The response of the Australian government to US President Donald Trump’s incitement of the January 6 attack on the US Congress was, shall we say, muted.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed his “distress” and his hope that order would soon be restored. However, he stopped far short of condemning the President, an extraordinary omission for the leader of a liberal democracy, considering Trump’s goal was to violently overthrow the results of a democratic election and retain his power.
It seems reasonable to expect that the government of a country that regards the US as its closest ally would express considerable alarm at a violent anti-democratic insurrection in which five people died, and yet…
Members of the Morrison government have saved their loudest outrage for Twitter, the social media platform Trump used to incite his followers, and the platform that has finally banned Trump for life. This, it appears, is the great injustice, an affront to “free speech,” and, wait for it, censorship.
Liberal MP Craig Kelly, Nationals backbencher George Christensen, Member for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack are among government members who have condemned the “silencing” of Trump. (Trump has a pressroom in his house & can summon the world corps at any time, but that spoils the narrative so let’s not mention it).
Several MPs have called for the introduction of regulations that will ensure the state has control over the terms of service of private businesses such as social media, a most extraordinary demand from the party of small government, and one made with absolutely no sense of the irony inherent in the demand.
Christensen has started a petition demanding legislation to rein in the big tech overlords. Sharma is calling for a “publicly accountable body” to control who social media companies can and cannot refuse to host on their platforms. Frydenberg says he is “uncomfortable” with Twitter’s decision to dump Donald, leaving this writer to wonder how “uncomfortable” Mr Frydenberg is with the spectacle of Trump’s anti-Semitic foot soldiers wearing shirts declaring that “6 million wasn’t enough.” Mr Frydenberg has remained silent on this outrage.
Michael McCormack (some of you may know him better as the Elvis Impersonator) has this morning doubled down on his assertion that the insurrection at the Capitol last week was no different from Black Lives Matter protests, an assertion that has been strongly repudiated by Indigenous groups and Amnesty International as deeply offensive and flawed.
McCormack went on to state that “violence is violence and we condemn it in all its forms,” except, apparently, when incited by President Trump, whom McCormack has conspicuously failed to condemn.
What actually happened was that Twitter warned the President over several weeks that his content was violating their terms of service. Twitter then placed warning notices on many Trump tweets, while still permitting their visibility. They offered Trump the opportunity to delete his more troubling posts, and he declined. Finally, after weeks of what many perceived as irresponsible tolerance on the part of the social media platform, Twitter banished Trump.
The President received far more warnings and chances than any other user in the history of Twitter.
It is a manipulative leap to equate the breaching of a private company’s terms of service with “censorship.”
As Garry Kasparov remarked on Twitter,
Let’s not forget as well the enthusiasm with which an LNP government, under John Howard, took us along with the US into the invasion of Iraq, claiming as one of their justifications the delivery of democracy to that country. And yet, when democracy is under threat from domestic terrorism inside the US itself, there’s an orchestrated effort on the part of the LNP to distract attention from these momentous events and focus instead on Twitter allegedly “censoring” the leader of that insurrection.
Big tech de-platforming Donald is what they want you to think about, not Donald trying to destroy the US democratic process. Ask yourself why this is.
It is deeply troubling when your government decides the issue is a president being chucked off Twitter, and not a president attempting to violently interfere with the results of an election in an attempt to retain power. In its refusal to condemn Trump, the Australian government leaves us with little alternative but to assume its tacit support of the outgoing US President.
If what you take from the events of the last week is that the outrageous injustice is Twitter banning Donald Trump, you are either complicit or incomprehensibly stupid. Which is the Morrison-led Australian government?
No Place For Sheep 
Well said. It is absolutely astounding.
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Sigh.
And this is why Stalin could have HIS revolution.
There are always people whose “thinking” leads the witch hunts spurred by arrogance, self-righteousness, entitlement and the visceral, deeply rooted desire to find a bogey man to blame ones misery on.
HINT: Everyone suffers. Not everyone is a miserable fuck. Misery is a Spiritual problem.
No government can save you from your own, wretched, self-created hell is that your conscious thoughts create in your mind.
Not even the leftist, socialist, dystopian wokie wet dream that Stalin’s useful idiots want to usher in.
You have eyes and ears.
You see and hear so little.
I can see your misery and hear your pathetic, indignant and impotent rants as you shake your fist at anything you fancy yourself to “enlightened” to believe it or in.
In your clenched fists are the sum of your spirituality and true wisdom.
You wear your anger and hatred well.
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What??
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Great commentary, Jennifer. I’ve posted it on my platforms. Keep up the good work!
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Thanks for the article Jennifer, and happy new year!
The funny thing is, it was completely unnecessary for McCormack to even bring up BLM. Poor dear, it’s obviously something he’s been seething about all year and he finally got his chance to yell something about it – but in so doing he has comprehensively trashed his reputation. Nice one!
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Hi Sam, same to you!
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This is a fine extension of your work on Twitter. Keep up the fight, and we can only hope the Australian government may learn some things when watching John Biden and others dispose of the rotting hulk of this current excuse for a President in the United States of America …
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Complicit or incomprehensibly stupid? How about both.
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Well put. We have much to be concerned about politically.
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What happens when all of you still asleep see (with your own two eyes) President Trump PROVE you have been bamboozled into a false reality perpetuated by leveraged media, PROVES he outright won the election in a landslide, PROVES that many elected officials have committed treason, and then steps down to give the power back to the people? What kind of a dictator would forcefully remove (in this case expose and indict) opposition only to step down? Your alarm clock is ringing…..
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