? Economically perhaps? and yet we expanded our economy thanks to China, our elite has tripled their wealth.
Mearsheimer claim to be a realist, but were are the hard proofs that China is/has been a real threat to us? or that we that they are more a threat to us than we are to them, for that matter? But eventually, who knows, everyone with power can be dangerous, so what? Should we live in a paranoic world, even worse making it a self-fulfilling prophecy?
We live in fear, we use fear on daily basis, to communicate, build our society around it, to grow our children in it, to have people “behave” with it. That’s how much distorted is our world view perception.
Just like the church, that “developed hell” to curb and subdue, to manipulate the masses into serving its purpose, power grabbing and material enrichment, to justify “real hell” on earth. Apocalyptism is not only an important element of the “culture of the church”, our culture is based on that, in politics, in science, in our culture: “climate change will destroy our society, Russia and China (and the barbarian non-western world) will take away our freedom and wealth that we do not want to share, Russian/China election interference… so WEAPONS FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM to justify evil, the killing of innocents, the starving of children and the vulnerable, keeping barbarian, pagan society from developing, to keep them in poverty and instability, to steal their resources, to feed and treat our pets better than humans of “barbarian societies”, that they learn those barbarian people that to us they are worth much less than a dog or a cat.
In all these years of “enlightenment” and wealth we have not learn how to overcome our fear and learn to “surf” the human problems and not being caught inside them, perhaps not because we can’t but because fear is a too powerful tool to get rid of.
I hope I do not offed Caitlin or others, but the idea that women are better than men to build a society and stability, that the “awful oppressive patriarchal society” was the product of men alone in order to subjugate women is a load of shit… today, everywhere we turn our head, we see “war flags” with names and faces of an “empowered” woman on them, why? is that part of the gender empowering process or something creepy? Are those “poor women” still being manipulated or they enjoy that very much?
Why is there not more resistance to the U.S. threat that it will do for Australia what it has done for Ukraine?
Too many keyboard warriors resisting by writing messages like this! Not that I’m able to do much more. :-(
Lots of weapons leads to peace. Much like free access to guns in the USA means everyone (especially school children) is safe.
I didn’t know U.S. propaganda could become worse than it is in the U.S. but this proves me wrong. Thank you, Caitlin Johnstone, one more time for reporting truthfully and God help the Aussies for aligning with the U.S.
It’s not just our government or their government that are the problem.
Edward Snowden: “Government is perennially deceptive. It’s snowing on us in regards to what is happening, because they want us to view the facts of our reality through their preferred lens.”
Eric Hobsbawm citing a Blanquist catechism of 1834: “What was government? It consisted of traitors who acted, in the interests of a small group of exploiters, aristocrats, bankers, monopolists, large proprietors and all the exploiters of men.”
Hannah Arendt: “Government is essentially organized and institutionalized power … power needs no justification, being inherent in the very existence of political communities, what it does not need is legitimacy.”
I.F. Stone: “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.”
and in terms that can’t be misunderstood:
Bill Hicks: “All governments are lying cocksuckers.”
After even an initial reading of Edward Bernays’ ‘Propaganda’ [1928] the most compounding lesson is that governments, regardless of hue and dogma, should never be trusted, furthermore, what issues from their mouths and their press releases should be taken with a grain of salt.
Finally, as further support to what Caitlin wrote (and a huge thanks); the fact that 60 Minutes was is watched by approx 623,000 Australians should scare the bejeezus out of we Australians who avoid all 9 Media outlets like they are the plague.
Please, someone tell Amelia Adams that the US hasn’t won a war since 1945, in spite of all out hi-tech killing machines! I know Australia took part in the Viet Nam war; how did that turn out? Short answer: the US (with Australian help) lost!
It is not about winning war, Sir. It is about making money for the bankers, MIC and their ilks. Taxpayers are willing to shell out their hard earned money to make these leaches rich. So what a few millions die somewhere else, as long as it’s not in the so called “west”. You can see it in the reaction in the west. How many people really cared about all the death and destruction our military enabled in Africa, ME and Latin America but with Ukraine, we are all in. One CBS journalist even said Ukraine is different, more civilized, you know… wink wink…
The mind numbing stupid rhetoric of the Western powers will only get worse as the public becomes, generation after generation, more mind numbingly stupid themselves. With a world of information at their fingertips, more easily accessible than ever in the history of human existence, the ultra lazy and moronic majority of society gulps down the idiotic pulp fiction cranked out by these media traitors. These media companies are traitors to their citizens by feeding them rubbish and lies, making their decision making even more muddled and foolish. The consent manufacturing is on red line, with the sheeple gobbling it up. Unfortunately the young are so gullible and inexperienced they can’t see what’s going on. It’s a mess, and it’s obvious the West is in suicidal terminal decline as it doesn’t have the firepower to beat China Russia or India in a real war. Look at Ukraine getting blasted back to the stone age. That will be the USA and its allies if they take on China. And the USA has no significant air defence systems to protect the North American continent like Russia and China does. So God help us if China Russia and India decide to take the war to the war mongers on their shores of North America. It will be a colossal beating for the ages in the military history of the world. The West better rethink what its asking for.
I do hope the Australians realize that they are going to be used as proxy troops in the U.S. proxy war with China.
The US Army already refers to Aus. troops as our version of the Gurkhas!
Ms Johnstone. are you SURE this isn’t really a Juice Media spoof? This “Amelia Adams” seems to me suspiciously like one of their Honest Government presenters ….
Looks to me like someone really wants a war.
The problem is that the people who really want a war will not put themselves in harm’s way. It will be the people who don’t want a war who will be the victims.
In addition to reading Caitlin Johnstone, all Australians (and US/UK/NZ/Canada residents) should watch John Pilger’s documentary
The Coming War on China.
It has been around for 5 or six years and shows the clairvoyance and razor-sharp analytical skills of John Pilger. You can watch it online, just do a general search and it will come up, it has an official website.
Today I learned a bit more about why Americans are so poorly informed and want to stay that way.
First, if you agree, we have criminals running our government, people like the Hillaries, the Biden’s, the Wynken Blynken and Nod’s the Nuland’s etc etc:
hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/20/a-family-business-of-perpetual-war/
who use the media to mislead the people to keep their dirty work secret.
Second, we have for decades terrorized people against the threat from various ENEMIES to keep us worried, on edge, on guard…
the old saw – keep your people afraid that the country is under threat of attack and it’s easy to take them to war..
Third, we have people who are basically good people, living under manufactured stress, terror, even PTSD from stress whose physical well being is on a knife edge of breaking down that they are not well enough to hear the dark truths of what their government is doing. Their health issues make them unable to take the stress of facing the dark side of who we’ve become. It’s just too stressful to accept how low we’ve sunk with idiots running things who just care about serving their sponsors to stay in power.
What will it take to get us on a sustainable path to live in a multipolar world where cooperation not war is the accepted path?
I met someone today who I wished to share our role in the tragic Ukraine war and they told me they are struggling to stay healthy and it is too upsetting to hear what’s going on.
Wow. Those Aussies have revealed a major act of Chinese aggression against the peaceful West. At about the 4.4 minute mark in the first video they claim that the CPC led government of China has placed military forces in the Taiwan Straights!!! That is a major act of aggression. I recall the crises around the islands of Quemoy and Matsu when the US was asserting its dominion over those waters. These stupid Aussie reporters seem to be frozen in a 1950s time warp.
Almost led to nuclear war on 2 different occasions.
Australia and the US are probably the two most advanced in propagandizing their citizens. …..and scarier than that is just how effective it is. Three or four friends are sorta’ like ‘bell weather’ tests for me to gauge how saturated Libs are with state narratives/propaganda. It’s scary, really. “China?! —- so authoritarian……..people are miserable there……….. they put the Uighers in concentration camps!. ” ………..Rational discourse is not possible with the brainwashed.
If you point out that China has only about 3 or 4 military bases outside its borders compared to the US having over 800, you can see the minds shutting down when the question is posed—– > “who is really a threat to who?”
Not many realize that the most recent Nuclear Posture Review of the US altered its ‘first use’ stance. A ‘legitimate’ use now of nukes is now against any nation that threatens US ECONOMICALLY. ….gee, I wonder who that was aimed at.
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction (1965)
Australians need to realise, the THOUSANDS of kilometers that separate us from China, ensure no such invasion is possible, even if China were to plan such, which it is not. IF China wishes to take over Australia, it could easily do so, without firing a shot. There are literly hundreds of Australian politicians, who would willingly SELL Australia to China for 30 pieces of silver. Thus ensure the take over of Australia without any destructive damage. The idea of China mounting an invasion against Australia is simply so idiotic to comprehend. Recent ex P.M. speach at the Canberra Press Club said it all, when he said we could see any such alleged invasion depart China via satelite, and could sink/devastate said invasion armarda thousands of miles away from our shores, before they even reached the halfway mark. The idea of such an invasions is just so stupid, only the weak minded would fall for it. This media propoganda push is simply designed for young ignorant Australians to sign their lives away, and join the Australian military who will use them as cannon fodder to fulfil their aspirations. I for one, sincerely hope our youth are far too intelligent to fall for this crap.
“Weapons for Peace” reminds me of my fave bumper sticker:
FIGHTING FOR PEACE IS LIKE F*CKING FOR VIRGINITY
Timely article.
Personally, I’ve noticed lately that a lot of Australians seem to suffer from Sinophobia. A recent article on Jo Nova’s (usually excellent) blog reeked of this. (And, Naomi Wolf appears to suffer from the same affliction) My reading is that apparently everything that has gone wrong in Australia is the fault of the Chinese – nothing to do with their incompetent, corrupt government or the sell out and buy in to the American narrative. These people seem unable to comprehend that whatever influence China may or may not have it’s all down to their governments selling off their country to the lowest bidder whilst undermining their own industries and economy. It’s the same in the UK.
The Sinophobia has been created and spread by the USA, which is another country who sold out to the cheapest bidder and is now reaping the ‘benefits’. For example, it’s interesting that the Covid narrative blames China and Wuhan whilst failing to mention that the USA (and others) were carrying out Gain Of Function ‘research’ at Wuhan because it would probably be illegal at home !
It’s sickening that corrupt and incompetent governments are happy to use overt racism to hide behind and distract from their own evils. Politicians need to sort out the problems they’ve created at home, and WW3 is NOT the way to do that.
Exactly right.
“Weapons of Peace in defense of freedom and democracy”. Military grade HyperOrwellian nonsense. There is literally nowhere one can hide from the fact that the US is out of options in maintaining global hegemony other than burning the whole planet down with a world war. That much is obvious. How to derail this apocalyptic fantasy is is humanity’s challenge. It starts with exposing the war mongers and their courtiers in the press. Thanks again Caitlin.
Agree that a change in US foreign policy direction begins with “exposing the war mongers and their courtiers in the press”. Unfortunately that is a task no one in the United States seems up to. Washington D.C. is filled with war addicted lunatics and as soon an someone outside of the in group attains a measure of power the collective screaming gets louder and louder.
We’re headed into a multi polar world and it seems that almost no one in D.C. and the EU realize that the worldwide quest for multi polarity is unstoppable.
Maybe the death of the last remaining Ukrainian soldier will be the turning point.
You have got to be really stupid to fall for this crude propaganda garbage. Australia’s main enemy is not China but USA which is using the former to do the latter’s bidding. Australians must open their eyes and understand what’s happening.
Tnx Caitlin for continued reporting with an “Overseas” POV…
Re: China & Military Expendature…
Gentle reminder: USA moonwalked millions yrs Past… inexplicably… Never Returned?…!!!!
Is it that “Flat Moon Theory”… or what?
What this commenter is gettin’ ’round to: Portion of their “Military Budget” is: What NASA USED TO DO!
(& WTF They gonna find?)
I say: “Uhhhhh……”
Some Conspiracy theories… ’bout Our Natural Satellite say: Lotta Conspiratorial watever!
Here’ the deal. China is like the Walmart Stores. Big volume. Competitive pricing. Huge capital accumulation. Great growth strategies.
The USA is like the downtown merchant in the wake of Walmart’s retail onslaught. It lacks the cash accumulation and has high debt, so it can’t offer the discount deals that China offers Third World countries. So China eats our lunch in Africa and South America, which have become wise to the chains of US Dollar Diplomacy and the perils of US Gunboat Diplomacy. They sense that the US has become rickety and are looking for stability and dependability when choosing a partner to help with their development.
China can participate in Third World development without totally eviscerating the countries it helps. It offers lower interest rates and doesn’t try to force a country into becoming an export platform for goods China would like to import. The Chinese try to exact a profit, no doubt, but not at the price of subjugating the entire political economy of a country. We tend to arm countries we aid with the latest military equipment so that they can keep their people at subsistence wages, for the sake of greater profits. Our motives are extractive only, the maximization of profits at every turn.
Haiti is one example. As Assange revealed, Madame Secretary Hillary stepped in in 2012 to make sure that the Haitian Parliament rescinded its $5 per day minimum wage law, as its passage infuriated US clothes manufacturers.
A close analogy is Putin’s deal with Ukraine in 2013, when Putin offered Ukraine lower interest rates and more competitive trade terms, while throwing in energy price options that the West and the IMF couldn’t meet. When the Ukrainian leader accepted Putin’s terms, all hell broke loose in Kiev, where Nuland and the CIA plotted a coup against the Russian-friendly government, whose leader didn’t want to do as Simon Says, which would have required austerity (cutting pensions, social spending, and the Ukrainian domestic budgets in favor of a NATO alliance and increased military spending). The CIA-sponsored violence forced the Ukrainian President into exile.
Neocon Victoria Nuland, who worked for VP Cheney as enthusiastically as she later worked for Hillary, plotted the coup and later bragged to a Chevron Convention that she oversaw the expenditure of 5 billion US Dollars to effect the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Both events were caught on tape, and her evil lives on today, as she is tempting WW3 over Crimea, whose citizens must be ecstatic that they are not part of that failed puppet-state we call Ukraine. That these good folks had been yearning and voting to exit this comedy of a country is, of course, lost upon the US citizenry, which has been subject to a news blackout since February 24, 2022, the day that the Russian Federation entered Ukraine.
Spot on analysis.
Oh my—Victoria Nuland———who could ever forget her infamous comment of” Fuck the EU.”
Where do these American government people come from? And please wherever that is— please send them back, as we can’t truly take any more government insanity.
What a load of bloody twaddle those “psuedo” politicians speak. All these propaganda videos/interviews/articles seem to me, preparation for inevitable conflicts and lulling us into inevitable acceptance, like the “lambs to slaughter” that we are. We are bombarded with this tripe, that eventually it becomes the norm and we fail to see the dangers, because we’ve heard it so many times before. There is method in their (psychological) madness.
Val, they go to the trouble of propaganda because we actually matter. Yes, I realise this is a sham democracy. Any party as long as it’s the LNALP war party and voting is farce. But propaganda is essential perhaps because there are a lot of us citizens. It’s sad to have to tell Caitlin that we waited until the war actually started and it’s pretty late to resist. But we can. The Vietnam war had started and we stopped Australian participation (thanks Gough) if not the war itself. Try to persuade one person every day. Word of mouth. And get them to persuade another person, and so on. It has a cascading effect, a bit like the nuclear chain reaction we want to avoid. Maybe our chain reaction can beat theirs. Worth a try. Mik
“Try to persuade one person every day”
Oh i try Mikael. Sadly though, we are living in completely differnt times to the Vietnam era.
It’s astonishing how heavily invested sheep are in continuing to be sheep, because it’s the most comfortable thing to be until serious consequences start to become impossible to ignore – witness those Ukrainians who continue to be slaughtered (or leave the country or go underground) due to the Kiev government’s complete lack of interest in their survival. Sheep here in the U.S. and perhaps the EU and smaller fry like Australia may be less amenable when the situation heats up that much in their own countries, but that change may be slow since the sheep-herders are very proficient in shifting blame away from their own misbegotten leadership.
Kudos to Russia, China, and the rest of the world that’s fed up with Western arrogance and criminality for charting a course which may have the best chance of waking up the sheep eventually, because over decades now the sheep do not seem to have the ability to awaken themselves.
“It’s astonishing how heavily invested sheep are in continuing to be sheep”
Good one Bill. I guess it’s easier. And good, some countries are finally seeing the light.
uS impe
Dualism and it’s junior partners the 5eyes — sickening a joke if toadies ( mainstream journalists) didn’t promote these pro war activities
“Mainstream jounalists”
That’s profanity, Judy.