When opponents of the military build-up and critics of the genocide in Palestine went to protest outside the Indo-Pacific Maritime Exposition in Sydney, they were confronted by a huge force of New South Wales police.

It is surprising that the state government found it necessary to deploy such a large force. It is also strange that the police did not place protection around the Darling Harbour exhibition building instead of taking an aggressive approach.

Within the building were firms which are implicated in the Israeli genocide in Palestine. Politicians at both state and federal level — sadly Labor politicians — said that the sponsored “exposition” was important for the future of the “defence” industry. The media generally found such explanation sufficient. They repeated the terminology with its self-contained version of reality.

There was no criticism of the hyperbole and hypocrisy endemic to the term “defence” when used in its current context. But the “exposition” is of weapons of war, meant for offence, not defence. That great peace prize aspirant, President Trump of the US, let the cat out of the bag when he renamed his Department of Defence as the Department........

© Pearls and Irritations