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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.

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
People
Greater
Twins
Dies
Afghanistan
Though
Village
Bombed
Death
Iraq
Dusty
Didn
Died
Villages
Seems
Crime
Mattered
Matter
Terrible
Twin
Even
Numbers
Towers

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The U.S. is a cosmetic democracy.
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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.
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What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot completed.
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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.
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More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants and assorted international criminals. This is virtually unknown to the American public, thanks to the freest media on earth.
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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.
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Whenever a journalist says to me, Oh, you don't understand, I'm impartial, I'm objective, I know what he's saying. I can decode it immediately. It means he channels the official truth. Almost always. That protestation means he speaks for a consensual view of the establishment. This is internalized.
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We have an extreme rightwing government in this country, although it's called the Labour government.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The censorship is such on television in the U.S. that films like mine don't stand a chance.
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Al journalism should be investigative, from football to cookery
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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.
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