It is a very good question John.When the journos both in the corp media and the ABC going to do their job?

John Swinton the Chief of staff of the NY times in 1952 said;" There is no such thing.at this date of the world's histroy,in America as an independant press.You know it and I know it.There is not one of you who dare write your honest opinions,and if you did,you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.......

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth,to lie outright,to pervert,to vilify to fawn at the feet of mammon,and sell his country and race for his daily bread.You know it and I know it,and the folly is this toasting an independant press.

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.We are the jumping jacks,they pull the strings and we dance.Our talents,our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.We are intellectual prositutes." How much more powerful must these rich men be now?

It has now become apparent that Obama comes also wth quite a few strings attached.His puppet masters are seeming all powerful, so all pervasive and so subtle,that no one dare mention the possibility of totally dysfunctional,corrupt Govt/Corporate USA,for fear of being labelled a lunatic conspiracy theorist.

This is completely the wrong topic on which to criticise the ABC, Arjay. Auntie-bashing has always been a popular sport for conservatives, but it's been extra-trendy since the Iraq scare campaign, when the ABC was caught out telling the truth about Iraq's WMD.

Remember when every commercial newspaper, TV and radio station was reporting Saddam's mountains of WMD as uncontested fact? At the same time, the ABC got dobbed by Liberal Senator Richard Alston for bias, because its reporters dared to suggest that the case might not be watertight. We now know that the ABC was on top of the story the whole way, while the others were parroting the line of corporate convenience.

The ABC has demonstrated that it is the only media outlet in this country that is not beholden to conservative politicians and their bagmen.

"When will those paid to keep the record straight do their job?" - good question, but how does that relate to our Australian media, who seem to believe their job is to pursue anyone the ALP directs it too? (I mean the ABC of course, and the other news outlets are hardly conservative, the AGE conservative(?), it's an Greenie Eco liberal rag now)

The "objective and independent" ABC any night of the week is aggressive attacks on conservatives (non ALP) and lovely chummy fireside chats(ALP) Truth does not come into it.

I'm sure they all think they're doing a good job and are are very fair and open minded, it's just that the ALP happen to be correct.

The newspaper media is much the same - the whole concept of honest reporting is secondary to the personal whims and opinions of the journalists involved.

Sancho - Senator Alston asked the ACMA to investigate the ABC for anti American bias, not because of WMD's. Do you remember that the ALP, and (now) PM Rudd completely supported the war in Iraq?

David Marr at the time of the report, accused the ACMA of not understanding journalism when (because) it UPHELD at least a third of Senator Alston's complaints .. it's in the Media Watch transcript.

It is appropriate to attack the ABC because that's exactly the kind of behavior John Pilger is talking about - instead of reporting the truth objectively, they tend to attack those they do not like on ideological grounds.

If there is any political side to any story, you can bet the ABC, Age etc will come down on an anti conservative side, not the middle, but the liberal side and truth goes out the window.

Is this what people want? Really? No conservatives at all, just a one opinion country (whether it is truthful or not), then we might as well have a dictatorship, stop elections and just have the ALP rule.

John, there are rational thinking people in this world. Such people do not need to be told what propaganda is, they recognize immediately, whether it is from the political, media, marketing or entertainment industries. Realists take on board all the issues you raise, strike a balance in their own minds and accept it for what it is, propaganda.

There are those however, who are fearful, vulnerable and not so well balanced. Such people are your target audience and you share that audience with politics, entertainment and marketing. You are all looking to find a “buyer”.

You will no doubt find your buyers, there are plenty out there within your target market. Sadly you will never find buyers in the rationalist sector until and unless you are able to acheive some balance and to objectively examine and present other perspectives, otherwise you will remain just another activist.

When (or if) you can do this you will probably lose all interest in the emotionally charged rehash of the not so recent propaganda you have just trotted out. Its time you realised that propaganda can’t give you answers. It clearly upsets you that there is no resolution, there never is, stop taking it all so damn seriously and move on.

rpg. i can find no left opinion in the australian media...anywhere. certainly the ABC is desperately right wing, and the commercial media further to the right. no left columnists, no left editors, no left slant anywhere. nothing. the conservatives have all the media in australia locked up, everyone i have met who visits australia from elsewhere is amazed how right wing our media is. individual blogs are the only exception, if you want unbiased news about australia then the good international media cover us honestly and regularly far better and with more depth than anything we can serve up ourselves.

Sancho and others ,this is not about left or right politics,it is about freedom of speech and having a media not controlled by Govt or the Corporates.In April this yr this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_tf25lx_3o was shown on national Danish TV but our Govt will not permit the ABC to screen it.

Now Kevin Rudd wants to censor the internet.How much more ignorant will we be then?

how would you know you're being censored or not? And how 'truthful' are all those bloggers out there on the internet anyway?

How about the $300 million bribe by the Australian Wheat Board to Iraq for Australian wheat? The story there just seems to have vanished off the front pages for good. Wonder why?

Why single out the ABC for every single accusation of bias?

There's no other media outlet in this country that is subjected to the same degree of scrutiny.

Why not any of the commercial stations, or even SBS?

While the ABC is funded by taxpayers, the "free-to-air" networks are funded by consumers and, since they take a much larger slice of our money, why aren't they held accountable too?

Isn't the ABC the same network that was blasted by both Hawke and Wran for being biassed AGAINST the ALP?

Wobbles I did mention first of the Corporate media.I was not just singling out the ABC.I'll be up front with you.I was protesting outside the ABC on 9/11/09 with the group Archtitects and Engineers for 911 Truth,since the management refuse to air the new damning evidence about 911 and there is lots of it.

The ABC is undergoing staff cuts and the journos are scared of losing their jobs,which is understanderable but as they so often remind us,"It is our ABC." It should be free of the Govt shackles to present important info to the public.That should be ABC's prime fuction and not to colour the facts by omission or by their particular brand of bias.

You take PILGER seriously?

Folks, start from first principles. Activists are not trustworthy. Pilger writes stuff that wins adulation from the paranoid left, and that is ALL he does.

On this rare occasion Pilger is to be believed.

The US Defen(s)e Budget of $750 Billion (500 Billion plus the Never Ending Oil War Vote) has increased in line with its overwelming political influence over US foreign policy.

Defen(s)e of course is the foremost instrument of US foreign policy.

Just watch mega-corporations like Lockheed move their factories into Democratic "electorates" so that Democrats will increasing rely on the interrelated arms business/Pentagon/defen(s)e budget.

Pete

Dear John or any other readers

I'm confused. You say "as only Israel has a “right to exist” in the Middle East. What do you mean? There are 22 Arab/Islamic countries in the area. Which ones don't have a right to exist?

You say "the US goal is to cripple the Islamic Republic. This will allow Israel to divide and dominate the region on Washington’s behalf. Could you explain how Israel will dominate the region? Which of the 22 countries will they have power over? How will this power manifest itself?

If Iran didn't have a nuclear capacity how would this disadvantage it?

Looking forward to being enlightened on the above questions.

poppyseed


Palestine.

poppyseed

a nuclear armed Iran without intercontinental missiles would see a balance of power in the mid east and would force Israel to negotiate a just peace with the Palestinians. Just like they were forced by the US to sue for a peace and incorruptable borders with Egypt and Jordan.

Iran without the capacity to deliver Nuclear weapons to the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK threatens only the other mid-eastern nuclear power.

Therefore all the crap about a Iranian threat to the world is stupidity and mere Israeli propaganda.

There's a few things I'd like to remind people of.

Firstly - the world was shocked by images from Iran, of homosexuals being publicly hanged from cranes. The bodies were left there for a long long time.

This is not mere propaganda. This was the will of the Ayatollahs.

So, when Pilger tells me these people have signed on to nuclear-non proliferation treaties, I say, so what? It's only a significant point if they take the treaty seriously and I sincerely doubt they do.

So when the US and the world tries to prevent these disgusting people from getting nukes, I support them. I wouldn't support any kind of forced regime change, but I sincerely hope the Iranians someday establish a new government on their own.

If Pilger is not trustworthy and just writing stuff that wins adulation from the paranoid left then why does nobody seem to attack him on his facts?

They may be presented selectively but nevertheless they seem to be correct.

You may not want to hear what he has to say but you can't dismiss him on that basis alone.

There seems to be an all prevailing bi-polar political disease that wants to pigeon hole everything into black and white.I don't agree with John Pliger's views on the left ,nor do I agree with everything that Ron Paul espouses,but the two common factors of these two honest men is their integrety and honesty allowiing freedom of thought to determine our own destinies.

John is right is every scintilla of evidence portrayed in this article.The US corporate political system is totally corrupt,but that does not make the basic tennants upon which this system of free markets were based totally false.It is all about fairness and balance of power.That is the difficult part to get right.

You seem to agree with many academic historians for a change, Keith.

The true perspective to prevent war is balance of power between greater nations.

But what you've had in the Middle for far too long is tiny Israel with the most modern nuclear artillery calling the tune.

The point is that if Iran's nuclear capacity can be destroyed, it will most likely shut down any Global Islamic prestige for years to come.

Thus from an academic futuristic point of view based on the premise that a nuclear Iran is unlikely to attack another country unless attacked herself, maybe Israel should be told to pipe down and peruse more about a safer world to come.

Regards, BB, WA.

It seems reasonable that Iran and Israel should be treated the same, vis a vis Nuclear treaty inspectors.
But then, it seems reasonable that all nations should be treated the same...

Grim ,when we get all people on the planet connected to the net,then we will have true democracy.It won't be perfect but every person could then vote on important issues.

The average person is not driven by the inadaquacy of power lust.All they want is the connection of family and the time to laugh.

I've just posted a comment on another thread,"Depopulate or perish".
Interesting how many of the comments -including mine- are relevant to both threads...

Might say the lying game has been on ever since th end of WW2 when us troops believed that at last we'd now seen the end of colonialism.

Yet it was not long after that the US occupied Iran declaring that the nation was becoming Communist. However not far behind the occupation were US oil companies.

More lies were told with the planting of the Shah by America, with added lies about the fake Shah's ancient inheritance.

Certainly many of our academics clapped their hands when the Ayatollah was returned with all members of the US Embassy locked up more than a year.

But a few years later the US was determined to push on with her neo-colonialism with Donald Rumsfeld urging Saddam of Iraq that Iran was an easy target to attack at the time.

But after more than eight years it was the other way round with many Iraqis on the run back home.

So the US lost out once again, Iran clearly showing that neo-colonialism right now was not a paying game.

So it seems from a historical point of view that apart from vocal attacks Iran has never attacked a Middle East neighbour since her Persian days.

Certainly the same could not be said of tiny Israel now not only with the most modern of nuclear capabilities, but also inlcuding attack planes.

Though Netanahu might say that Israel has prepared against and Iranian attack, there is little doubt that Iran's modern history proves that she would never attack a neighbour.

However, in closing we might say that it has been America's braggart neo-colonialist attitude that has been the problem, as having allowed a tiny nation like Israel to become right now the deadliest nost dangerous power in the Middle-East.

I have never been a fan of Pilger, but .....

One:

This morning, on the way to the Forum, by way of Twitter, a funny thing happened.

I had been posting to a topic in the General Discussion area of the Forum, 'Power with pride going Belly-up?', and the discussion had got around to the subject of the pending extradition, without hearing, from the UK to the US of Brian and Kerry Howes. There is currently a Twitter campaign being conducted by the Howes' and some supporters to raise public awareness as to their situation.

I had written a poem, 'Ode to McCrae', inspired by his famous WWI poem 'In Flander's Fields', and posted it to the above thread. You can see it here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3050#73526

I then tweeted links to both that OLO post, and to this site, http://www.defence.gov.au/army/traditions/documents/inflandersfield_1.htm , which outlined some of the background to the writing of McCrae's poem. Of particular significance to me seemed to be the second last paragraph on the page. I noted that fact in my tweet, as I had characters left.

When I saw my tweet come up on the Twitter page, it was minus this notation.

I then clicked the tinyURL link that I had posted, and which only minutes before had yielded the 'In Flander's Fields' page, only to find that the tinyURL link yielded a '404' page unavailable notice, as did the fully expanded link posted above.

It would seem that this extradition matter, and/or something I posted in that thread, is the subject of intense scrutiny at the moment by interests capable of censoring the internet.

Two:

Friends who had a tour of Tibet arranged, were, within days of departure upon it, told it was canceled because the Chinese government was escorting all foreign tourists out of Tibet, and allowing no more in. The excuse given being one of fears of volatility marking 60 years of Chinese rule in Tibet.

Make of this what you will.

Looks like Dear Hilary hasn't learnt her history lessons either.

Certainly history can tell that because Iran has had the common sense only to threaten but never attack unless attacked herself, she is much safer with atomic weapons than with certain other countries.

History can also tell how Nixon's Minister of State, Henry Kissinger warned him how a nuclear little Israel would upset the Middle East power balance for years to come.

Certainly there is little doubt that an atomic charged Iran would bring the balance, with everything silent until little Israel made a strike helped by silly Hilary.

So Hilary, please help Obama with a bit of historical commonsense rather than threatening Iran with something that could turn into another World War.

PS, Of course all this has all begun mostly because Condoleeza Rice helped so much to bugger up the UN, which was originally formalised from Kantian philosophy to have strong multi-power policies to prevent historical threats like the above.

Regards, BB, WA