Tame contrasted Albanese’s historical advocacy for Palestine and critique of Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war with his current position on Iran, alleging as a “relatively defenceless Pacific middle power, Australia cannot afford to cut its military ties with the US and Israel”.
“We’re in a geopolitical chokehold,” she said.
“To Albanese, I am difficult because I am both aware of this reality and unafraid to scream it at the top of my lungs, much to his obvious chagrin.
Grace Tame is so rad, and she’s absolutely right.
Part of becoming PM. Albo has been shown what’s behind the curtain and probably worried he’s gonna be Harold Holted if he doesn’t tow the line.
We’re in a geopolitical chokehold by intentional choice of our leaders, because that’s what their largest donors want - easier to extract resources and demand favours from a vassal state.
Theres an implicit claim here that I don’t think has any basis in reality. Source for Harold Holt conspiracy theory?
^Note: I’m not trying to denigrate whatever you’re thinking in regards Holt, if he was murdered, etc, then it would very much have been a conspiracy. Conspiracy theory has a bad reputation as a stand in for only being outlandish and crazy claims in discourse, annoyingly.^
Honestly I think they just conflated Holt with Whitlam.
Yeah true, surely they must’ve.
He was disappeared by the CIA for not toeing the line with American interests. I don’t think it was China at all, for once.
We’ve also had evidence come out that the Whitlam situation was more CIA dicking around
It’s long past time we tell the Yanks to fuck off.
A source for Holt?
I’ve read fairly far into the Whitlam dismissal. The CIA involvement has no more evidence, yet, than to suggest Whitlam wasn’t the US’ first choice. With the ‘note’ that was passed on. And that they were keeping tabs on a developing situation. If i remember correctly, they were aware of the Palace communications and of Kerr’s previous links. Its mostly circumstantial, with multiple possible reasons for these things to occur, so not enough evidence of CIA involvement for nefarious purposes.
What I dislike is people always blame the CIA that has little evidence, when the behaviour of two members of the High court, Kerr, Fraser, the Liberal Senate leader of the day and many others who couldn’t accept a progressive government for a few years was so egregious and in some cases treasonous.
Whether outside influence from the Palace or the CIA occured the key players were all Australian, and that side of politics have never been held to account, except arguably Fraser and Kerr, forbtheir actions that damaged Australia to this day. They couldn’t win the political argument, so they overturned the rules and guidelines to win again. Truly disgusting.
A CIA leaker has said that Kerr was referred to as “our man Kerr” within the CIA. And Kerr had known ties to an organisation that was secretly backed by the CIA. And it was not long before the Dismissal that the US appointed a new Ambassador to Australia, a man known as “the coupmaster” for his role in the acknowledged US-backed coups elsewhere, including Indonesia. None of these is anywhere near a smoking gun (especially since the leaker ended up defecting to the Soviets, IIRC, and may have had ulterior motives).
You’re right that the evidence is “circumstantial”, though in a legal sense that isn’t nearly as damning as the screenwriters of CSI and other legal/cop dramas would have you believe. Circumstantial evidence can be quite powerful in making a legal case. And I think it’s a bit of an understatement to say that there is “no more evidence…than to suggest Whitlam wasn’t the US’ first choice.” Not a smoking gun. Certainly not a sure thing. But quite a bit less of a crazy conspiracy theory than anything to do with Holt is.
Also speaking of Holt, shout out to James “Haha Nice” on YouTube (he’s also on TikTok) who’s currently doing an in-depth series of videos on the whole Holt government and just how wild it was.
Look you can denigrate other cop shows, but CSI Miami is a straight up fly on the wall documentary. Those cats do it, By. The. Book. /s
Yeah, maybe they were less comfortable than I presented it as, but at the same time the key question of Pine Gap had been put to rest by Whitlam by the time of the dismissal. Maybe the Vietnam draw down played a role, seems petty though.
I think I need to see a clear intervention before I could call it anywhere near a CIA coup just because of the behaviour of the other actors. Like those Palace letters, Kerr was gunning for it for over a year, he was so obsequious to the crown, it was quite skin crawling. He contacted the High Court justices they didn’t say boo to the PM, Kerr wouldn’t talk to Whitlam, Fraser had the perfect opportunity to discuss the seriousness of the situation on the plane ride. The whole thing sits poorly with me, self interest stacked on top of self interest, all the way down. I’ll admit Whitlam seems like he could be overbearing to deal with at times, maybe that played a bigger part.
The thing i’d forgotten about was the coupmaster part, cheers.
Those cats do it, By. The. Book.
Well may he say trace every lead, but when the trail leads to Langley… 😎
…the case goes cold. 🕶️
Genuinely chuckling at this, even read it in Goughs voice lol
Holt was killed by his own toxic masculinity.
He went swimming on an extremely dangerous closed beach while his mistress, her son and his girlfriend stood on the shore.
Nothing more than that.
Other poster is right, I conflated Holt with Whitlam.
There’s an ollld conspiracy theory that Holt was a Chinese spy and spirited away when he was close to being nabbed by ASIO iirc, zero hard evidence to this day, just novelists and crackpots.
https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/asset/98238-allegations-and-conspiracy-theories
Felt inspired to listen to the Do Go On podcast on Harold Holt - spotify today. Those three really go on. Its okay if you wanted to learn marginally more about the man, and be mildly amused one day when you’re bored for an hour and a half. :)
I like the description of a geopolitical chokehold. Thats a good way to describe Australia’s position.
For the past 3 decades, basically the entire span of my adult life, I’ve been unable to identify any candidate worthy of actively voting for, and the only memorable specimens have been clowns I’ve needed to vote against.
This country chose to gave Howard 4 fucking terms to undermine and obliterate the Australian social fabric, and no one since has had the cognitive calibre required to correct his debasement.
If you need a primer, this is a decent point to start: Where it All Went Wrong
Really?!
Zero candidates across Australia? Or do you mean zero candidates that your vote could have gone to directly?
I’ve only recently, really looked deeply into politics, and I may be back propagating my current understanding in an inconsistent manner, but I can’t identify a single entity who has elevated to the level of candidate and is worthy of voting for.
The state of politics in Australia has become so thoroughly polluted that one must intrinsically be irreconcilably compromised to participate, which leaves the only justifiable path being to vote for the least bad option, if one can be gleaned in time.
Hmm, for a bit of fun i’m gona do a list of names that i think are pretty uncompromised that you mightn’t have thought of, I’ll try to think of people across the political spectrum, see what you think,
- Andrew Pocock
- Jacqui Lambie
- Chris Bowen
- Jim Chalmers
- Jordan Steele John
- Ed Husic
- Julian Leeser
- Andrew Wilkie
- Helen Haines
- Anne Aly
- David Shoebridge
- Kate Chaney
- Parrick Gorman
- Andrew Hastie
- James Patterson
Theres probably others. As I say, i might not agree with much of what these people say, but i generally listen when they speak because they’re coming in with some fairly consistent positions where you can see their own ideologies at work instead of being led there by others. But I haven’t read that book, so maybe i’m misinterpreting what is caught in the definitional use of the term compromised.
I suppose those in leadership positions i’m giving a somewhat looser reign, namely Jim Chalmers, because leadership over such a complicated entity as Treasurer of a Nation I think is inherently compromising having to weigh up so many competing interests.
Based Grace!
Is Grace a member of any party?
I’d vote for her
Maybe the Greens, if any? I’ve heard her on The Shot pocdcast before, speaks well. Bloody confident.
Have you seen this interview of Grace Tame by Antony Lowenstein? It is a month old or so and before the ‘difficult’ comment. It is on AI, Power, and the Normalisation of Child Sexual Abuse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8cKJ3zeJPw.
I found her admirable. We need more voices like hers.
Saved i’ll listen to it tomorrow, i’ve been enjoying Lowenstein’s podcast lately. He’s a journalist i’d only paid sparse attention to until I heard his thought provoking Bondi massacre piece.
