Dion Kagan

I’ve been out of action for a few weeks and not able to read much. My main response to the AWW debacle, now that I’m catching up properly, is, is this shit for real? I wrote a newsletter about risk, cancel culture and concussion. infra-dig.ghost.io/hard-surfaces/

The making of Australia's police state – part one Over two decades, Labor and the Coalition have jointly built the legal architecture of a police state at the expense of democratic rights. This series traces how.

A sobering history ⛓️ www.deepcutnews.com/p/the-making-of-australias-police-state

Shared with us from Sydney happening now. He had his hands up.

Zali Steggall points out the consequences of inviting Isaac Herzog given the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestine was 'highly foreseeable'
live.thepoint.com.au/2026/02/the-...

Nice to hear we have a future with @meanjin.bsky.social in it. Some refreshing news on the shitscape horizon.

Politicising Bondi backfires for Liberals who got what they asked for Federal Liberals are discovering the price of having been so brazen in their politicisation of the Bondi terror attack and many appear to have buyers' remorse.

Well deserved criticism of Liberals for doing all they could to politically exploit Bondi massacre

‘Federal Liberals are discovering the price of having been so brazen in their politicisation of the Bondi terror attack and many appear to have buyers' remorse’

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

The Socialist Party stands against The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill (2026). This bill, which is being rammed through parliament early next week is a significant attack on Australian civil liberties and the right to protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 🧵

Brilliant synthesis of where we’re at now from @squigglyrick.bsky.social — 🙏

SIGN ✍️ We will not be divided after Bondi Add your name to the Jewish Council petition today

jewishcouncil.good.do/unity/jewish...

Join me in signing the #JewsDemandAction petition calling on governments around the world to do everything possible to end the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza. jewsdemandaction.org jewsdemandaction.org

Gazans ‘deserved what they got’: Shocking stories of anti-Palestinian racism in schools revealed New report says education departments enable 'silencing of Palestinian perspectives in schools'

open.substack.com/pub/deepcutn...

Cornell Cut Classes by a Pro-Palestinian Professor After an Israeli Student’s Discrimination Complaint Dr. Eric Cheyfitz, who has taught at Cornell for more than two decades, claims the university is attempting to silence him as part of a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.

The whole outrageous story:

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

University of Melbourne Creative Writing Program Statement on the proposed closure of MEANJIN The creative writing program at the University of Melbourne is distressed by the recently announced closure of Meanjin, one of Australia’s oldest and most revered literary journals. Its international ...

We call on UofM to embrace its responsibilities to students, staff and the public good by acting promptly & housing this important journal within its Community & Cultural Partnerships portfolio and committing to resourcing it appropriately in the long term
www.juliennevanloon.com.au/post/univers...

Pro-Israel groups have attacked me for years. The Bendigo Writers Festival is a turning point. Randa Abdel-Fattah writes of her experience as a target of the pro-Israel lobby

Powerful op-ed by Randa Abdel-Fattah about what it’s like when Australia’s entire pro-lsraeIi genocide lobby dedicates its efforts to professionally ruining you, specifically, to shut you up

It’s published at @deepcutnews.bsky.social because it was rejected by The Age, Guardian and The Conversation

Garden art

Gaza health ministry says 33 people dead from malnutrition in last 48 hours New figures from the Hamas-run ministry include 12 children who have died, as the UN says Israel must allow aid into Gaza.

A tipping point has been reached.

Gaza is now starving to death in front of the whole world.

Those who facilitated and justified this abomination were given ample warning for 21 months.

You have no excuses, and nowhere to hide: you will be held to account for what you've done.

Heroes ✊👏

Liberal Zionism Is Dying—It’s Time to Put It Out of Its Misery For years, liberal Zionism let me feel principled while providing cover for injustice. It’s time to call out the illusion—and stop shielding what can’t be defended.

'To be a liberal Z'st today is to be both scapegoat & cover: reviled as a traitor when you speak out & trotted out as evidence of pluralism when the world is watching.'
@shaielb.bsky.social, Liberal Z*sm Is Dying: It’s Time to Put It Out of Its Misery. shaielbenephraim.substack.com/p/liberal-zi...

I’m also fascinated by how universities emerged as combos of abbeys & madrasas, but most of all as student unions – mainly of international students!

everyone in the early university worked FOR students – what a power shift we have witnessed where universities punish students for organising

We KNOW lsraeI's whole plan is to empty Gaza of its people & erase all witnesses; the IOF even exhumes & abducts victims from mass graves so their bones can never shame the evil land-hunger of foreign necro-colonists

So statements like this just send the message "lsraeI's genocide is working"

Bruce Shapiro on US politics, Bill Bowtell surveys 40 years of HIV, and the world's richest shipwreck Podcast Episode · Late Night Live — Full program podcast · 15/07/2025 · 55m

A must-listen chat with Bill Bowtell on LNL that ends w a prognosis & prediction for what happens globally w HIV now that US funding is withdrawn podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/l...

1000 Women in Horror From the silent era until today, the nightmares that have haunted our screen have been sculpted and embodied by women, but many of those artists have gone....

🚨 Big news 5 years in the making: some friends and I made a documentary! 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR hits Shudder soon, directed by Donna Davies and inspired by my 2020 book of the same name

If you are in Australia, I hope you can make it to the world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival

I have tonnes of maggie watch vids from lockdowns when I was cultivating a magpie drop-in centre in my front yard I shall send you some. I feel very supportive of this and hope you will share developments and results as you develop the warble

Unclear if this activism will lead to the systemic model change this industry needs, but huge kudos to these academics for stepping up, withdrawing their labour and the intellectual capital they gather.

Sale of the Amsterdam University Press (AUP) film, media and communication list to Taylor & Francis – Resignation of series editors and editorial board members It is with great dismay that we, the undersigned, learned that the film, media and communication list of Amsterdam University Press (AUP) has been taken over by Taylor & Francis, a subsidiary of Infor...

The time has come to reinvent academic publishing. Over the last years conglomerates have bought up once respectable publishers and turned them into rent extraction machines, generating obscene profits from tax-payer funded research and unremunerated academic labor./
mediastudies.hypotheses.org/6850

Sign the Petition Jews say no to anti-protest laws: Jacinta Allan stop exploiting antisemitism

Jews say no to anti-protest laws: Jacinta Allan stop exploiting antisemitism chng.it/dgdMnVCN via @ChangeAUS

It disgusts me the way that the captive media try to justify their genocide stenography as ‘neutrality’ – and punish truth-telling journalists as ‘activists’ –and yet here they are bringing opinion into a news lede in a way that would fail a first-year J-school news writing assignment

'Economy of Genocide': UN Expert Accuses Major Corporations of Profiting Off of Israel's Assault on Gaza Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, releases report accusing more than 45 entities of making money from Israel's Gaza genocide and illegal occupation of the West Bank.

"'Economy of Genocide': UN Expert Accuses Major Corporations of Profiting Off of Israel's Assault on Gaza"

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, releases report accusing more than 45 entities of making money from Israel's Gaza genocide and illegal occupation of the West Bank:

TV tonight: Channel 4 airs the Gaza documentary the BBC wouldn’t broadcast Ramita Navai investigates Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals in a controversial film. Plus: celebrating football hero Mary Earps. Here’s what to watch this evening

TV tonight: Channel 4 airs the Gaza documentary the BBC wouldn’t broadcast

Doctors Recall Torture They Endured From Israeli Military in New Documentary the BBC ‘Refused to Air’: ‘They Hung Me Up’ Palestinian healthcare workers recalled the torture they endured at the hands of Israeli military personnel in a new documentary the BBC "refused to air."

“Doctors Recall Torture They Endured in Gaza Documentary the BBC 'Refused to Air'”

Thank you to ⁦‪Charlie Nash‬⁩ and ⁦‪Mediaite‬⁩ for reporting on our important new documentary ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’