It's all beginning to sound like a final desperate cry for attention.

His ever-growing list of half-truths, exaggerations and outright falsehoods are, quite rightly in my view, consigning Pilger's work to permanent irrelevance. And my personal starting position, by the way, is evidenced by the handful of Pilger's books on my bookshelf; I was not always so clinical in my appraisal.

Leo Lane is spot on, for example, about the "battle of Patonga" story. The tale itself was lifted from David Denholm's book "The Colonial Australians", which Pilger describes as "a history", a category that the author himself did not claim. As a novelist (this was his only "history book"), he approached early settlement with an eye inquisitive about minutiae, rather than dedicated to rigorously documenting fact. In his own words, it "...is not a general short history book".

Having given himself this freedom, he uses secondary sources for Patonga. He reports that the Dharug "resisted the Hawkesbury River settlers for twenty-two years", when the fact was that Patonga was sited in Guringai territory, and did not even house any "settlers" until well into the twentieth century. Both of these realities are easily confirmed, from numerous sources.

Unfortunately, we are informed predominantly by agenda-driven sources. The Pilgers of the world - as well as the Windshuttles, to be even-handed - have their followers, who themselves receive only that information that conforms to their prejudices. Regrettably, with the mass-communication aspects of social media, the situation can only get worse.

In a very real way, it is extremely sad. The world needs someone to occasionally hold it up to an unfliching mirror. By gradually reducing himself to insignificance, Pilger has actually done us a profound disservice.

From the dawn of time, too and from the stone-age...its all the connivance, which structures as far as in all recorded history.

The use of tools, has been our divine values.

Planet3

Pericles

Let me get this straight ...

Because John Pilger took an item from a less than academically verified local history source and put it in a documentary/book 30 years ago, we needn't concern ourselves in the present time with the fact that a recent UK opinion poll revealed the majority of the UK public believe less than 10,000 people died as result of the invasion and subsequent 10-year war in Iraq - i.e. less than 10% of the accepted MINIMUM (academically accepted) figure.

Someone is making 'a final desperate cry for attention' here and it's not John Pilger.

You are showing a distinctly Pilger-like devotion to reality, Killarney.

>>Because John Pilger took an item from a less than academically verified local history source and put it in a documentary/book 30 years ago, we needn't concern ourselves in the present time with the fact that a recent UK opinion poll revealed the majority of the UK public believe less than 10,000 people died...<<

Credibility surely rests on getting things right, and avoiding inventing bits to fit your story.

Pilger invents "control of a submissive population by the media" as the reason why the public show an ignorance on the numbers. There are other explanations, and given the range of information resources available, it seems somewhat perverse to assume that no-one could discover the truth, if they wanted to know.

I'd put it down to communal apathy, rather than government conspiracy. Having said that, it is of course more than likely that your hero would blame this on government too.

Periclueless, you are doing a real job on Pilger. Why? Does that make you feel powerful, divine?

What have you contributed to making our world a better place? On your C.V., what injustices have you fought against?

On my C.V. are many issues but on yours it seems that attacking Pilger is all there is.

Not everyone shares your mean, distorted view of Pilger and many are not interested in your biased diatribes against him.

His worth as a human being is far greater than yours!

Get a life!

David,

I would respectfully suggest that, over the years here on OLO, Pericles has made innumerable positive and balanced contributions, from which I have always learnt something. But I'm sure he can defend himself against your slings and arrows.

The paranoid approach of Bilger/Arjay (could it be that they are one and the same?!) is easy: you make an outrageous assertion and there are bound to be fools out there who will be inclined to believe it. But reality, truth and evidence are something else.

For example, here in SA, it is gospel that Aboriginal people were 'herded onto Missions'. If one is inclined to believe, then one does. But the problem with that is that not only is there no proof of such a process, but, with one full-time employee in the 'Aborigines Department' (the Protector), servicing up to eighty rationing points, and the simple fact that the population on Missions rarely ever rose above 20 % of the state total Aboriginal population, it clearly never happened.

I've typed up eight thousand of the Protector's letters (1840-1912) and it is fairly clear from them that the Protector didn't even have any intention, let alone the muscle, to 'herd people onto Missions'. One Mission actually collapsed simply because it couldn't get enough people to move to it.

Similarly, it was illegal to drive Aboriginal people from their lands: their land-use rights were protected in a specific clause in every pastoral lease. Not ownership rights, land-use rights. The Protector provided boats and fishing gear for people on most of the waterways, even Cooper's Creek, to 'keep people in their own districts'.

But in our open society, you are free to believe whatever Bilger-rubbish you like.

Cheers,

Joe
www.firstsources.info