John Pilger Quotes
1939–2023 Australia
John Richard Pilger (9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist and documentary maker based in London and Sydney.
- Australia
- Journalists
- Non-fiction authors
Random John Pilger quote
27 quotes
During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against much of humanity: impoverished people mostly, in stricken places.
Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.
The problem with media-run "conversations" on gender is not merely the almost total absence of male participants, but the suppression of class.
The censorship is such on television in the US that films like mine don't stand a chance.
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.
Hidden Agendas (1998)
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.
Why is WikiLeaks a landmark in journalism? Because its revelations have told us, with 100 per cent accuracy, how and why much of the world is divided and run.
In fact, Hamas's real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor.
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.
Barack Obama is a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan. Hillary Clinton, another bomber, is anti-feminist. John McCain's one distinction is that he has personally bombed a country.
I love irony in pictures. There's one photograph from Vietnam by Philip Jones Griffiths that shows a very large GI having his pocket picked by a tiny Vietnamese woman. It told the whole story of the clash of two cultures and how the invader could never win.
I always say that the difference between the United States and Australia is that US settlers were on a mission from God whereas Australian settlers were God-forsaken.
The ruthless sell-off of Britain's National Health Service during Covid by the Boris Johnson govt is a crime against humanity.
Journalists can help people by telling the truth, or by as much truth as they can find, and acting not as agents of governments, of power, but of people. That is real journalism. The rest is specious and false.
The single biggest challenge is rescuing journalism from its deferential role as the stenographer of great power. The United States has constitutionally the freest press on earth, yet in practice it has a media obsequious to the formulas and deceptions of power. That is why the US was effectively given media approval to invade Iraq, and Libya, and Syria and dozens of other countries.
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.
To quote, without verifiable evidence, "western intelligence sources" is never journalism; it is almost always propaganda. I learned that as a reporter. The cold war drum beat of the BBC and others is leading us to a world war.
I stand by every word I've ever written. I can back everything up with facts. I have never made the facts fit an agenda, unlike the corporate media. But, if I didn't annoy all the right people all the time, I would be very upset.
On 28 January China said it would welcome international help as it struggled to contain coronavirus. No substantial help has come. Instead of solidarity and defying WHO, the US, Australia, Britain seek to isolate China, returning it to a state of siege and the dangers of the past.
And anyway, I am pro-Vietnamese, I regard their experience over 30 years as unique. They have had to turn back more intruders and vandals than any country in recent history.
And now as a result of that they are ruined economically and they are facing starvation.