FULL TEXT OF JOHN PILGER WEBCHAT WEDNESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2016 10:00am Erol Yeşilyurt asks: What do you think about the Turkish Government’s continuing bombing of Kurdish areas in Syria and the large scale destruction and killings in some Kurdish cities in Turkey? John Pilger: Turkish governments have long been the sworn enemy of the Kurds - including their own citizens. They have bombed them and silenced them, or tried to. The Kurds get in the way of the Turkish elite's Ottoman delusions - as does of Assad in Syria. That's why Turkey backs jihadists, including IS. More journalists are in prison in Turkey for speaking out than in most countries of the world. And yet Turkey is presented as an "ally". It isn't - it's an expedient member of NATO, a war-making body. Afaye asks: With all your experience and knowledge, what do you think is the best method for combatting the propaganda of the MSM [mainstream media]? John Pilger: Stop depending on it for news. There are plenty of alternatives. Peter Molony asks: At the time of writing exit polls are showing a narrow no vote in the referendum in Bolivia which will herald the end of Morales’ presidency. With the loss of the Chavistas in the assembly elections last December in Venezuela and the loss of Kirchner in Argentina do you think we are starting to see the fall of the left in Latin America and if so what do you think are the reason’s underlying this? John Pilger: Evo Morales will be in office till 2019. He's led an extraordinary indigenous movement in Bolivia, but he's not the only one. Bolivia's popular grassroots movements are an inspiring phenomenon that won't go away. The civilised achievements in Latin America are astonishing - against all the odds - constantly subverted by the United States and its clients, and by the bad faith reporting of much of western journalism. Lennonist asks: Do you think Britain should leave the EU? Why/Why not? John Pilger: What fragile difference there might have once been between the economic, social and foreign policies of the EU and Britain has long evaporated. Both are extremist. Both embrace a fraud called 'austerity', which demands that ordinary people pay for the crimes of the financial elite. Both demonstrate institutional racism. Both back the American great game of 'perpetual war'. Why should we have to choose between the specious views of Cameron and Farage? The referendum is a distraction. Snowball50 asks: I currently work and live in China ( I am from the UK). I wonder what your thoughts are on the current state/level of human rights in this country? Why do you think the major western countries seem to lack any real response to the concerns they express about China, be its human rights record, growing economic dominance or its attempts to reach out to other countries that the West has not been interested in? John Pilger: China is currently being encircled by US military bases and ships and planes and missiles. Obama calls this his 'pivot to Asia'. The bases run in an arc from Australia through the Pacific and Asia and across Eurasia, and they beckon provocation and war, even nuclear war. Consider the human rights extinguished if that happens. abe_herzog asks: Your documentaries on ITV made a big impression over here. Are we likely to see any more broadcast on British TV in the foreseeable? John Pilger: Yes, I am two thirds of the way through shooting a feature documentary, The Coming War Between America and China. It's about nuclear risks, the deployment of two thirds of US naval forces in the Asia-Pacific and the the accelerating stand-off with China. At present it's a war fought through media propaganda - watch CNN and you'll see what I mean. I've filmed in the Marshall Islands, China, Okinawa and Korea. There are extraordinary witnesses. It will be shown on ITV perhaps near the end of the year, and on TV and in cinemas worldwide. One difference: this is my first to have been partly funded by ordinary viewers. KiwiReporter asks: What is behind the increased numbers of children being shot, injured, maimed, kidnapped, abused by IDF (IOF) soldiers in the occupied territories? John Pilger: Nothing basically has changed in Palestine. The Israelis have grown more confident in their oppression and terror and their murder of Palestinians, because they can. If Hillary Clinton becomes president, watch that confidence grow and the murders increase. Killing children seems like sport for the IDF; read Chris McGreal's splendid Guardian series of a decade ago. They're still doing it, because their powerful sponsors let them. ScuzzyKeirHardie asks: John, which British foreign policy venture in the last half century do you feel has been the most unjustified and the most damaging? John Pilger: Alas, there's intense competition for that accolade. That said, Blair's invasion of Iraq takes some beating: a society destroyed, as many dead as the Rwanda massacre, millions dispossessed, a jihadist menace. And the perpetrator at large and enriched. Commentator6 asks: Why has the far left lost its credibility? John Pilger: What 'far left'? That's a media term. Syriza in Greece was called 'far left' and, once elected, revealed itself to be a right-wing bourgeois party whose catastrophic betrayal of the Greek people ought to be a lesson to those who fall on their knees the moment a false claimant of radicalism appears. Podemos in Spain has also been called 'far left'. It isn't - it shows familiar signs of wanting to get into bed with those it claims to oppose. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn has also been called 'far left'. It isn't. Neither is Bernie Sanders a 'socialist' but an old-fashioned liberal Democrat of the kind that, once in power, started most of America's wars in the modern era. Neither was Obama - like Blair, for that matter - ever deserving of the unction poured on him in the pages of the Guardian. His drones campaign is lawless violence on an unparalleled worldwide scale. On the positive side, there is a growing worldwide brotherhood and sisterhood of young people desperate to reclaim political decency. They are often inspiring, and courageous, but they are not yet a movement. That only comes with direct action, however annoyingly difficult. ID805919 asks: What is you assessment of the appalling mess that is ‘Syria’; Assad/Turkey/Russia/US/UK etc. John Pilger: I published an extract from a 1950s MI6 cable that described the need to overthrow the government in Damascus. WikiLeaks published something similar, written well before the Arab Spring. Controlling Syria, and the gates to Iran, is the name of an imperial great game. Regardless of the political nature of its government, Syria's crime - like Iran, like Libya under Gaddafi, like Russia, like China - is independence. This independence is intolerable to the rulers of the world whose controlling obsession extends to backing some of the most odious fanatics - as in Saudi Arabia and jihadist groups - Osama bin Laden worked for MI6 and the CIA. Russia's support for the Syrian Army has upset the pieces on the great board game and may - just may - begin to end the horror. xxxFred asks: Broadly speaking, do you feel the world is in a better place now than it was 50 years ago - and are you optimistic or pessimistic about where we will be in another 50 years? John Pilger: Yes, it's a better place, and I'm optimistic, though the rapacious heating of the earth, known as 'climate change', beckons catastrophe if we allow it. We've just experienced the nine hottest months on record in a row. Sidfishes asks: What are your views on the mainstream media’s coverage of Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum? John Pilger: Predictable. Margaret Pirrie asks: When Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny completes the criminal proceedings against Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy and if charges are laid, where should the trial take place? Should the Swedish court travel to the embassy? If Julian is found guilty and a prison sentence is given what then? John Pilger: The Swedish Bar Association has described Marianne Ny's abuse of natural justice in the Assange case as a "circus". In 2010, the Chief Prosecutor in Stockholm said there was no case for Assange to answer and no evidence of rape, and she threw it out. The strange Marianne Ny became involved as part of the ambitions of a failed politician. Incredibly, for more than five years she has refused to interview her suspect. She refused even when he presented himself in Sweden. She has refused since he has been detained in England. Read the report of the UN Working Party on Unlawful Detentions which found that Assange had been the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. The rest is a circus, which should fold its tent without delay. I suspect it might in the not too distant future. Mark El-Kadhi asks: John, What model of journalism do you advocate as being able to avoid/withstand manipulation by government / corporate power? What examples can you point to? On a small-scale local level and nationally / internationally. John Pilger: There are a number of inspiring examples. One is in Mexico where, unlike in the US and Britain, many journalists, some of them encouraged by the rise of the Zapatistas in the 1990s, have thrown off the patronage of the political and business elite and pursue what they call "civic journalism". The second largest newspaper in Mexico is La Jornada, famous for its fearless investigations and campaigns and for surviving mostly on subscriptions; it carries no commercial advertising. It's reminiscent of newspapers before they were consumed by corporations. There is nothing like it in Britain. tootletarth asks: In a 2014 Guardian article you claimed that child protection workers, police and the judiciary combined in secretive, unjustifiable removals of children to satisfy an adoption market involving white parents and aboriginal babies. Approximately how many aboriginal babies are adopted each year by white parents? What is the going rate in the market? How is the charge paid by adoptive parents shared between the public servants who collaborate in the removals? Can you name any adoptive parent who has bought a stolen aboriginal child? If you can, how did you pursue this instance of human trafficking? If you cannot, why did you make this defamatory allegation? John Pilger: The theft of Indigenous children by the state in Australia has a long and documented history, reaching back to the fascist eugenics movement. It is still going on; Indigenous Australians are still being ground into the ashes of their hopes. Common attitudes in Australia are not dissimilar from those I reported from apartheid South Africa. Indeed, in Western Australia, young Indigenous men are jailed at up to eight times the rate that black people were incarcerated in the last decade of apartheid. What white Australia is very good at is divide and rule: of co-opting and effectively bribing a small Indigenous elite to blur the edges of an enduring crime against humanity. Lynkeus asks: I’d like to ask about how you see Australian society in today’s world, and what you might say to both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten if you had, say, just three minutes with each. John Pilger: I had several hours with Malcolm Turnbull a few years ago, proposing that he stand up for his stated libertarian principles and intervene on behalf of his compatriot, Julian Assange. Nothing happened. John Burt asks: Why won’t the United Nations send a unified force to Palestine to stop Israel from occupying Palestinian land and stop the genocide? Is it because as I believe the UN is corrupt as hell. All Moon does is talk, talk , talk of condemnation and no action for years and years. John Pilger: The reason the UN never intervenes in Palestine - in the way you describe - is that the US vetoes it. And yes, Moon, like his predecessors - all chosen with the outright or tacit approval of the US - talks a lot. The Security Council is an anachronism; if UN authority was handed to the General Assembly, there might be progress towards a truly internationalist body. Tolkny asks: I am concerned about the destruction of probation as a profession in England and Wales and cannot understand why there is no detailed consistent reporting about it. Why are some vitally important issues mostly ignored by most of the media, what can those concerned do to attract the attention of journalists so they use their skills and experience to explore and explain? John Pilger: The answer to your question is that so-called mainstream journalism follows a very narrow, almost parochial agenda, influenced if not guided by established authority and politics, at times dominated by them. I suggest you look for alternatives. Keith Vass asks: Would very much like to hear your recommendation as to what the average layman can do to rectify world democracy and justice and equity? Is Bernie Sanders our only hope? Where are all the other Bernie Sanders in our world? Where are all our intelligentsia and why are they not speaking up? John Pilger: Only when 'average' laymen and women take matters into their own hands, rather than seek guidance while referring refer to individual politicians as 'our only hope', will things change. 11:23am WEBCHAT ENDS Source URL |
