Cameron Neil

Waking up, with sober mind, to 24 hours of clear knowledge that humanity is an unprecedented extinction event for our planet. & with climate change, likely authors of our own demise. What to do? How to be different/better?

Today a guy named Dougie working at the reception of Parliament House asked my partner if her mask (respirator) was 'a political statement'. She was with me. I was also masked. I have limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2i; I use a wheelchair for mobility. She told him that she did not want to kill me. But actually, he did not have the right to make any kind of statement about her personal choice to do what she wanted with her body, including what she was wearing, including on her face. Nor are her reasons for masking any of his business. I do not usually name people, but this was not just in a deli or corner store. This was a man, in a uniform, employed by government, working in a customer service capacity as a concierge. In the House of the People. And we deserve better. I hope Dougie loses his job. Or has to write a written letter of apology to my partner, with maybe 2000 lines attached that read, 'I will not be an ableist dick to disabled women'. Happy to supervise him handwriting the lines, @AustParliament. I promise that he will learn something during the time it takes. Disabled people have the right to be safe. #auspol

you're laughing? investors are bravely enduring the horrors of earning slightly less from doing nothing, and you're laughing?

This is happening here, too, Australian media is just, as ever, ignoring the biggest stories and hoping no one notices

This bloke doesn’t recognise that he’s a part of a generation that has never or will never exist again. A generation with cradle to grave prosperity. Never before in history has a generation benefited so much from the hard work of their parents and the economic circumstances of their adulthood. Bouris has less in common with his hard-working father than a young Australian trying to make ends meet in uncertain times. He speaks of the accumulation of property as some form of human right, that it’s some form of Australian story, but it’s really a situation and a mindset that has only been enjoyed by a small group of Australians. Bouris literally made his fortune giving Home loans away in the first homebuyer grant period of the early 2000s, and he helped to contribute to an industry that is the most overinflated economic property Bubble on the planet. Bouris probably doesn’t remember Australia, whereby governments build houses as a human right, where Menzies era governments of both persuasions owned the lions share of rentals in the country. Not rich immigrant property magnates, not money obsessed Australian entrepreneurs. The only reason this fellow can talk like this, it’s because his lived position allows him to do so. A point not lost at all on the people who can’t really do anything right now.

Nothing could define this Premier League campaign better than the subsequent sight of the VAR officials at Stockley Park spending five minutes at a bank of television screens in stoppage time, trying to work out whether a goal should stand after the wrestling match that took place at the corner kick which led to it. It was clear, upon review, that Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya was held and impeded by West Ham United forward Pablo before Callum Wilson converted the loose ball. Raya’s left forearm was being pulled as he jumped to try to catch the ball. Of course, it was a foul. The problem is that at least three other clear fouls were being committed at the same time: Jean-Clair Todibo also on Raya, Declan Rice on Konstantinos Mavropanos, Martin Odegaard on Todibo. As former Liverpool and England midfielder Jamie Redknapp said on Sky Sports, “It was like watching the Super Bowl (with all the blocking). It was chaos.” When it comes to identifying the defining moment of this campaign, it is hard to imagine there will be anything that captures the spirit of the Premier League in 2025-26 more than the sight of a VAR at Stockley Park staring at a screen, trying to work out exactly who is fouling who — which foul is taking place when, which is most grievous, which is most consequential. How has football allowed this to become the new normal? Read @OliverKay in The Briefing for free ⬇️ bit.ly/4dkIdOQ

Special commission into the hurt feelings of genocidal psychopaths

@TheAthleticFC That's an epic hater level effort.

"Bruno Fernandes winning Footballer of the Year is long overdue recognition for a truly outstanding player. There are legendary No 10s who didn't ever achieve this level of consistency. "But my vote went to… no one. No Premier League footballer this season has been at the requisite standard. The football has not been entertaining enough. The matches have been lacking in the technical quality and individual inspiration we’ve been accustomed to in previous years. "Fernandes deserves his award, but it's a damning indictment of the individual quality in the Premier League that by simply maintaining his typical level he's suddenly the victor by a landslide." 📝 @Zonal_Marking 🔗 nytimes.com/athletic/72609…

New: In blow to Syria cover-up, dissenting OPCW inspector wins case at international tribunal The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (@OPCW) has been ordered to pay damages to Dr. Brendan Whelan, a veteran inspector who challenged the manipulation of a chemical weapons probe in Douma, Syria. For the first time, Whelan tells the story of his years-long, Orwellian ordeal for justice. aaronmate.net/p/in-blow-to-s…

In their campaign against the Assad regime in Syria, the legacy media insisted that it had used chemical weapons in Douma and pressure was put on the OPCW to confirm the fact asap so that Trump could launch a missile attack. A dissenting Inspector was sidelined, traduced and suspended. He fought back and won, clearing himself and exposing the OPCW for bowing to pressure. Seymour Hersh and others (including myself) had questioned the official version and were denounced. We were right. Dr Whelan was so right to fight back. What this shows, ofcourse, is that none of these supposedly objective organisations are what they claim to be and cave to Western pressures.

@BruceTennen I agree

I say go big: Jalen Duren Isaiah Stewart Tobias Harris at the 3 Ausar Thompson at the 2 Cade Cunningham Bigger, beefier, much more physical defenders. Better rebounding and shot blocking. Make it a street fight game.

🚨BREAKING : In a new massacre, Israeli drones directly targeted a phone-charging point run by civilian Imad Miqdad moments ago in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, killing him along with other civilians. With no electricity infrastructure left in displacement camps, solar-powered and improvised energy points have become essential for survival, yet they are being deliberately targeted, cutting civilians off from even the most basic means of living.

Israel killed every single person in this photo in Lebanon. Every. Single. One. All journalists. Targeted and assassinated intentionally. For reporting the truth from the frontlines.

We spoke to reporter Zaynab Faraj, who survived a triple-tap attack that killed her colleague, Amal Khalil. She described how an Israeli strike first hit a car ahead of them, killing two civilians, before a second strike targeted their own vehicle, severely injuring Amal. Ms Faraj said she helped her into an empty house, where they lay wounded and terrified, waiting for help. A third Israeli strike then hit the building where they were hiding, collapsing it on top of them. “Amal was gone,” Ms Faraj said. “And I was left alone.” Throughout the ordeal, the journalists made repeated calls for help. But Israel prevented the Lebanese Army and the Lebanese Red Cross from reaching them, informed sources told us.

Truly a must read story. What they did to journalist Amal Khalil, with the world watching and praying for her, is unspeakable. dropsitenews.com/p/lebanon-jour…

My favorite James Baldwin line: "There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend."

In 1928, George Orwell went to Paris because he wanted to see what it was like to be poor. He rented a cheap room, ran out of money faster than expected, and ended up washing dishes in hotel kitchens for twelve to fourteen hours a day. The work was brutal in a boring way. Hot steam, greasy plates, shouting chefs, no breaks. You stood until your legs stopped working. When the shift ended, there was just enough time to eat badly and sleep before doing it again. When he got sick, no one helped much. You missed a shift, you lost the job. Later, in England, he lived among tramps and slept in shelters because he had nowhere else to go. He kept notes the whole time… He turned the experience into Down and Out in Paris and London. The book shows what happens when life becomes logistical and dignity turns into something you can’t afford. That period stayed with him. Long after he became famous, his writing never forgot how fragile comfort is, or how fast a person can slide from being someone to being invisible.

At 20, Kafka read a book that hit him so hard he couldn't pick up a pen. So he sat down and wrote his friend a letter. That letter has the line I keep repeating: "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." The year was 1904. The book was 1,800 pages of diaries by a German poet named Christian Friedrich Hebbel. Kafka finished it and just sat there. He couldn't write his own stuff. So he wrote his childhood friend Oskar Pollak a letter about what reading the thing had done to him. The famous line gets quoted alone, but what comes before it is much darker. Kafka is saying that books that make you happy are useless. You could write those yourself. The books we need are the ones that hurt. He said they should feel like a disaster, like grief, like being dropped in a forest alone, like wanting to die. A lot to say, from a kid who had not published a thing yet. His most famous book, The Metamorphosis (the one where a guy wakes up as a giant bug), was still eleven years away. The Trial, his other classic, only exists because his friend Max Brod ignored Kafka's dying wish to burn everything. The friend who got this letter, Oskar Pollak, died in World War I at 31. The two of them had drifted apart by then. These letters are some of the only records we have of Kafka before he became famous. Most books keep us company. Kafka had no use for those. The book you remember is the one that broke something in you that needed breaking.

NSW is great because the police will break the law to get some fried chicken and then punch you in the kidneys for having a different opinion to the Premier

Stunning lyrics by Siba Alkhiami, a German-based artist, against Israel's repression of Palestinians.

I am surprised how my tweet below entered the political spheres of Australians. It means that many Australians actually care about their country. But if you want to do something about it, the first thing to understand is that the answer is not the other party. The two parties run the visible layer. The operators underneath is the same regardless of who is in office. Same mining multinationals. Same four banks. Same supermarket duopoly. Same media owners. Same property speculation engine. Same gas exporters paying almost no resource rent. The faces rotate. The arrangement does not. So voting harder for Labor when the Liberals disappoint you, or harder for the Liberals when Labor disappoints you, is not resistance. It is the trap. It is the pressure-release valve doing exactly what it was built to do. The way to move the operators in Australia, is how you move any operator in any country. Stop voting tribally. Strengthen the cross bench. Vote for community independents and minor parties willing to put structural questions on the table that the majors have agreed never to discuss. A senate full of crossbenchers extracting concessions is worth more than another majority for either side. Learn who owns what. Find out who owns your bank, your supermarket, your toll road, your energy retailer, your superannuation, your media. Most Australians have no idea how much of the country routes back to a small handful of foreign asset managers and resource multinationals. Once you see it, the arguments between the parties stop looking like a contest and start looking like theatre. Build parallel structures. Move your money to a credit union or mutual bank. Buy from local cooperatives where you can. Read independent media. Put solar and battery on your own roof so you stop buying back your own gas at a markup from the people who exported it. Demand specific reforms, not vague good intentions. Ask every candidate, federal and state, whether they will support a real Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. Whether they will support a Norway-style sovereign wealth fund built on actual resource royalties. Whether they will support ending negative gearing and the capital gains discount. Whether they will support breaking up the media monopolies. Whether they will support foreign investment screening with teeth. Whether they will support rebuilding domestic refining capacity and downstream processing of the minerals that's shipped out raw. Vote on the answers. Politicians respond to specificity. They absorb and neutralise vagueness. Tell the truth in your daily conversations. The deepest defense of the system is the conditioning that tells Australians their own sovereignty over their own resources, their own currency, their own land and their own future is the unrealistic option. Norway did it. South Korea did it. Singapore did it. Australia chose, repeatedly, through both parties, not to. That is a choice. Choices can be made differently. Saying so out loud, in private and in public, in conversations with family and friends and colleagues, slowly breaks the spell. Australia is managed. That is the bad news and that is also the good news. Anything that can be managed can be unmanaged. But not by waiting for the next election to deliver a saviour from inside the same recruiting pipeline that produced the current arrangement. The change starts when enough citizens stop voting for the marketing departments and start asking who actually owns the building.