My concerns about John Pilger

[daggett]

In recent weeks, I have received e-mails from members of the 9/11 Truth Movement including links to YouTube broadcasts by John Pilger and articles by John Pilger.

Of course, I have found myself in agreement with most of what he has said and written, usually so eloquently and well (although often also in terms that even the most committed and outraged 9/11 Truthers would consider laboured, hyperbolic and excessively emotive).

Nevertheless, I also invariably notice a number of gaping holes in what he writes and says. The biggest is of course a clear statement on 9/11. Others are on the assassinations of JFK and RFK (the latter at which he was present in 1968).

They sometimes appear to come very close to this. An example is where he is quoted by David Ray Griffin quoted him in "The New Pearl Harbour":

For example, John Pilger, after saying that "[t]he attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the 'new Pearl Harbor,'" added that these attacks have been "described 'the opportunity of ages.'"

Nevertheless, even this falls short of a clear statement in support of the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

As far as I am aware (I and I would gladly stand corrected) John Pilger has never made such a statement in all these years in support of the 9/11 Truth Movement. This cannot possibly be an oversight.

He has also given his full public endorsement for a left wing newspaper in this country which, (as with every other 'far left' Marxist publication), by its silence on 9/11, has also been part of the 9/11 cover-up. That paper is "Green Left" weekly.

When "Green Left" celebrated its 800th issue, John Pilger sent the following message:

As so much of the corporate media becomes a parody of itself, the agents of power not of people, we need the view from ground more than ever and Green Left Weekly more than ever.

Immediately beneath it was a message from Noam Chomsky, whose shameful role in covering up the crime of 9/11 and the state-sponsored murders of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK is beyond dispute and well understoood by the 9/11 Truth Movement:

Congratulations on reaching the 800th issue. It is not easy these days for independent left journals to sustain themselves, when they are so badly needed. Look forward to hearing about the 1000th.

At the time the movie "RFK Must Die" was released, he was interviewed by Amy Goodman and 'revealed' that shots were fired other than from Sirhan Sirhan's gun.

People on 911blogger.com placed great significance on that, but it seems hadly a daring and revealing revelation, besides, I can hardly imagine how Pilger could have claimed otherwise given that the supporting forensic evidence has long been know to be conclusive in that regard.

What I would like to know is what John Pilger, as the fearless and independent journalist that he is reputed to be, and as a witness, did since that terrible day to investigate the clear holes in the official explanation of the RFK assassination and to draw that to the attention of the broader public.

He certainly went out of his way, whether justifiably or not, to diminish RFK's and his brother JFK's stature, for example in The Kennedy myth rises again of 10 May 07:

John F Kennedy referred incessantly to "America's mission in the world" even while affirming it with a secret invasion of Vietnam that caused the deaths of more than two million people. Robert Kennedy had made his name as a ruthless counsel for Senator Joe McCarthy on his witch-hunting committee investigating "un-American activities". The younger Kennedy so admired the infamous McCarthy that he went out of his way to attend his funeral. As attorney general, he backed his brother's atrocious war and when John F Kennedy was assassinated, he used his name to win election as a junior senator for New York. By the spring of 1968 he was fixed in the public mind as a carpet-bagger.

...

In truth, Robert Kennedy was known in the United States for his lack of moral courage. Only when Senator Eugene McCarthy led his principled "children's crusade" against the war in Vietnam early in 1968 did Kennedy change his basically pro-war stand. Like Hillary Clinton on Iraq today, he was an opportunist par excellence. Travelling with him, I would hear him borrow from Martin Luther King one day, then use the racist law-and-order code the next.

[911oz]

Hi daggett, I share your concerns but i suspect he is deluded by his party political alliegences...

He is part of the old guard and we should make him an ally. Next time he is in australia we MUST make contact with him.

We should have approached him in January when he was here for the Gaza march. I kick myself for not doing so.

[able]

if he was at the Melbourne march i would have beaten a path to the man.

yes a clear statement is needed for 911 and if a youtube pops up with him questioning the official fairy tale then i think at least one bottle of mead is in order that night. (perhaps three )

i smell a email barrage coming.

what email addresses do we have for the man.

[The Watcher]

John Pilger's praise for the work of Nafeez Ahmed highlights the blurbs of the latter's books The War on Truth, The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry and if memory serves, also The War On Freedom. While some of these books lean toward the LIHOP rather than MIHOP positions, they do present enough damning evidence to indict many high level officials to being (at the very least) accessories to mass murder. Assuming he's actually read the books, there's NO WAY that Pilger can be unaware of the scope of deceit surrounding both 9/11 and the 7/7 attacks in London.

[911oz]

Originally Posted by The Watcher

John Pilger's praise for the work of Nafeez Ahmed highlights the blurbs of the latter's books The War on Truth, The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry and if memory serves, also The War On Freedom. While some of these books lean toward the LIHOP rather than MIHOP positions, they do present enough damning evidence to indict many high level officials to being (at the very least) accessories to mass murder. Assuming he's actually read the books, there's NO WAY that Pilger can be unaware of the scope of deceit surrounding both 9/11 and the 7/7 attacks in London.

yeah that's what i think too... i suspect Pilger is careful not to upset his fan base by adopting positions that conflict with the main thrust of the "progressive" agenda... this is the old-fashioned, out-dated and frankly dishonest mentality of his generation... (with some notable exceptions eg. William Pepper)

It involves the same subtle dishonesty practiced by the Obamas, the Clintons, the Blairs, the Rudds and intellectual opologists like Chomsky.

Pilger is further out on the limb of dissent than most, and for that I salute him...

[daggett]

Thanks for your thoughts, Hereward, able and The Watcher.

My mind is not entirely made up on John Pilger, but it seems to me that he has had more than enough time to speak his mind on issues like 9/11 the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK. (I am not saying he has not, but I have not seen where he has except for that hardly newsworthy revelation in 2008 of theri being multiple shooters at the time of RFK's murder.)

If he is truly the fearless, independent reporter that many believe him to be, I don't see how the fear of upsetting his fan base would have kept him this long from speaking the truth that the world so desperately needs to hear.

I actually attempted to reach John Pilger in an Online Opinion forum in response to his article "'Balibo' cover-up: a film’s travesty of omissions". Here's what I wrote:

John Pilger, thank you for an informative and helpful article on Balibo. It is indeed an outrage that evidence that our own government (even if, sadly the otherwise towering Government of Gough Whitlam) was an accomplice in that terrible crime.

If you are paying attention to this forum, would you be able to tell us why you think it is that no left wing newspaper in this country, not even Green Left Weekly (see www.greenleft.org.au www.greenleft.org.au/donate.php), which you commend, has uttered a word anywhere about the raging controversy over 9/11.

People who I approach on the street who sell Green Left absolutely adamantly refuse to discuss 9/11 at all.

They will variously say, and often within the course of a single conversation, that the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement is rubbish or that it is not rubbish, but to publicly question 9/11 in the least will automatically subject them, and any cause with which they are associated, to instant and total ridicule.

That seems most odd.

Green Left chooses to defend the ground which accepts that terrorists, from the region in which our armies are now fighting wars that they say they oppose, did launch 9/11, 7/7 the Madrid bombings, Bali, etc, but refuse to even contemplate examining evidence that would enable them to shift to ground which I would have thought would be much easier to defend, that is, the ground on which it is maintained that the US government itself committed the crimes which it has knowingly and falsely blamed on so-called Muslim extremists.

Could you explain why you think that is?

Also, as we speak the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) is fighting the New York City Council in order to force it to put to a ballot at the General elections to be held in November a question that there be a proper investigation into 9/11, unlike the sham 9/11 Commission and NIST 'investigations'. Although 76,267 Ner Yorkers, well in excess of the required 30,000 have signed and 66% of New Yorkers want a new inquiry, the New York Town Clerk has refused to accept the petition (See nyccan.org and please give generously to their legal fund at nyccan.org/donate.php).

Can you tell me whether or not you think there should be a new investigation into 9/11?

I haven't read any direct or indirect response from John Pilger to that.

No one else, either from Green Left or other far-left groups responded, either.

By the way, here is "film-maker, independent journalist and a Friend of Green Left Weekly" John Pilger's appeal for support for Green Left Weekly on the abovementioned donations page:

There are few other newspapers - radical or any other kind - that draw together news and analysis that is as well informed, credible, and non-sectarian as Green Left Weekly. Its work has influenced mine and has been a beacon to those who believe the press ought to be an agent of the people.

I also have similar concerns about Gore Vidal. (I was interested to learn that Nafeez Ahmed was more a LIHOP than a MIHOP advocate. An argument in favour of Gore Vidal being a supporter of the 9/11 Truth Movement was the fact that he introduced Nafeez Ahmed to Michel Chussodevsky of Global Research as I seem to recall).

On the one hand, I have yet to see a clear unambiguous statement in support of the 9/11 Truth Movement from Gore Vidal, whilst, on the other, a great deal that he has written actually seems to reinforce the Official 9/11Conspiracy Theory, whether or not that was his intention.

That Gore Vidal is such close friends with such an utterly reactionary, pro-war, pro-police-state and otherwise almost completely discredited person as the former NSW Premier Bob Carr as well as (the admittedly less overtly reactionary) Phillip Adams is also of great concern.

My mind has yet to be entirely made up. ( I will dig up an e-mail I wrote to a few leaders of the 9/11 Truth movement (so far without response) and start another forum discussion on that.) I would be interested in the views of others on Gore Vidal, as well as on John Pilger, whether in their favour or not.

[John Bursill]

Interesting thread....Dagget you have me thinking now....

Regards John