| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 09:29 - Mar 4 with 3293 views | Orthodox_Hoop |
Quite frankly I'm in a state of shock and outrage that someone like this John Pilger fellow has the temerity to write the truth. How dare he? |  | |  |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 09:32 - Mar 4 with 3287 views | kensalriser |
Pilger is a top boy, Brian. A non-aligned free thinker who always talks sense. |  |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:19 - Mar 4 with 3217 views | nadera78 |
He's an interesting journalist. It's abundantly clear that his life was permanently altered by his experiences reporting from the front line in Vietnam - what he saw with his own eyes versus the way it was reported (or not) in the rest of the world.
There's no doubt an awful lot of what he writes is true, the problem comes when he hints, as he does in that piece a couple of times, of grand conspiracies put together in smoke-filled rooms. Far more likely is the simplest explanation - people with power (real power) have money, lots of it, and they want even more. So they choose sides as and when they need to based on that simple premise. It's nothing new - George W Bush's grandfather made money banking on behalf of a Nazi industrialist, the Koch family (worth $80billion and ultra-right wingers who believe in zero taxation) made their money working for Stalin.
Money is only interested in money. Dictatorships - whether fascist, theocratic, whatever - provide an excellent vehicle for that via a docile population, a limited number of leaders to buy off, and an open market for trading in. |  | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:34 - Mar 4 with 3191 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:19 - Mar 4 by nadera78 |
He's an interesting journalist. It's abundantly clear that his life was permanently altered by his experiences reporting from the front line in Vietnam - what he saw with his own eyes versus the way it was reported (or not) in the rest of the world.
There's no doubt an awful lot of what he writes is true, the problem comes when he hints, as he does in that piece a couple of times, of grand conspiracies put together in smoke-filled rooms. Far more likely is the simplest explanation - people with power (real power) have money, lots of it, and they want even more. So they choose sides as and when they need to based on that simple premise. It's nothing new - George W Bush's grandfather made money banking on behalf of a Nazi industrialist, the Koch family (worth $80billion and ultra-right wingers who believe in zero taxation) made their money working for Stalin.
Money is only interested in money. Dictatorships - whether fascist, theocratic, whatever - provide an excellent vehicle for that via a docile population, a limited number of leaders to buy off, and an open market for trading in. |
That sums up a lot of my thoughts on the article, Nadera. I don't know whether he's right about the conspiracy or not - I have no way of knowing - but a lot of his facts are on the money. And it is certainly an excellent article.
I think his use of the 'fascism' tag may be misleading, though. It's not fascistic to be a mass murderer through greed, which is what I suspect is often the case - it's fascistic to be a mass murderer through ideologies. |  |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:44 - Mar 4 with 3167 views | 1BobbyHazell |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:34 - Mar 4 by BrianMcCarthy |
That sums up a lot of my thoughts on the article, Nadera. I don't know whether he's right about the conspiracy or not - I have no way of knowing - but a lot of his facts are on the money. And it is certainly an excellent article.
I think his use of the 'fascism' tag may be misleading, though. It's not fascistic to be a mass murderer through greed, which is what I suspect is often the case - it's fascistic to be a mass murderer through ideologies. |
Haven't had a chance to read it yet Brian but will do, thanks for posting, Pilger is a top man and in an age where the vast majority of mainstream journalists are mere system lackey mouthpieces for their paymasters he is still doing great work and actual journalism.
As regards the whole "smoke filled rooms" stuff, if you imagine the lengths those with real money and power go to in order to further their position, then to assume they would do anything other than plan it behind closed doors whilst deciding how to present things to and manipulate the public would be rather naive I reckon. |  | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:55 - Mar 4 with 3154 views | NW5Hoop |
Pilger has done some brilliant journalism. He's exposed countless abuses of power.
He's also, in recent years, become increasingly prey to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" syndrome, as have many leftwing thinkers and campaigners. In this piece, that's most evident in the apology for Serbia: there's no mention of the genocide, of the concentration camps, of the Nato forces protecting the Kosovar Muslims — just the insistence that the West started it, and that it's all the fault of Germany for recognising Croatia (leaving aside the fact that it was Croatia declaring independence that caused Germany to recognise it; he makes it sound like Germany forced Croatia to break away). | | | |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:08 - Mar 4 with 3124 views | Orthodox_Hoop |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:55 - Mar 4 by NW5Hoop |
Pilger has done some brilliant journalism. He's exposed countless abuses of power.
He's also, in recent years, become increasingly prey to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" syndrome, as have many leftwing thinkers and campaigners. In this piece, that's most evident in the apology for Serbia: there's no mention of the genocide, of the concentration camps, of the Nato forces protecting the Kosovar Muslims — just the insistence that the West started it, and that it's all the fault of Germany for recognising Croatia (leaving aside the fact that it was Croatia declaring independence that caused Germany to recognise it; he makes it sound like Germany forced Croatia to break away). |
Concentration camps? It really is true that people really do believe everything that is fed to them by the media.
Just in case you missed this part of the article:
"With the Nato bombing over, and much of Serbia's infrastructure in ruins, along with schools, hospitals, monasteries and the national TV station, international forensic teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume evidence of the "holocaust". The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines". A year later, a United Nations tribunal on Yugoslavia announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide. The "holocaust" was a lie. The Nato attack had been fraudulent."
Are you privy to evidence that contradicts the official forensic teams' analysis? If so, please do share. I'm especially interested to hear your evidence to back up your concentration camp theory. However, I'll wager that the only camp in Kosovo anyone has heard about is Bondsteel; the USA's largest military base outside of it's borders. Guarding what exactly? | | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:10 - Mar 4 with 3119 views | CiderwithRsie |
Hmm, perhaps I was a bit intemperate in my comment to Blob.
What i mean is that Greer and Pilger are both worth reading, both intelligent and provocative writers and it is worth being provoked sometimes.
I don't endorse everything either of them say, by a long chalk.
Pilger's assertion early on that the threat of Gaddafi carrying out a massacre in Benghazi was a fabrication strikes me as at best unproveable - how can we know what Gaddafi might have done? and frankly improbable. Gaddafi had plenty of form and as I recall had made open threats of doing just that. The repellent nature of many of his opponents is in no way relevant to disproving that, it is a complete non sequitur | | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:24 - Mar 4 with 3090 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 10:44 - Mar 4 by 1BobbyHazell |
Haven't had a chance to read it yet Brian but will do, thanks for posting, Pilger is a top man and in an age where the vast majority of mainstream journalists are mere system lackey mouthpieces for their paymasters he is still doing great work and actual journalism.
As regards the whole "smoke filled rooms" stuff, if you imagine the lengths those with real money and power go to in order to further their position, then to assume they would do anything other than plan it behind closed doors whilst deciding how to present things to and manipulate the public would be rather naive I reckon. |
"As regards the whole "smoke filled rooms" stuff, if you imagine the lengths those with real money and power go to in order to further their position, then to assume they would do anything other than plan it behind closed doors whilst deciding how to present things to and manipulate the public would be rather naive I reckon."
Oh, I agree. My point is that I don't know whether they're motivated by greed, ideologies or both. | |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:28 - Mar 4 with 3084 views | Toast_R |
My Dad before he retired, was a typewriter engineer and he used to maintain John Pilgers Baby Hermes Typewriter for him. He even got a mention in his book "Distant Voices".
When it was published he sent my dad a personalised copy. Still sits at home pride of the bookshelf. |  | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:31 - Mar 4 with 3076 views | NW5Hoop |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:08 - Mar 4 by Orthodox_Hoop |
Concentration camps? It really is true that people really do believe everything that is fed to them by the media.
Just in case you missed this part of the article:
"With the Nato bombing over, and much of Serbia's infrastructure in ruins, along with schools, hospitals, monasteries and the national TV station, international forensic teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume evidence of the "holocaust". The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines". A year later, a United Nations tribunal on Yugoslavia announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide. The "holocaust" was a lie. The Nato attack had been fraudulent."
Are you privy to evidence that contradicts the official forensic teams' analysis? If so, please do share. I'm especially interested to hear your evidence to back up your concentration camp theory. However, I'll wager that the only camp in Kosovo anyone has heard about is Bondsteel; the USA's largest military base outside of it's borders. Guarding what exactly? |
If you believe Pilger's account, which is partial, fine.
Two of my colleagues here reported from the war. They saw concentration camps. They gave evidence in the Living Marxism/ITN libel case that they saw concentration camps. They were there. Were you? Forgive me if I prefer to trust their eyewitness accounts rather than your keyboard warfare.
As for genocide — that was in Bosnia. I never said it was in Kosovo. I said Nato protected the Kosovar Muslims. There are legal arguments about whether ethnic cleansing was genocide or just brutal mass murder of thousands upon thousands of civilians based on their ethnicity and religion. It's worth noting that Radovan Karadžić is still facing genocide charges in the Hague. But even if what happened in Bosnia was not genocide, then the brutal mass murder of thousands upon thousands of civilians is hardly any better, is it? | | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:45 - Mar 4 with 3044 views | CiderwithRsie |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:08 - Mar 4 by Orthodox_Hoop |
Concentration camps? It really is true that people really do believe everything that is fed to them by the media.
Just in case you missed this part of the article:
"With the Nato bombing over, and much of Serbia's infrastructure in ruins, along with schools, hospitals, monasteries and the national TV station, international forensic teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume evidence of the "holocaust". The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines". A year later, a United Nations tribunal on Yugoslavia announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide. The "holocaust" was a lie. The Nato attack had been fraudulent."
Are you privy to evidence that contradicts the official forensic teams' analysis? If so, please do share. I'm especially interested to hear your evidence to back up your concentration camp theory. However, I'll wager that the only camp in Kosovo anyone has heard about is Bondsteel; the USA's largest military base outside of it's borders. Guarding what exactly? |
Hang on, Orthodox, I appreciate this is an emotive subject for you, but that quote solely relates to Kossovo whereas NW5 is also referring to events in Croatia i.e. wider Yugoslavia. There were concentration camps in Bosnia as well as numerous other human rights abuses by both sides but with a predominance on the Serbian side.
Pilger also ignores the long-term and well-documented discrimination practised against the Albanian majority in Kosovo after the unilateral removal of its autonomous status. His assertion that Yugoslavia was all fine and dandy until the West deliberately tore it apart is at best contentious. I doubt you'd find much support for that idea in Croatia, Slovenia, or from Bosniaks or Kossovars - i.e. more than half the population of former Yugoslavia. He completely fails to mention the role of Milosovic and his cronies or why their behaviour, going back years before the war, might just have encouraged minorities in Yugoslavia to want to secede.
His characterisation of the behaviour of the EU and NATO towards Yugolsavia reminds me of a lot of current comment regarding Ukraine - namely, a refusal to believe that Ukrainians (or before them Croats and Slovenes) might voluntarily want to join the EU, might voluntarily want to change from a neo-soviet form of government to one closer to that of western EU countries - despite the parallel cases of former Warsaw Pact countries (e.g. Poland) who have without doubt dome just that, done so democratically, and are better off as a result. Many many people want to come and live in the EU and very very few want to go and live in Putin's Russia or wanted to go to Milosevic's Serbia.
I agree with NW5's point - to Pilger ISIS are b*stards (as we all agree) so Gaddafi was a saint; conversely, Nato is in his view always wrong so Serbia must be blameless, which in turn means the KLA must all be criminals. The whole argument is fallacious.
He also assumes that everything the US does is motivated by greed and selfishness; he never allows for the possibility of the US trying to do the right thing but screwing up. But anyone in any job anywhere knows that people make screw-ups with the best intention all the time. Did Harry Redknapp want to produce a cr*p football team, or Fernandes want to appoint a manager with zero motivation? Of course not. | | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:58 - Mar 4 with 3019 views | LythamR |
"He also assumes that everything the US does is motivated by greed and selfishness"
I am not sure its an assumption, I think there is plenty of proof to back this up going right back to the french indian war, manifest destiny et all |  | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:23 - Mar 4 with 2977 views | Orthodox_Hoop |
If the comments were made with regard to Croatia and Bosnia that makes it all the more simpler, as I'm sure you're up to speed with the recent ruling by a UN court that Serbia did not commit genocide in Croatia during the 90's (and vice versa). Furthermore, a 2007 ruling in the Hague also found Serbia not responsible for genocide in Bosnia but was blamed for failing to prevent the Srebrenica massacre. However, as some comments on here have proved, due to the fact that Serbia was depicted as guilty of genocide by the media during these conflicts it means it will always be seen as guilty regardless of the evidence proving otherwise. Classic case of never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Facts are that bad sht happened to all sides, but somehow it was all the Serbs fault, hence the reason to illegally annex Kosovo on some trumped up genocide charge which is what Mr Pilger is trying to say. [Post edited 4 Mar 2015 12:23]
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:31 - Mar 4 with 2949 views | TheBlob |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 11:09 - Mar 4 by 1BobbyHazell |
Not like you to come with the empty personal abuse with no substance all encompassing opinion blob. |
He was one of that coterie of Antipodean whingers and leftist apologists that came over in the 1960's.They never had a good word to say about the place and yet made a very nice living thank you out of the situation.You didn't so much bump into them as they bumped into you.
T*ssers the lot of them. |  |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:33 - Mar 4 with 2943 views | dsr_burnley |
You can always rely on Pilger to support the dictatorship against the democracy. Why would he write a long article about the dangers of fascism and then favourably refer to Putin at the end of it? | | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:52 - Mar 4 with 2907 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:33 - Mar 4 by dsr_burnley |
You can always rely on Pilger to support the dictatorship against the democracy. Why would he write a long article about the dangers of fascism and then favourably refer to Putin at the end of it? |
I don't think he referred favourably to him. I don't even think he made a judgement on him. I think he was talking purely about his position on Ukraine. | |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:55 - Mar 4 with 2894 views | Orthodox_Hoop |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:52 - Mar 4 by BrianMcCarthy |
I don't think he referred favourably to him. I don't even think he made a judgement on him. I think he was talking purely about his position on Ukraine. |
You'll have to stop talking common sense mate, it's anathema to certain elements. | | | |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 13:18 - Mar 4 with 2860 views | PlanetHonneywood |
I first saw a Pilger report in the early 80s about the Khmer Rouge.
If I am not mistaken, he worked on the Daily Mirror well before Cap'n Bob came in and ruined it. After which, he went on to make TV documentaries.
Since then, I have read several of his books and watched his documentaries. Great investigative journo in an increasingly difficult world for such insights to hit the mainstream.
johnpilger.com if you want to get a look at what is really happening in the world. |  |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 13:22 - Mar 4 with 2848 views | TheBlob |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 13:18 - Mar 4 by PlanetHonneywood |
I first saw a Pilger report in the early 80s about the Khmer Rouge.
If I am not mistaken, he worked on the Daily Mirror well before Cap'n Bob came in and ruined it. After which, he went on to make TV documentaries.
Since then, I have read several of his books and watched his documentaries. Great investigative journo in an increasingly difficult world for such insights to hit the mainstream.
johnpilger.com if you want to get a look at what is really happening in the world. |
Cool avatar John. | |
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| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 13:47 - Mar 4 with 2797 views | CiderwithRsie |
| John Pilger - Why The Rise Of Fascism Is Again The Issue on 12:23 - Mar 4 by Orthodox_Hoop |
If the comments were made with regard to Croatia and Bosnia that makes it all the more simpler, as I'm sure you're up to speed with the recent ruling by a UN court that Serbia did not commit genocide in Croatia during the 90's (and vice versa). Furthermore, a 2007 ruling in the Hague also found Serbia not responsible for genocide in Bosnia but was blamed for failing to prevent the Srebrenica massacre. However, as some comments on here have proved, due to the fact that Serbia was depicted as guilty of genocide by the media during these conflicts it means it will always be seen as guilty regardless of the evidence proving otherwise. Classic case of never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Facts are that bad sht happened to all sides, but somehow it was all the Serbs fault, hence the reason to illegally annex Kosovo on some trumped up genocide charge which is what Mr Pilger is trying to say. [Post edited 4 Mar 2015 12:23]
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There was abundant evidence of war crimes by the Serb side in Yugoslav wars. That's not prejudice or refusing to let the truth get in the way of the story, it's well attested.
I'm afraid you're engaging in legalistic sophistry to hide the basic facts.
1. UN court rulings relate to precise legal issues in front of them, with specific definitions of e.g genocide - Turks are, for example, still arguing that there massacres of the Armenians in WW1 are not genocide, as if that matters a damn to the millions who died - and are bound by rules of evidence which are designed to ensure that 100 guilty men go free rather than one innocent man be punished. They absolutely do not amount to a moral absolution of Serbia or proof that Serbs were not guilty of war crimes.
2. To take an example, the massacre at Serbenica was carried out by Serbs and was genocidal. Anyone reading your post would not realise that. Serbia, as a sovereign sate, was merely found "guilty of failing to prevent it" because the massacre was carried out by the Bosnian Serbs, not the regular Serbian armed forces. But it is undeniable - though I dare say you are about to deny it - that the Bosnian Serbs were armed and egged on by Milosevic's government. Ratko Mladic, for example, was sent from the JNA to command the Bosnian Serb forces.
I'll repeat again - the line you take would be disputed 100% by the populations of Croatia, Slovenia, Kossovo and the non-Serb population of Bosnia. But I guess everyone else is out of step with the Serbs on this one, eh?
I'm sorry if this comes across as anti-Serb; that's not my intention. But it is pretty difficult when Serbs and their apologists have consistently refused to face up to their moral responsibility ever since the war in Yugoslavia started. | | | |
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