Here's a great clip from Ricky Gervais' 'Extras' with a chillingly prophetic 'Holocaust Oscar' script written for Kate Winslet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEnjiGwVw6o

(Note: If at all interested, don't delay, as a number of internet references and related copies have already been pulled.)

Sir Vivor

Great link. Thanks.

spindoc

‘[John's] product is positioned well left of centre and for many, such voices are disproportionately represented… The BBC, ABC and SBS are classic examples.’

Sigh!

The BBC, ABC and SBS are ‘classic’ misrepresentations of so-called left-of-centre bias. In reality, they are not even within coo-ee of the left.

All of them have, at best, dutifully reported and, at worst, unashamedly promoted the US-led Coalition of the Willing, the so-called ‘war on terror’, Israel’s ‘right’ to use grotesquely disproportionate force against the Palestinian nationalist struggle, and now the Obama administration’s military escalation into Afghanistan. They also dutifully report the bail-out of our corrupt captains of industry, with little to no opposing viewpoint.

If they were as left-wing as their right-wing detractors insist with so much such shrill repetition, then they would be openly and aggressively opposing these stances – in the way that, say, Fox News openly and aggressively supports them.

At best, the BBC, ABC and SBS are safely centrist, both in their coverage and in their selection of news outlets. For many, however, the centre is still too far away from the suffocating clutches of the far right.

Don’t you just love perspectives SJF? I suggested to John Pilger, that “Your product is positioned well left of centre and for many, such voices are disproportionately represented.” The “for many” to whom I refer, obviously does not include you SJF.

As I said it’s all down to perspective. If I’m a centrist, all things are in balance and the relative merits of both left and right can be observed. If I’m on the “right”, all things are left of my centre. This brings us to how you see things, if your perspective is that even the BBC, ABC and SBA (the Three Amigo’s) are to your right where does that leave you?

I think the Three Amigo’s produce some of the best programming available, sadly that does not include news and current affairs, at which they are (my perspective) absolutely woeful.

During 2008, the ABC was formally taken to task over 21 instances of prejudicial “left bias”, 19 were upheld. There was not one single instance of the ABC being challenged for “right bias”. I ask again, where does that leave you? My comment to John Pilger stands, for many his product is well left of centre. That leaves you as a member of his dwindling audience, perhaps?

Many of us get suckered into the belief that journalists have an altruistic purpose in life, sadly, even those same journalists often believe this. Truth is they are in business to make money. John Pilger complains he can’t get an audience; therefore he can’t get volume production of his product, CD’s, Free to Air Time and Network Production.

In reading your response SJF, John Pilger will be devastated. He’s in enough trouble with his product, yet for you, his remaining “access to market” vehicle, the Three Amigo’s, are too far right to get a hearing. He will be “gutted” to hear that.

John Pilger's book "Heroes", in my opinion marks him for life as a very genuine person, concerned about how other people live.

Reading Noam Chomsky's "Understanding Power", I came across a question from one of the people he converses with in the transcribed conversations of that very interesting book. He is asked who his heroes are, and he names no-one. He leaves them as unsung heroes, many of them members of SNCC in the early '60's making clear his high opinion of their courage. But he is a linguist, not a biographer, and his words are more those of an activist first and a humanist afterward.

Both Chomsky and Pilger are recognised and reviled by the "right of centre", and many in the centre and some who view themselves as "left of centre".

Chomsky's enduring argument is that good, liberal journos mostly have their conflicting views compartmentalised so that they can comment reasonably on injustice, within the framework set by their employer, who need not worry that they might go beyond the pale.

The tame nature of comments about the destruction of Gaza are an example. Over 10,000 homes were destroyed in the recent Israeli attacks, but little notice has been taken, beyond some handwringing after the attacks, which were premeditated for 6 months, along with the attendant publicity campaign.

Perhaps we would have been more concerned if Gaza had been destroyed in a major earthquake, but that perhaps remains untested. I wonder how many readers here sincerely believe that concrete and pipes, etc should not be supplied, to rebuild Gaza, until Hamas promises to cease all rocket attacks?

The image pops up of a billboard on Sydney's Parramatta Road, in the early '80's, I believe. Some TV station's news team, tidy, photogenic. The sign was graffiti'd "three blind mice".

Pilger says >> "The partisans who tunnel out of their prison in Gaza, bringing in food, clothes, medicines and weapons with which to defend themselves, are no less heroic than the celluloid-honoured POWs and partisans of the 1940s. They and the rest of us deserve the respect of the greatest popular medium."

Yes we all know that someone's terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. But anyone pretending that Hamas are freedom fighters is SO COMPLETELY IRREDEEMABLE that their opinion on any subject must be called into question.

Paul L; without wishing to cast any aspersions whatever, I suggest whether the Maquis was viewed in a similar light by the Petain government of WWII France.

The role of the French resistance forces in WWII was propagandised by Hollywood in the film Casablanca. The Wikipedia entry is interesting in the context of John Pilger's article and the discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)
"The film was a solid, if unspectacular, success in its initial run, rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.[2]

spindoc

‘If I’m on the “right”, all things are left of my centre.’

Which is why the ABC campaign of ‘left-wing’ bias evolved as it did. It’s also why those 19 instances of ‘prejudicial’ bias were a joke. How did they measure the bias … mathematically?

‘‘In reading your response SJF, John Pilger will be devastated. He’s in enough trouble with his product …’

What trouble? Selling it or defending it? He’s having no trouble at all with either. In fact, his ‘product’ is highly sought after worldwide. The reason he is not a household name in his native country is because its far-right establishment (even the ABC) has made him a semi-pariah.

Sir Vivor

Re Casablanca … Can’t you just see Hamas proclaiming...?

‘Of all the armies in all the refugee enclaves in all the world, they had to come into mine.’

Or how about Zippy and Binyamin leaning over the piano …

‘Bomb it again, Benny. Just once more for old times sake.’