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The U.S. is a cosmetic democracy.

John Pilger

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John Pilger
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: October 9
Director
Film Director
Journalist
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Sydney
NSW
Democracy
Cosmetic
Cosmetics

More quotes by John Pilger

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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.
John Pilger
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We have an extreme rightwing government in this country, although it's called the Labour government.
John Pilger
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Israel is the American watchdog in the Middle East, and that's why the Palestinians remain victims of one of the longest military occupations. They 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.
John Pilger
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Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job: who push back screens, peer behind façades, lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honour.
John Pilger
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Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth. They simply cipher and transmit lies. It really grieves me that so many of my fellow journalists can be so manipulated that they become really what the French describe as functionaires, functionaries, not journalists.
John Pilger
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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.
John Pilger
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Israel is the American watchdog in the Middle East, and that's why the Palestinians remain victims of one of the longest military occupations.
John Pilger
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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.
John Pilger
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It is time we recognized that the real terrorism is poverty.
John Pilger
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In the sublime days before 11 September 2001, when the powerful were routinely attacking and terrorising the weak, and those dying were black or brown-skinned non-people living in faraway places such as Zaire and Guatemala, there was no terrorism. When the weak attacked the powerful, spectacularly on 9/11, there was terrorism.
John Pilger
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I grew up in Sydney in a very political household, where we were all for the underdog.
John Pilger
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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.
John Pilger
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There isn't a war on terror, there is a war of terror.
John Pilger
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The censorship is such on television in the U.S. that films like mine don't stand a chance.
John Pilger
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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.
John Pilger
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Al journalism should be investigative, from football to cookery
John Pilger
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When governments and other vested interests attack me personally I usually regard it as a vindication, otherwise they would use facts. That's why I believe in the wonderful Claud Cockburn dictum, 'Never believe anything until it is officially denied.' It has certainly been my experience.
John Pilger
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During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against much of humanity: impoverished people mostly, in stricken places.
John Pilger
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Many journalists become very defensive when you suggest to them that they are anything but impartial and objective. The problem with those words impartiality and objectivity is that they have lost their dictionary meaning. They've been taken over. Impartiality and objectivity now mean the establishment point of view.
John Pilger
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Official truths are often powerful illusions.
John Pilger