By Gideon Polya

The Big Lie Downunder

Censorship violates free communication vital for democracy. Crucially, censorship short-circuits rational risk management that is crucial for public safety and which successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize the risk to society. The fundamental scandal of so-called “open societies” such as the Western democracies is that there is entrenched media censorship that has made these societies Murdochracies (Big Money buys truth, public perception of reality and votes) and Lobbyocracies (Big Money buys politicians, parties, policies, public perception and power).

An interesting insight into Mainstream media ownership, media bias and media censorship comes from Murdochracy and Lobbycracy Australia where corporate wealth buys political influence, votes and public policy. Indeed in 2010 the huge Mining Industry only had to spend $22 million of an adumbrated $100 million “war chest” to bring down a very popularly elected Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who was removed by a pro-Zionist-led Coup on 23-24 June 2010 (for details suppressed by Neocon  American and Zionist (NAZI)-beholden mainstream media see  Antony Loewenstein, "Does the Zionist lobby have blood on its hands in Australia ?" and Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist-led Coup ousts Australian PM Rudd”, MWC News, 29 June 2010).
 
Australia has an extraordinary concentration of mainstream media ownership in which Australian-born American media mogul Rupert Murdoch has 70% of newspaper readership with most of the remainder owned by the Fairfax media empire. There has been much disquiet after the world's richest woman, iron ore magnate Gina Rinehart (worth $29 billion), purchased a large pile of shares in Fairfax. However Gina Rinehart has not been given a seat on the board of the Fairfax Australian media empire despite her being the biggest shareholder with a 12.6% stake. She has fired a broadside at Fairfax over her exclusion (see "Snubbed Rienhart fires salvo at Fairfax board", The Age, 24 May 2012).
 
Processing of 1 tons of  iron ore into steel generates about 0.7 tone of the greenhouse gas (GHG) carbon dioxide (CO2), and currently Australia's huge iron ore exports correspond to 293 million tones CO2 out of Australia's current (2010) domestic and exported GHG pollution of 1,708 million tones of CO2-equivalent (see "2011 Climate Change Course").
 
The Fairfax newspaper The Age (Melbourne) has an appalling record of censoring non-anonymous, credentialed, expert reader comments, evidently for containing things it thinks that its readers should not read, know about or think about. It is not alone in this e.g. see “Censorship by The Age”, “ABC Censorship” (the taxpayer-funded ABC being the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) ,  “Censorship by ABC Late Night Live”,  "Censorship by The Conversation", "Censorship by the BBC", “Mainstream Media Lying” and “Mainstream Media Censorship”. An outrageous feature of censorship by the taxpayer-funded, universities-backed and academic –based web magazine The Conversation is that this medium  is backed by Australia’s premier scientific research organization CSIRO (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) and by the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of Technology Sydney, RMIT University and the University of Western Australia (see "Censorship by The Conversation" ).
 
Notwithstanding iron ore multi-billionaire Gina Rinehart being excluded from the Fairfax board, The Age might well have had sympathy for her mining interests, and for Australian mining interests in general, in censoring out the following comment submitted by me in response to an article about the Australian Labor (Laboral) Government's Mining Tax that was responsible for intense and successful Mining Lobby activity against the Rudd Labor Government (see Professor Jeff Lewis "Lost in frontier fantasy", The Age Online, 24 May 2012). Professor Lewis had described corporate-led opposition to the Mining Tax as “a shocking sign of our national immaturity”.
 
Censored comment: "In his otherwise excellent article, Professor Lewis misses the key, science-based reality that Australia is obliged to cease exploiting coal gas and iron ore in the first place.
 
In 2009 the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (WBGU) determined that for a 75% chance of avoiding a 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise, the World must pollute less than 600 Gt CO2 (600 billion tones CO2) between 2010 and essentially zero emissions in 2050.
 
Unfortunately Australia's annual domestic plus exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is so high that Australia exceeded its "fair share" of this global terminal GHG pollution budget in mid-2011 (Google "2011 climate change course").
 
Worse still, Australia' s coal , gas and iron ore deposits are so huge that the bipartisan Liberal-Laboral (Lib-Lab) policy of unlimited exports of these commodities (and hence of the GHG pollution inherent in their use) means that Australia with 0.3% of the World's population intends to pollute the atmosphere with THREE (3) TIMES the whole world's terminal GHG pollution budget.
 
For a detailed and documented analysis of why Australia must rapidly cease coal, gas and iron ore exports Google "Australia's huge coal, gas and iron ore exports threaten Planet". End censored comment.
 
In Chapter 10 of  “Mein Kampf” Adolph Hitler introduced the idea of the Big Lie:  “All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”
 
In look-the-other-way, censorship-perverted, Neocon American and Zionist (NAZI)-subverted Australia the most appalling Big Lies are lies of omission, and best example by lies of omission in relation to Australia’s current and projected greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution exports. Australia’s exported GHG pollution is so huge that it has already used up its “fair share” of the world’s terminal CO2 pollution budget and its projected GHG pollution exports amount to three times the whole world’s terminal GHG pollution budget.
 
Over 500 years ago when Columbus sailed west, many believed that he would fall off the edge of the World. Today in censorship-ridden 21st century Australia,  the major party bipartisan, Liberal-Laboral (Lib-Lab)  position is effectively just as absurd – it is as if that once Australia’s coal, iron ore and LNG ships reach the 10 mile limit they go through a Dr Who-style magic wall into a new space, time and morality dimension in which the subsequent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have nothing to do with the Australians who extracted the coal, iron ore and gas in the first place.  
 
The trouble with this sort of cowardly, silent, anonymous censorship and deceit is that most people don't know it is happening and if they do they don't know why - could it be anti-science? Anti-intellectual? Anti-academic? Anti-Semitic? Xenophobic? Self-interest? Who knows?
 
Censorship is a dangerous perversion that sabotages rational risk management which is crucial for societal safety and which successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize the risk of adverse events. Mainstream media presstitution through censorship, lying by commission and lying by omission is not merely unethical, it is downright dangerous. Climate Genocide through unaddressed man-made climate change is predicted to kill 10 billion people this century (Google “Climate Genocide”). You can help counter dangerous media censorship by (a) telling everyone you know about this obscene and dangerous corporatist perversion that is subverting democracy in the Western Lobbyocracies and (b) by urging and applying boycotts against all countries, corporations, politicians and parties involved in democracy-subverting censorship.