Thu 15 Jun 2006
Comments on John Pilger’s New Book Freedom Next Time
Posted by k under Civil Liberties , Democracy , Globalization/EmpireNo Comments
by Stephen Lendman
John Pilger is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker and one of the truly great ones of our time. For nearly 50 years, he’s courageously and brilliantly done what too few others in his profession, in fact, do – his job. John has also been a war correspondent, is the author of 10 books and is best known in his adopted country Great Britain for his investigative documentaries exposing the crimes of US and Western imperialism.
Freedom Next Time is John’s newest book just published and the fifth one of his I’ve read. The others were magnificent, and when I learned a new one was due out, I couldn’t wait to read it knowing it would be vintage Pilger and not to be missed. I wasn’t disappointed and am delighted to share with readers what it’s about. What else, as John himself says in his opening paragraph: “This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorized versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and impose double standards.” Indeed it does, and John devotes his book to exposing the crimes of empire in five countries. I’ll cover each one in a separate section.
The Introduction – An Explanation of the Imperial Mindset
In his introduction, John explains how the imperial notion of “colonial assumptions have not changed,” and to sustain them the great majority of people everywhere “remain invisible and expendable.” He poignantly recounts how while on September 11, 2001 a few thousand people tragically died in New York and Washington, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported the daily mortality rate of 36,615 children alone from the effects of extreme poverty. Not a word of it was in the news that day or any other. Nor was there any explanation of why these people were denied the bare essentials to survive in a world able to provide them. These and the ones killed daily in Iraq and elsewhere are what John calls the “unworthy victims” as distinguished from the “worthy ones” in the US on 9/11 and those in London on July 7, 2005 who died in a “terrorist” bombing. The only crimes we recognize are the ones committed by others – those we call “terrorists” or label as enemies, never any by us. Nobel laureate Harold Pinter refers to this as “a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.” We only know what our leaders and complicit corporate media (BBC, NPR and PBS included) choose to tell us, and it’s never the truth or full disclosure we’re entitled to have. What they suppress is far more important than what they report.
Link to full review: sjlendman.blogspot.com