John Pilger Quotes

Quotes about:

• The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.

  John Pilger

  Dream, War, Party

  "Breaking the great Australian silence". John Pilger's speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of the Sydney Peace Prize, johnpilger.com. November 5, 2009.

  54 Copy quote

• 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

  Lying, Grieving, Ciphers

  "Interview with John Pliger" by David Barsamian, progressive.org. July 16, 2007.

  50 Copy quote

• It is time we recognized that the real terrorism is poverty.

  John Pilger

  Real, Poverty, Terrorism

  61 Copy quote

• If those who support aggressive war had seen a fraction of what I've seen, if they'd watched children fry to death from Napalm and bleed to death from a cluster bomb, they might not utter the claptrap they do.

  John Pilger

  Children, War, Support

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. November 13, 2005.

  67 Copy quote

• Official truths are often powerful illusions.

  John Pilger

  Powerful, Sea, Internet

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  66 Copy quote

• It's only when journalists understand the role they play in this propaganda, it's only when they realize they can't be both independent, honest journalists and agents of power, that things will begin to change.

  John Pilger

  Independent, Play, Roles

  Source: progressive.org

  54 Copy quote

• If I were a teacher, I would recommend that all my students very hurriedly read most of Orwell's books, especially 1984 and Animal Farm, because then they'd begin to understand the world we live in.

  John Pilger

  Teacher, Book, Animal

  Source: progressive.org

  24 Copy quote

• During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against much of humanity: impoverished people mostly, in stricken places.

  John Pilger

  War, America, People

  "Blair has made Britain a target". www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2001.

  48 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Pilger

  Media, Tyrants, Training

  "The great charade". www.theguardian.com. July 14, 2002.

  33 Copy quote

• 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

  Powerful, People, Black

  52 Copy quote

• 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

  Taken, Mean, Views

  Source: progressive.org

  23 Copy quote

• It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it.

  John Pilger

  Understanding, Agendas, Messengers

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  40 Copy quote

• In Western Australia, minerals are being dug up from Aboriginal land and shipped to China for a profit of a billion dollars a week. In this, the richest, 'booming' state, the prisons bulge with stricken Aboriginal people, including juveniles whose mothers stand at the prison gates, pleading for their release. The incarceration of black Australians here is eight times that of black South Africans during the last decade of apartheid.

  John Pilger

  Mother, Eight, Land

  46 Copy quote

• Certainly, until there is justice for the Palestinians, there will never be any kind of stability in the Middle East.

  John Pilger

  Justice, Middle East, Kind

  Source: progressive.org

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Jobs, Rocks, Peers

  John Pilger (2011). “Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs”, p.15, Random House

  18 Copy quote

• There isn't a war on terror, there is a war of terror.

  John Pilger

  War, Terror, War On Terror

  29 Copy quote

• 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

  Military, Israel, Middle East

  Source: progressive.org

  12 Copy quote

• Journalists don't sit down and think, "I'm now going to speak for the establishment." Of course not. But they internalize a whole set of assumptions, and one of the most potent assumptions is that the world should be seen in terms of its usefulness to the West, not humanity. This leads journalists to make a distinction between people who matter and people who don't matter.

  John Pilger

  Thinking, People, Humanity

  Source: progressive.org

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Iraq, Numbers, People

  Source: progressive.org

  23 Copy quote

• Classic nineteenth century European imperialists believed they were literally on a mission. I don't believe that the imperialists these days have that same sense of public service. They are simply pirates.

  John Pilger

  Believe, Pirate, Classic

  Interview with David Barsamian, progressive.org. July 16, 2007.

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Land, Choices, Soldier

  31 Copy quote

• 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

  Military, Israel, Order

  Source: progressive.org

  15 Copy quote

• We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.

  John Pilger

  Peace, Memories, Struggle

  Sydney Peace Prize acceptance speech in University of Sydney, November 4, 2009.

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  Israel, United States, Use

  Interview with David Barsamian, progressive.org. July 16, 2007.

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Pilger

  Children, Impact, Decision

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. November 13, 2005.

  20 Copy quote

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