My friend, mentor and hero Ori Goldberg has passed away. He fought against Zionism, genocide and apartheid to his last day and did it where it mattered most and where he put the most at risk, from within Israel itself. There will never be another giant like him. We should all aspire (and inevitably fail) to live up to his example.

Out of the vault. South Melbourne cheer squad, all dressed as undertakers, and raising an entirely black banner, protesting the potential move to Sydney.

Is Zionism racism? To answer this question requires a proper understanding of Zionism in both theory and practice. Zionism is essentially a synonym for Jewish nationalism. It is the belief that Jews constitute a distinct people and nation, and on this basis require the establishment of a nation-state of their own to achieve their natural rights and collective potential. In putting forth such views, the late-nineteenth-century founders of the Zionist movement were first and foremost adopting and reflecting the nationalist milieu and principles dominant in Europe, the environment in which they were formed and in which they operated. Yet, from the very outset Zionism was different than other European nationalism. Unlike for example the Greeks, Serbs, Poles, or Italians, Zionism’s intended constituents – the Jews of Europe – did not have an ancient homeland on the European continent in which they remained a majority. The Zionist movement was unwilling as well as unable to challenge an existing European state to carve out an independent state in which Jews, like other European peoples, would enjoy uncontested demographic, territorial, and political supremacy. Its leaders instead sought to acquire the cooperation and sponsorship of a European power to colonize and establish a state in territory outside Europe. Palestine was not the only non-European territory proposed for this venture. Various others in Africa, the Americas, Australia, as well as Cyprus were also considered, several quite seriously. In each of these cases the Zionist movement was proceeding from another principle dominant in Europe at the time. None of these territories were uninhabited, yet their inhabitants did not possess inalienable rights, and could be freely subordinated, dispossessed, and even exterminated in the service of European power. The Zionist movement ultimately settled on Palestine for its nation-state project. Enabled by what the pre-eminent Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi termed “the British shield”, its project met with success in 1948 with the establishment of the Israeli state. Israel could not have been established as a Jewish state without the mass dispossession and expulsion of the Arabs of Palestine, and the wholesale usurpation of their lands and properties. Israel could not have developed as a Zionist state without the systematic application of structural racism against its non-Jewish citizens and the enforcement of apartheid regimes against Arab populations beyond its initial boundaries that would come under its control in subsequent decades. Crucially, the exact same pattern would have been implemented, by design, if the Zionist movement had opted for Uganda, Libya, or any other territory under its consideration instead of Palestine. It is this which distinguishes Zionism from most (but not all) other nationalisms. In other words, the British Green Party, like the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 3379 of 1975, got it exactly right.

The Greens have voted comfortably in favour of the motion Zionism is racism. Given the ferocity of the backlash it will provoke I’m sympathetic to anti-Zionist Greens who feel that, tactically, they could have done without it at this time. The problem is Zionism IS racism. If you can work out a way to create an ethnically defined political entity in a territory that, at the start of the process, was almost entirely populated by people of a different ethnicity, without resorting to ethnic cleansing and Apartheid, then you need to tell the Israelis. Because they’ve certainly never worked it out. Zionists’ key weapon is their ability to obfuscate and complicate. This cuts through that and provides the moral clarity they dread. We will live in a time of genocide. If not now, when?

A rare split-second view of the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater banking in flight, revealing its exquisite black and gold plumage. Fewer than 400 remain in the wild. 📷 Jan Wegener ( @jan_wegener_ )

The Procrastinators Club of America protesting against Former President James Madison and the War of 1812. Philadelphia, 9 March 1966.

Don’t ask!

Not good..

Markets are not necessarily capitalist.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break! ~ Kurt Vonnegut

On this day in 1990, Cocteau Twins released 'Heaven or Las Vegas.' With Elizabeth Fraser’s dreamlike vocals and the band’s luminous sound, it remains an ethereal masterpiece that seems to exist in another world.

Sorry, the Iran War is a million times crazier than anything the Dems are doing right now

It's such a trip that we're all being asked to accept this photo as proof that Macklemore is some kind of high-octane Jew hater. I mean, if there had been other indications he hates Jews I could see it as part of that argument, but it's literally this and nothing else. There's him wearing a costume store witch's nose as part of a disguise for a secret show in 2014, and then there's him taking a position on the moral issue of our time in 2026. That's it. That's the whole entire argument. Sounds like the nose thing was exactly what he said it was at the time: an innocent mistake. A lot of Jewish people seem not to understand how little non-Jews think about Jewishness and antisemitism in our day-to-day lives. Very few of us know about the "tropes". Only a small minority would recognize a happy merchant meme if you showed it to them. You have to be a special kind of extremely online to pick up on that stuff, and most people just aren't. It's very, very easy to imagine someone who isn't Jewish putting together such a disguise and never having it cross their mind that they look like an antisemitic trope. For most normal non-Jews, that's just not something one thinks about.

RT @WilkieMP: A petition with 124,665 signatures says we don’t want our weapons, components & resources contributing to war crimes or genoc…

Birds are running out of places to land: 45% of migratory bird species now in decline As habitat after habitats are destroyed by humans And agricultural intensification, climate change, and unsustainable hunting Birds are disappearing birdlife.org/news/2026/09/11…

No longer any Bullants in the VFL (boo!) but the Preston Bullants amateurs are keeping the name in twinkling lights. Won the VAFA Division 1 premiership yesterday, defeating Kew. Their Thirds also took the flag. Premier C next year for the Ants. Thanks to @Gdbell143Gary for pic.

And then there were none Its gut wrenching to see so many species go extinct and its all down to human activity Slender‑billed curlews are officially extinct They hunted it down and destroyed its habitat on its migratory route until there was not even one left theconversation.com/slender-…

Whether an act is considered "terrorist" or if a group of people are labelled "terrorists" depends entirely on whether we support or oppose the cause that is being pursued. It is not opposition to politically or religiously motivated violence per se because we approve of it when it is employed in causes we advocate. So Hamas, the PLO, Hezbollah, the IRGC, the FLN in Algeria, the ANC in South Africa, Falintil in East Timor, the Vietminh in Vietnam and ISIL are terrorist organisations because we oppose(d) their political aims, not because we deplore violence. Amongst other restrictions, they are not entitled to pursue national liberation using violence regardless of how many times diplomacy and peaceful negotiations have failed. The French resistance to the Nazi occupation, the genocide of Native Americans, Israeli's actions in the occupied Palestinian territories, America's wars in Vietnam and Iraq, are not terrorist solely because the violence was undertaken in what were considered just causes by ruling elites in the West. The occupation of other people's land, especially colonialism, cannot be defined as terrorism because it is almost always undertaken by Western states. This is why Western state terrorism is virtually a non-subject in the West. And why Hamas is defined by its terrorism on 7 October 2023 and not by what it was seeking to liberate after decades of cruel occupation in what many considered to be the world's largest concentration camp.

Saw a great example of the way people in capitalist societies tend to reframe their dumb luck as the result of their own hard work and resourcefulness the other day. The winner of the survivalist competition Alone Australia was the only contestant whose location had any fish to eat; all the other nine contestants starved the entire time while he was catching fish easily. When the show was over the winner was like "Well, see, I beat everyone else because I made getting food a priority!" He'd watched the same show we all watched. He saw all the other contestants going to far more extraordinary measures than he ever went to in order to obtain fish and other nourishment, building boats to try to change their luck with the fish, constantly moving their gill nets and trying all kinds of lures and bait and still getting nothing. But he couldn't just say "Yeah I was dropped off at the only decent fishing spot on the show. I got lucky." He had to pretend his fortune was actually the result of his hard work and clever "obtain food" strategy. Our whole stupid society is like that. Those who get lucky say their fortune is the result of their own hard work and cleverness, so they should enjoy tax cuts and generational wealth while the less fortunate are sleeping on the sidewalk. Meanwhile those who've been working their fingers to the bone just to survive in this shitshow know money doesn't actually reward hard work. In our society, money rewards being born into the right family, being cruel enough to exploit the working class, and being sociopathic enough to externalize the costs of industry onto the environment, and being ruthless enough to crush anyone who is in competition with you. Which is why we find ourselves ruled by a plutocratic class of psychopaths today.

McKinley said God told him to take the Philippines. Genuinely. This is not a metaphor. William McKinley, President of the United States, told a delegation of Methodist ministers that he had prayed on the question of what to do with the Philippines and that God had told him there was nothing left to do but "take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them." Christianize them. The Philippines had been Christian for over three hundred years. Spain had converted them in the 1500s. McKinley apparently did not know this, or did not consider it relevant, or considered Spanish Catholicism insufficiently Christian for his purposes. What he knew was that he had a divine mandate. What he had was a commercial interest, a strategic location, and a poem by a British imperialist telling him this was his destiny. He dressed it in God. The Filipinos dressed their dead. And somewhere in Washington, the logic that would be recycled in Vietnam and Iraq and a dozen other places was already fully formed: We are here to help you become what we have decided you should be. Your resistance to this help is evidence of how much you need it.