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Classic Nineteenth Century European Imperialists Believed They Were Literally On A Mission. I Don't Believe That The Imperialists These Days Have That Same Sense Of Public Service. They Are Simply Pirates. Yes, There Are Fundamentalists, Christian Fundamentalists, Who Appear To Be In Charge Of The White House At The Moment, But They Are Very Different From The Christian Gentlemen Who Ran The British Empire And Believed They Were Doing Good Works Around The World. These Days It's About Naked Power.

-John Pilger

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Classic Nineteenth Century European

John Pilger

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Classic Nineteenth Century European Imperialists Believed They Were Literally On A Mission. I Don't Believe That The Imperialists These Days Have That Same Sense Of Public Service. They Are Simply Pirates. Yes, There Are Fundamentalists, Christian Fundamentalists, Who Appear To Be In Charge Of The White House At The Moment, But They Are Very Different From The Christian Gentlemen Who Ran The British Empire And Believed They Were Doing Good Works Around The World. These Days It's About Naked Power.

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Two Increasing Themes Which Appear To Dominate Our Listening, Reading And Watching Lives Are Propaganda And 'national Security', Or Manufactured War.

If Development Was Measured Not By Gross National Product, But A Society's Success In Meeting The Basic Needs Of Its People, Vietnam Would Have Been A Model. That Was Its Real "threat." From The Defeat Of The French At Dien Bien Phu In 1954 To 1972, Primary And Secondary School Enrollment In The North Increased Sevenfold, From 700,000 To Almost Five Million. In 1980, Unesco Estimated A Literacy Rate Of 90 Percent And School Enrollment Among The Highest In Asia And Throughout The Third World.

It Is Not Enough For Journalists To See Themselves As Mere Messengers Without Understanding The Hidden Agendas Of The Message And The Myths That Surround It.

The Major Western Democracies Are Moving Towards Corporatism. Democracy Has Become A Business Plan, With A Bottom Line For Every Human Activity, Every Dream, Every Decency, Every Hope. The Main Parliamentary Parties Are Now Devoted To The Same Economic Policies - Socialism For The Rich, Capitalism For The Poor - And The Same Foreign Policy Of Servility To Endless War. This Is Not Democracy. It Is To Politics What Mcdonalds Is To Food.

What Nixon And Kissinger Began, Pol Pot Completed.

Using The Passive Voice Is Always Very Helpful. Mind You, A Lot Of That Propaganda English Emanates From Here. The British Establishment Has Always Used The Passive Voice. It's Been A Weapon Of Discourse So Those Who Committed Terrible Acts In The Old Empire Could Not Be Identified.

The Palestinians Don't Have Oil. If They Were The Saudis, They Wouldn't Be In The Position They Are Now. But They Have The Power Of Being Able To Upset The Imperial Order In The Middle East.

The British Labour Party Has Always Had A Very Strong "atlanticist Component," With An Obsequiousness To American Policies, And Blair Represents This Wing. He's Clearly Obsessed With Iraq. He Has To Be Because The Overwhelming Majority Of The People Of Britain Oppose A Military Action. I've Never Known A Situation Like It.

British Establishment Uses "the Royal We," As In, "we Think This." You Hear A Lot Of That These Days. It Erroneously Suggests That Those Who Are Making The Decisions To Bomb Countries, To Devastate Economies, To Take Part In Acts Of International Piracy Involve All Of Us.

The People Who Died In The Twin Towers In That Terrible Crime Mattered. The People Who Were Bombed To Death In Dusty Villages In Afghanistan Didn't Matter, Even Though It Now Seems That Their Numbers Were Greater. The People Who Will Die In Iraq Don't Matter.

I'm Absolutely Convinced Of That. Israel Is The Representative Of The United States In That Part Of The World. Its Policies Are So Integrated With American Policies That They Use The Same Language.

The Impact Of The Human Tragedies I've Reported On Is That, More Often Than Not, I'll Be Angry. I Want To Know Why Is This Child Dying? These Are Not Acts Of God; They're Results Of Respectable Politicians' Decisions.

We Are Beckoned To See The World Through A One-way Mirror, As If We Are Threatened And Innocent And The Rest Of Humanity Is Threatening, Or Wretched, Or Expendable. Our Memory Is Struggling To Rescue The Truth That Human Rights Were Not Handed Down As Privileges From A Parliament, Or A Boardroom, Or An Institution, But That Peace Is Only Possible With Justice And With Information That Gives Us The Power To Act Justly.

Since September 11, The Mirror Has Reached Back To Its Roots, And Decided, It Seems, To Be Something Of Its Old Self Again. I Received A Call Asking If I Would Write For It Again, Which I've Done. It's A Pleasure To Be Able To Do That. It's Become An Important Antidote To A Media That Is, Most Of It, Supportive Of The Establishment, Some Of It Quite Rabidly Rightwing. The Mirror Is Breaking Ranks, And That's Good News.

Israel Is The American Watchdog In The Middle East, And That's Why The Palestinians Remain Victims Of One Of The Longest Military Occupations.

The U.s. Is A Cosmetic Democracy.

Not All The Americans In Iraq Are Those Who Torture And Murder, Or Course They're Not, I Don't Know How Many Are Doing It, I Know It Is Systematic Throughout The United States Military I Think That's Been Revealed.

In Western Australia, Minerals Are Being Dug Up From Aboriginal Land And Shipped To China For A Profit Of A Billion Dollars A Week. In This, The Richest, 'booming' State, The Prisons Bulge With Stricken Aboriginal People, Including Juveniles Whose Mothers Stand At The Prison Gates, Pleading For Their Release. The Incarceration Of Black Australians Here Is Eight Times That Of Black South Africans During The Last Decade Of Apartheid.

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Watch How The Propaganda Unfolds Once The Bombing Is Over And The Americans Are Running Baghdad And Their Spin Machine. There Will Be The Discovery Of Saddam's Secret Arsenal, Probably In The Basement Of One His Palaces.

The Censorship Is Such On Television In The U.s. That Films Like Mine Don't Stand A Chance.

If I Were A Teacher, I Would Recommend That All My Students Very Hurriedly Read Most Of Orwell's Books, Especially 1984 And Animal Farm, Because Then They'd Begin To Understand The World We Live In.

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I Grew Up In Sydney In A Very Political Household, Where We Were All For The Underdog.

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I Think The Accurate Description For The George W. Bush Administration Is A Military Plutocracy. Having Lived And Worked In The United States, I Must Add That I Don't Want To Make Too Much Of The Distinction Between The Bush Regime And Its Predecessors. I Don't See A Great Deal Of Difference.

If Those Who Support Aggressive War Had Seen A Fraction Of What I've Seen, If They'd Watched Children Fry To Death From Napalm And Bleed To Death From A Cluster Bomb, They Might Not Utter The Claptrap They Do.

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There Isn't A War On Terror, There Is A War Of Terror.

The Attack On Iraq Has Been Long Planned. There Just Hasn't Been An Excuse For It. Since George H.w. Bush Didn't Unseat Saddam In 1991, There's Been A Longing Among The Extreme Right In The United States To Finish The Job. The War On Terrorism Has Given Them That Opportunity. Even Though The Logic Is Convoluted And Fraudulent, It Appears They Are Going To Go Ahead And Finish The Job.

There Is No War On Terrorism; It Is The Great Game Speeded Up. The Difference Is The Rampant Nature Of The Superpower, Ensuring Infinite Dangers For Us All.

Orwell Is Almost Our Litmus Test. Some Of His Satirical Writing Looks Like Reality These Days.

Rupert Murdoch Gave Up His Australian Citizenship In Order To Buy Television Stations In The United States, Which Is Symptomatic Of The Way Murdoch Operates. Everything Is For Sale, Including His Birthright. The Mirror Is Not Read By Soccer Hooligans. It's Read By Ordinary People Of This Country. That Comment Is Simply Patronizing. But To Be Criticized By The Moonies And Murdoch In One Breath Is Really Just A Fine Moment For Me.

Orwell Is Almost Our Litmus Test. Some Of His Satirical Writing Looks Like Reality These Days. When You Have Someone Like Cheney Who Talks About "endless War" Or War That Might Last Fifty Years, He Could Be Big Brother. You Have Bush Incessantly Going On About The Evil Ones.

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Private Manning Is The World's Pre-eminent Prisoner Of Conscience, Having Remained True To The Nuremberg Principle That Every Soldier Has The Right To 'a Moral Choice.' His Suffering Mocks The Notion Of The Land Of The Free.

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In These Surreal Days, There Is One Truth. Nothing Justified The Killing Of Innocent People In America Last Week And Nothing Justifies The Killing Of Innocent People Anywhere Else.

Journalists Don't Sit Down And Think, "i'm Now Going To Speak For The Establishment." Of Course Not. But They Internalize A Whole Set Of Assumptions, And One Of The Most Potent Assumptions Is That The World Should Be Seen In Terms Of Its Usefulness To The West, Not Humanity. This Leads Journalists To Make A Distinction Between People Who Matter And People Who Don't Matter.

Israel Is The Representative Of The United States In The Middle East. Its Policies Are So Integrated With American Policies That They Use The Same Language. If You Read Sharon's Statements And George W. Bush's Statements, They're Virtually Identical.

Classic Nineteenth Century European Imperialists Believed They Were Literally On A Mission. I Don't Believe That The Imperialists These Days Have That Same Sense Of Public Service. They Are Simply Pirates.

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