John Pilger > Quotes

“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

“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, Hidden Agendas

“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

“Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what George 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. 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... [they] now mean the establishment point of view... Journalists don't sit down and think, 'I'm now going to speak for the establishment.' Of course not. But they internalise 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.”
― John Pilger

“The U.S. is a cosmetic democracy.”
― John Pilger

“Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days.”
― John Pilger

“[S]ince 1945 Tory and Labour governments have had almost identical foreign policies, none of which have upheld human rights. On the contrary, in serving what are known as ‘British interests’, they have played a significant part in some of the century’s worst abuses of human rights. What is more, it has been Labour, not Tory, governments which have been the most zealous in pursuing these ‘interests’.”
― John Pilger, Hidden Agendas

“Never believe governments,’ she wrote, ‘not any of them, not a word they say; keep an untrusting eye on all they do.”
― John Pilger, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs

“Rapacious great power is ruthless and vindictive; many of us can't imagine because we're not like that in our lives."
John Pilger”
― John Pilger

“I love long regarded my country as a secret, as a land half-won, its story half-told. It was as if the past was another country, mysterious and unexplained. 'Australian history' either was not taught or was not required for 'higher learning'. Contemporary history was unheard of. Black history was ridiculed. Historians and politicians, more concerned with imperial propriety than truth, covered up and distorted.”
― John Pilger

“The problem for non-governmental organisations is that they are already drawn too close to government through funding and their tax-exempt charitable status and they serve increasingly to neutralise and de-radicalise movements for real change, often remaining silent on the true complicity of their Western donors in the denial of human rights.”
― John Pilger, Hidden Agendas

“People must seek many things to make their lives significant.”
― John Pilger, Hidden Agendas