World War I ? Well, I'm glad that's over.

If only Bilger didn't over-egg his puddings so much, they might be worth taking seriously.

But I did like his Yevtushenko quote: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie."

So can we expect Bilger to ever get stuck into ISIS ? Or do we get silence ? Yes, I know it's anti-American, therefore sort of good, but even he might understand some of the nuances involved.

Yes, it's possible that the US beheads children, crucifies, executes unarmed prisoners by the hundreds, and rapes and enslaves women, while ISIS water-boards and freezes and starves prisoners at Guantanamo - in 13 years, one has even been killed ! - but ....... oops, sorry, got those mixed up :)

Joe

Since the media are all no-gooders, why not just close it all down and have the journalists do something productive instead?!

A really good piece, thanks. The media's ability to influence is undoubtedly enormous, but the game is constantly being repeated and so over time, the outcomes of that influence become less and less predictable. Different groups are constantly trying to rewrite the narrative in their own ways and thereby create different games to suit their own agendas and there is little stability other than that which can be compelled by threat of power.

It is way past time we found our way to a better approach, which is mutual cooperation to achieve disparate ends based on informed and willing consent. The media is well-placed to help with that, the question is whether there is sufficient intelligence and goodwill within media to do so. The evidence is not encouraging.

[Deleted for abuse]

So, just out of interest, where does Bilger stand on ISIS ?

Silence was the stern reply :)

Item on that anti-ISIS capitalist lap-dog rag, The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/jihadi-groups-kill-5000-people-in-november

Five thousand in one month. Ho hum. But look ! The vile US killed one bloke at Guantanamo ! B@stards !

Silence from Mr Bilger

"The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe since world war two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out. Evidence that contradicts propaganda that Russia was responsible for the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner is blacked out."

In this short paragraph Pilger summarises a fundamental problem with the Australian mainstream (and much of the so-called alternative) media. The refusal of the media to discuss these issues is nothing less than a disgrace. What passes for "reporting" is more often than not thinly disguised propaganda. OLO is not, sadly, exempt from this criticism. It publishes articles such as Pilger's above, but when did you read any discussion about the points contained in the quote I gave?

Poroshenko has just been in Australia, making incredibly fatuous remarks, but not a hint of criticism in the media. Abbott has promised $100 million in aid and again no critical analysis. Ukraine has just given citizenship to three foreigners and put them immediately into the cabinet. Again, no reporting, let alone critical analysis, of the links of those three to oligarchs, big oil and the coup d'etat of February 2014.

I have no doubt that Abbott's extraordinarily ill-informed comments on Russia and Ukraine are made at the behest of the Americans, but that does not exempt our media from fulfilling what is supposed to be a key role of holding the powerful to account. That this no longer happens really says all one needs to know about the direction of Australian "democracy".

Joe, Pilger has commented on ISIS more than once, and critically. You can read his latest (that I am aware of) at johnpilger.com. An article dated 8 October 2014.

James,

Military build-up in the Caucasus ? How many troops ? How many planes ? How many missiles ? From which countries ?

Military build-up in eastern Europe ? How many troops ? How many planes ? How many missiles ?

NATO countries in eastern Europe have reduced their military budgets over the last five years by 20 %, according to TIME.

So who are the liars ? Bilger or TIME ? Who are the pro-fascists, the West or Putin and his embrace of Farage and far-right groups in eastern Europe ? Of his mate Zhironovsky ? The Russian World Federation ?

Come back in a year or so, and we'll see who the fascists were.

Joe

Joe, so many questions, so little word allowance to answer. Given a choice between Pilger or Time, I would most often opt for Pilger. Sometimes neither, because I do not rely on either for my information.

As to your other questions I would make the general comment that while it is true that most EU nations have reduced their arms budgets, that is not true of the US. There is ample documentation available as to missile deployments, increased US troops in European nations,
and much else that would rebut what I take to be your principal assumptions.

If Time is your primary source then I can't really help you. If however, as I suspect, you are more intelligent than that, can I suggest you regularly visit Information Clearing House and Vineyard of the Saker.

What, a US troop build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe ? How many ? In the hundreds ? Thousands ? Tens of thousands ?

After what Russia has done in Ukraine, if I were in one of those Caucasian or eastern European governments, I would be beating down Obama's door for more military support.

Useful idiots need to get something straight: fascism, by whatever name, will never succeed for long. It fragments under its own contradictions and internal rivalries. So, on that logic, will Putin still be in power in a year's time ?

Useful idiots of the world, switch horses !

An interesting opinion piece, but it is only an opinion; and given the history of the author, not an opinion I value.

Slightly off-topic, but that bloke holding up Lindt's and 30 hostages (he must have his hands full, for 11 hours now) - at the risk of stereotyping - doesn't look all that Arab, or young. Surely he couldn't be some dopey old 'Lefty' thinking he's acting in a Good Cause ? Perhaps a failed Green candidate ?

For what it's worth, my two-bob suggests that Australian police need to develop women's units of crack snipers and assault troops - perhaps they could get some advice from the Kurds. Their brave women terrify ISIS thugs, since, for them, it may be honourable to kill old men and children, and rape women in the name of allah, but it is totally dishonourable to be killed by a woman: you don't get to Paradise and have the chance to root 72 virgins if you are killed by a woman.

Joe

"The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions."

This sounds to me as a fairly good description of Mr. Pilger's own journalistic production.
His relentless use of his own "surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions." irritates me even when I agree with some of his opinions, like those in this article.

Thanks Hermit,

Bilger writes: "The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions."

Is that pro- or anti-media ? Pro-- or anti-information ? Pro- or anti-censorship ? Pro- or anti-control of the media by some anonymous body, say, a Press Council of Bilgers ?

Most of us are not idiots: we can tell whether or not an article is slanted one way another, even - as you point out - the excesses of people who we usually support. We don't need censorship, and we don't need to - using a contemporary term - demonise the media.

Most of us don't need the Bilgers of this world to tell us whether or not to look askance at US torture tactics, or ISIS beheadings and rapes, or some moronic self-styled sheikh with no definite agenda holding up a café and shooting the manager and a customer. We know Hockey's in a hole, thanks mainly to collapsing commodity prices and that Labour would be in pretty much the same hole if they were still in power, although maybe a bit deeper. Even Bowen must know that.

So, as mature people, with average intelligence, we don't need the BTP (the Bilger Thought Police) to tell us what to think, and more importantly, what not to think. Or to justify restrictions on the media.

Joe

Loudmouth,

"Press Council of Bilgers"

I hold you responsible for giving me nightmares tonight...

Hermit,

I'll take that as a comment. In another month or so, Q & A will be back on, with its 45 % Labor, 43 % very quiet Liberal, 12 % Vocal Greens: a different Bilger Press Council each week, with Madame Defarge knitting away in the back row.

No, Australians on the whole are a bit more clear-headed than that.

Joe

Joe

The media's lies take many forms - outright lies, repetition of unexamined assumptions, claiming the existence of evidence where there is none (and claiming no evidence where evidence DOES exist), bias and one-sidedness, sensationalising, glamourisation of trivia, selective reporting of facts, 'us and them' reporting, demonisation of certain leaders and countries (and its opposite: the whitewashing of certain leaders and countries), false 'objectivity, distraction, cheerleading wars, backing certain sides in disputes between and within countries ... and on it goes.

Your posts, especially on Russia/Ukraine, indicate that you have been completely taken in by all of the above - as have millions of others throughout the West. It's much easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled. To claim people are too smart to be fooled by the media is arrogant conceit.

Pilger's premise is simply to remain sceptical of what the media is telling us about our official 'friends' and remain open-minded about what the media is telling us about our official 'enemies'. In these media-saturated times, that's wise advice.

Killarney,

It must be nice to be better than other people, not to be taken in by media, even Russia's: "To claim people are too smart to be fooled by the media is arrogant conceit."

You said it ! So perhaps you can be right sometimes :)

So are there NATO troops in south-western Russia, or Russian troops in eastern Ukraine ? Are there NATO planes flying over Russia's air-space, or Russian planes flying over the air-space of the countries of the Baltic and Scandinavia ? Russian submarines in Swedish bays ? That's all lies, is it ?

Yes, I love that paranoid cop-out - " claiming the existence of evidence where there is none (and claiming no evidence where evidence DOES exist)".

Back to topic: of course, people can be taken in by lies, you and me included, but how much more would that be so with a tightly-controlled media like in Russia ? Where Putin owns RT ?

Surely the antidote for media bias is more media, not less ? Of course it can be biased, twisted, slanted towards what its proprietors want people to think. Ergo, Putin's RT. It will probably always be so, but that's why we always have to be vigilant, to be sceptical, to open up stories and issues to detailed criticism and analysis wherever possible. And that's one of the roles of 'good' media, to provoke discussion or at least private reflection. Bilger's take is in the opposite direction, given that he also thinks that he is above it all, free from bias, clear-eyed and able to discern underlying interests of media-owners.

Except his own biases and interests, of course.

Joe