The contempt in which Britain's elite holds the public has never been more eloquently expressed than in the decision to award Tony Blair the highest order of knighthood. One million Iraqis dead, three million dispossessed, a trail of blood to 7/7. Rise Sir Tony!
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John Pilger
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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
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Recently I passed Tony Blair's £8million mansion in London's Connaught Square. It's an hour's bleak journey to Belmarsh prison, where Julian #Assange 'lives' in a small cell. This is Britain Christmas 2021: the war criminal rewarded, the truth-teller punished, perhaps to death.
I wrote this for the Guardian in 2014 when the coup junta in Kiev declared war on its Russian-speaking population in the Donbass.
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Replying to @johnpilger
How right you were
theguardian.com/commentisfree/
theguardian.com/commentisfree/
Do not forget Julian #Assange. Or you will lose him.
I saw him in Belmarsh prison and his health has deteriorated. Treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated and denied the tools to fight the bogus charges of a US extradition. I now fear for him. Do not forget him.
The action of the British police in literally dragging Julian Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy and the smashing of international law by the Ecuadorean regime in permitting this barbarity are crimes against the most basic natural justice. This is a warning to all journalists.
The Guardian describes the late John McCain as a "war hero". As a pilot in Vietnam, McCain cravenly bombed a mostly undefended country of civilians. When he was skilfully brought down, his life was saved by the very people he was trying to harm. A true American plastic hero.
The US recently imposed 'sanctions' on Cambodia which is considered 'too friendly' with China. In the 1960s/70s the US dropped more bombs on Cambodia than during all of WW2. According to one study, 750,000 people were killed. No reparations were ever paid.
I was in Russia in 1990. I was taken back by the anger of ordinary people at Gorbachev, whose 'perestroika' dismantled the USSR. Labour laws, key subsidies and pensions were thrown out, US 'advisors' took over and many Russians starved. 'We' didn't have a clue and we still don't.
Watching the BBC's loaded reports from Moscow, reading the rest of the cartoon journalism on Ukraine, it ought now to be clear to the dimmest that, whatever your views, there is no real news on the war, no trusted mainstream source, none, merely a censorship by omission. Beware.
I visited Julian #Assange in prison. He has been ill, but his courage is astonishing. He is locked up for up to 23 hours. Let no one doubt he is a political prisoner, fraudulent events in Sweden included. His crime is truthful journalism. Shame on those who feign otherwise.
A US Federal Court has ruled that WikiLeaks and Julian #Assange lawfully published the Hillary Clinton emails and found "no evidence" of collusion with Russia. The fabrications of the "free media" have dissolved into silence.
Britain, the US, Australia share a phenomenon: each has a political opposition in name only. Every few years a game is played when major parties with the same (more or less) economic, social and war-making policies convince voters they are different. This is known as 'democracy'.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has approved the extradition of Julian #Assange to an American hellhole. A new appeal will now challenge the political rottenness of British 'justice'. Either we raise our voices as never before, or our silence colludes in the death of an heroic man.
Before the election, publicity for the ITV broadcast of my film, The Dirty War on the NHS, was subject to an embargo at the very time that the film's theme, the sell-off of the NHS, was at the forefront of British politics. The ITV broadcast is now on Tuesday 17 Dec, at 10.45pm.
The made-for-media theatrics on Capitol Hill were not an attempted "coup". Coups are what the CIA stages all over the world. Neither was "democracy" in peril. What democracy? And Trump is no more than a caricature of a system of which Biden, Obama, Bush etc are the embodiment.
A pandemic is declared, but not for 24,600 dead every day from unnecessary starvation, or 3,000 children dead every day from preventable malaria, or the countless daily dead from America's blockade on Venezuela and Iran and its bombs on Yemen. Before you panic consider them.
China-bashing is in full cry. China's covid zero tolerance has problems, but the truth is it has saved an enormous number of lives. In China 5,233 have died from Covid. In the US, 1,104,836 have died. In Britain, the govt sent thousands of elderly to their deaths. Whose freedom?
It's Julian #Assange's birthday on 3rd July. Since I met Julian more than a decade ago, I have watched this heroic man pursued and persecuted by those who hide their extremism behind democratic facades. He has exposed them, and we are grateful. I salute my friend on his birthday.
Boris Johnson says the NHS must be 'protected' or it will be 'overwhelmed'. The filthy truth about this pandemic is the shredding of Britain's pioneering health service by Johnson's cronies for profit, leaving it scandalously short of doctors, nurses, beds, basics. Speak up.
Julian #Assange is in solitary, denied visitors. He ordered a radio from the prison catalogue six months ago. A friend also ordered him a radio and the authorities returned it, unopened. Even the Beirut hostages Waite, Keenan and McCarthy listened to a radio. This is torture.
On 13 June, Tony Blair is to receive a knighthood. The royal citation won't mention the lies and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Meanwhile, Julian #Assange waits to be sent to a hellhole in America for exposing war crimes. Happy Jubilee.
Piers Morgan's powerful, informed questions about why thousands have died unnecessarily from COVID in the UK is rare journalism. He rightly attacks the govt's 'boycott' of GMB. My ITV film, The Dirty War on the NHS, was subjected to the same tactic by craven saboteurs of the NHS.
The High Court has ruled that Julian #Assange can be extradited to the US. "How can it be fair, how can it be right, how can it be possible, to extradite Julian to the very country which plotted to kill him?" said Stella Moris. Mark this day as fascism casts off its disguises.
Under cover of coronavirus, the US and its 'allies' are waging war against China. The racist travel bans and media hysteria are not approved by WHO. China's response to the emergency has been a model - unlike the US whose current flu epidemic has killed 10,000 and isn't news.
I saw Julian #Assange today in Belmarsh prison. Denied the tools to prepare his defence against extradition to America, his resilience endures. On Monday he appears at Westminster Magistrates Court where his epic fight begins. It's the fight of democracy. Join us.
This week, 15,000 US led troops will simulate a NATO war with Russia less than 100 miles from Saint Petersburg. Imagine the same provocation 100 miles from nuclear-armed Washington.
You're unlikely to see this in the mainstream media. It's real journalism. The investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals how the United States, the pirate nation, destroyed Russia's Nord Stream pipeline to Europe. When will Europe wake up?
"Test, test, test," says the WHO. But why is the UK govt refusing mass testing? Why are people dying needlessly? The Dept of Health has become a revolving door of Thatcherite spivs: privatisers, corporate asset strippers, management consultants. This is Britain's deadly scandal.
News you won't read. On Thursday, Putin reportedly offered peace if Ukraine embraced neutrality and rejected Nato's arms. Ukraine's president Zelensky was elected in 2019 largely by ethnic Russians on a platform to make peace with Russia.
I spoke to Julian #Assange at the weekend. His psychological torture is unabated. He remains isolated in his small cell, mostly 23 hours a day, denied proper exercise. He has lost more weight. Although 'approved', phone calls to his parents are still not possible. Britain 2019.
In 2016, a pandemic drill was carried out in Britain with shocking results. Devastated by cuts, the NHS was overwhelmed. The govt was warned, but did nothing and the Dept of Health suppressed the conclusions. What has happened in 2020 is a state crime.
youtu.be/jt58it26jCs
When Jeremy Hunt was UK Health Secretary the stockpile of PPE was cut by 40 per cent. In 2016, he oversaw Exercise Cygnus that predicted the NHS he was starving to death could not cope with a pandemic. He ignored it. Prosecute Hunt for criminal negligence.
Congratulations to US sharpshooters who - after several attempts - shot down a Chinese balloon strayed near the Land of the Free
Below is a map of some of the 400 US bases that surround China, spying, probing, several with nuclear arms. The US describes the bases as a 'noose'.
Robert Fisk has died. I pay warmest tribute to one of the last great reporters. The weasel word 'controversial' appears in even his own paper, The Independent, whose pages he honoured. He went against the grain and told the truth, spectacularly. Journalism has lost the bravest.
In Italy, where fascism was invented, the most extreme government since 1945 has come to power. In Britain, where fascism is the unspoken, the most extreme government since 1945 has come to power. Spot the difference.
Visiting Julian #Assange in prison I glimpsed his barbaric treatment. Isolated, denied proper exercise, access to the library, a laptop, he cannot prepare his defence. He is even denied calls to his US lawyers. His UK lawyer wrote to the governor on 4 June. Silence. How lawless.
The dark power of royalty. In 1971, the Chagos Islanders were expelled by the British to make way for a US base. This was made possible by a meeting of the Queen's Privy Councillors (advisers) and approved in person by the Queen. Using the same power, Blair invaded Iraq in 2003.
Roger Waters is under fire from the German state for exposing its support for apartheid Israel's racism. Waters is being threatened by the German police basically for defending the rights of Palestinians. How ironic. Speak up for him, German people.
Australian cities have erupted in inspiring demos against police killings of black people. In Australia, hundreds of Indigenous people have died in police custody without a conviction. Please watch this clip from my film, Utopia...
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Today in the Old Bailey I watched the grim farce of the US/UK attempt to extradite Julian #Assange. The bullying prosecutor is reduced to insulting the integrity of expert witnesses. Trapped behind glass, Julian is denied free access to his barrister. This is Britain's shame.
In November, the NHS was down to its lowest bed capacity ever. The man responsible, 'Sir' Simon Stephens, the Tory-appointed head of NHS England, spent 10 years in America promoting private healthcare with the notorious United Health. He should be sacked.
How NATO has brought the world to the brink of WW3. Read this and understand the difference between perception and facts:
I was in court for Julian #Assange's extradition hearing before a judge whose husband was a Tory defence minister. "My life is at stake," said a fragile Julian by video link from prison. Denied a computer, he is prevented from preparing his own defence. Such is British "justice".
Theft is a signature of the United States. Theft of oil from Syria. Theft of gold from Venezuela. Theft of bank assets from Afghanistan. Theft of territory
from Mexico, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Diego Garcia and more. Theft of sovereignty from millions.
Today is World Press Freedom Day. What a joke. Julian #Assange is locked up in prison, fighting extradition to America for the crime of free journalism. In his homeland, Australia, low-rent political leaders, and the 'free press', maintain a craven silence. Shame on them.
Under cover of a crisis, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has struck a secret deal with US tech giants to deliver a "COVID-19 data store". This will be the biggest, most sinister handover of personal NHS patient data to private firms ever. Speak out now.
No ambulance was available for a heart attack victim in Yorkshire. This is more significant than whether Johnson is replaced by another extremist. A govt of extremists is assaulting everyday life - our NHS, our right not to live in poverty, our right to protest. That's the news.
I was in court today to watch magistrate Vanessa Baraitser's studied contempt for law and justice, as she denied Julian #Assange time to prepare his defence against America's oafish, cowboy case to extradite him. An enfeebled Julian struggled to expose her. Stand with him please.
The 21 mostly children shot to death in Texas are the latest American massacre. Last year there were 61 gun massacres, many in schools. This is the murderous country that demands a divine right to run the world and dictate war and peace. Why do we allow it?
WikiLeaks reports that Julian Assange is on the verge of being expelled from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Please fill the street outside the embassy and protect him, and show solidarity with a courageous man, whose struggle ought to touch us all.
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BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within "hours to days" using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext--and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.
defend.wikileaks.org/2019/04/03/ecu
Australia's new PM, Anthony Albanese, will fly to Europe to attend a meeting of NATO, the warmongering organisation, with which Australia has no formal connection. "I will show support for Ukraine" says the man who has shown no support, zero, for his own citizen, Julian #Assange.
Today, at the #Assange trial, I was struck by a changed mood. Julian's defence is winning hands down, aided by the US prosecution's abuse of witnesses and idiotic attempt to prove journalism is espionage. Even Judge Reaper has gone quiet. Trashing British justice has its dangers.
Julian #Assange is again too ill to attend a court hearing by video. Denied access to his lawyers, loved ones, friends, any humanity, he has committed no crime. He wears a prisoner's yellow armband on his painfully thin arm. How evocative that is. The crime is his torture.
The following is a must read for those who crave an
impartial account of the Ukraine war, The writer is a former NATO insider with top level intelligence access. Thanks to Oliver Stone for discovering it.
This is the news you won't read. Nato has declared war on both Russia and China threatening nuclear attack. The destroyer of Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia - all crimes - is led by a congenitally violent US, with Boris Johnson as lethal court jester. Be warned.
The good news is that the Swedish charade over Julian #Assange is falling apart. A court has decided, in effect, against a European Arrest Warrant; the suppression of evidence has failed; the zealots have suffered a huge setback. The battle against a vengeful US begins next week.
The day Home Secretary Priti Patel ordered Julian #Assange's extradition, guards at Belmarsh prison stripped him and threw him into a completely empty cell, Julian's father has revealed. Consider this barbarity, Prime Minister Albanese, while you maintain a craven silence.
The UK Govt demands Britons download a phone app that "traces the virus". Australian PM Scott Morrison promotes a similar tool of mass surveillance. His adviser at WHO, Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, refuses. She warns the data will end up in the US. A digital pandemic is coming.
In 1945, 'never again' was liberated Europe's pledge never to allow the rise of Nazism in any form. In 2023, a European parliament openly celebrates one of the Nazis' most murderous collaborators.
In 1911-14, living costs soared in Britain and 'austerity' (poverty) was govt policy. Sound familiar? King George V urged the military to teach 'the mob' a lesson. People fought back; the city of Liverpool shut down. Only a convenient imperial world war defeated them. Beware.
Farewell to Her Majesty. One facade comes down and another goes up. No change at HM Prison Belmarsh where an innocent man, Julian #Assange, is incarcerated for the crime of truth-telling. God save the King.
The fines imposed on Chelsea Manning -- jailed for refusing to lie about Julian #Assange - have doubled to $1,000 a day. She will soon be bankrupt, having lost her home. And yet silence envelops this hero, including on the "left". Break the silence.
Whatever abuse of justice British magistrates hand down to Julian Assange, remember his words: “I do not wish to surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism which has protected many, many people”. Now we must protect him with massive support. Please think about it.
I have reported four US election campaigns, beginning with Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in my presence. Violence is the true emblem of undemocratic US politics and its contempt for humanity. No amount of spin for Biden/Harris will make them appear different. They aren't.
The evidence is building of an historic crime. 40,000 Britons dead from COVID due to govt irresponsibility, says a former chief scientific adviser. Austerity already had killed 120,000. Spivs and extremists did this. Where are you, Keir Starmer? Taking the knee is not opposition.
The Hypocrites on parade. Watch them on CNN, the BBC, read them wall-to-wall. Now imagine a strategic enclave of Britons, or French, or Germans, or Americans under violent siege - shelled and terrorised - for eight years. Would this be tolerated by the rulers of the world?
Julian Assange's crime has been to make sense of dark times. has an impeccable record of accuracy & authenticity which no newspaper, no TV channel, no radio station... can equal. Indeed, it shames them. johnpilger.com/articles/the-p
This is a superb statement by Christine Assange, mother of Julian. She tweeted: “Shame on you Lenín Moreno ! May the Ecuadorean people seek vengeance upon you, you you dirty, deceitful traitor! May the face of my suffering son haunt your sleepless nights ... " Amen to that!
On 1 Dec, the new John Pilger film, 'The Dirty War on the NHS', will be released in UK cinemas. Pilger investigates the long & often secret campaign to dismantle the UK's pioneering NHS and privatise it off 'by stealth'. Watch the trailer below. thedirtywaronnhs.com
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Half a million NHS volunteers rescuing vulnerable Britons are humanity's best. Those making fortunes in unsafe, slave-labour care homes, privatised by Boris Johnson's gang, are the worst -- add Johnson currently drooling over an NHS his govt is selling off. Learn the lessons.
Parliaments, courts, tribunals are suspended, government is by decree. The police determine whether our presence in a street, a park, is legitimate. The media ensures a state of fear. Surveillance is routine. Protest, if any, is virtual. How does history describe such a society?
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture says of Julian #Assange: “In 20 years of work with victims of war and political persecution I have never seen democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual. with so little regard for the law.”
Today, Wednesday 23 March, Julian #Assange and Stella Moris will marry at Belmarsh prison. The bride must then leave. I salute my friends Julian and Stella and wish them the happiness and justice they so deserve. Please join well wishers outside the prison between 12 and 4pm.
Thanks to all who watched The Dirty War on the NHS on ITV. The film now heads for nationwide community screenings. Interested groups should contact Dartmouth Films: matt@dartmouthfilms.com. And thanks to the NHS for rescuing me after a staph hit me like a meteor. I salute them!
Tory scandals are a facade for war. The unreported facts are: Russian troops are in Russia. British troops are on Russia's borders. Russia is ringed by US missiles. The elected govt in Ukraine was overthrown by Obama and replaced with an anti Russian regime infested with Nazis.
'President' Obama is in Australia. The man who bombed seven countries, launched an invasion of Africa, approved a coup in Ukraine, planted missiles in Europe and launched a campaign of war with China, will be enriched by a million and bathed in a tsunami of Aussie sycophancy.
"Our country remains extremely well prepared," lied Boris Johnson on 7 April. The lethal clown returns today. When will Britons rise against those who govern by lies and media, who bear criminal responsibility for countless deaths, who have placed a nation under house arrest?
The hi-jacking of the term 'left' should stop. 'Left' does not mean Guardian liberalism, which requires no honest commitment to the well-being of the majority. Warmongers are often liberals. For too long 'left' has provided cover to a 'democracy' by media and delivered us fakes.
Outside the court where his son endures what the judge now admits is a political trial, Julian #Assange's father, John Shipton, describes the human carnage caused by America and utters an unforgettable truth: "Julian didn't do anything, they did."
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WATCH: John Shipton 'Julian didn't do anything, they did'
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The coming war on China is likely to happen by mistake or accident as a result of deliberate provocations by the US and its echoes. Under cover of the pandemic, the Trump regime is sending strategic bombers and spy drones within sight of China itself. Our silence is our peril.
Will the new prime minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, have the courage to save the life of Julian #Assange? This is the first PM to make a statement in support of freedom for Julian. Now he has the diplomatic power to make it happen. Will he act?
The trial of Julian Assange, which should never have happened, has ended. The judge will make her decision known on 4th January. If he is not freed, beware.
This is my account from the Old Bailey:
Watch the full version of John Pilger's interview with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London... youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_
Home Secretary Priti Patel is about to declare her decision on whether Julian #Assange is to be extradited to the US. The journalist who revealed the crimes of govts is fighting for his life. On Tuesday raise your voices outside the Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, London, at 6pm.
Is social democracy finally dead in Britain? Ask Jeremy Corbyn, suspended from the "people's party" for telling the truth. Or ask his successor who ran the CPS when it pressured Sweden not to "get cold feet" and drop the bogus case against Julian #Assange.
Australia is about to vote for a new govt. What a farce. One economic policy is on offer: socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and one foreign policy, made in the USA and moronically hostile to the country's biggest trading partner. This is called an election.
Without opposition, Parliament has legalised a lawless British state. The Overseas Operations Bill allows British soldiers to commit war crimes; the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill allows MI5 and others to secretly murder and torture those the BBC calls "the bad guys".
Australia's new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is reminded daily of his own words that Julian #Assange should be free. He even assured Julian's father. It is said 'Albo' is different. He has 'values'. The man has no 'values' -- none -- unless he acts to free Julian. Now.
The massacre by an Australian of 50 people is the product of a nation in denial of a history built on racism and violence, with racist prime ministers and a media dominated by Rupert Murdoch. Read this brilliant piece by Chris Graham.
newmatilda.com/2019/03/16/tea
Look, and recoil at, the photos below. They were taken in the barbaric prison system to which the UK and US and Australia conspire to send Julian #Assange, an innocent man whose only 'crime' is real journalism.
I am posting here my 2002 film, Palestine Is Still the Issue, and dedicating it to the life of Robert Fisk.
By clicking on this link, the film came be viewed across all territories, free.
johnpilger.com/videos/palesti
Last month, mining company Rio Tinto blew up a 46,000 year old sacred site at Juukan Gorge, Western Australia, reminiscent of Isis destroying ancient temples at Palmyra. The company had been warned, but went ahead. Protest tomorrow, 9th, at Rio Tinto, Hay Street, Perth, at 1pm.
Remember her name. In denying Julian #Assange bail, London magistrate Vanessa Baraitser achieves infamy for her wicked cruelty. A chronic lung condition makes Julian a prime target of coronavirus. Nineteen UK prisoners have tested positive. And she condemns him to suffer alone.
Australian Prime Minister Albanese refuses to meet Stella Assange, who has flown from London. This is the kind of craven power which Julian, a truth teller and political prisoner, is up against.
Nobel Prize winner Kissinger bombed Cambodia into the stone age. Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama pledged to help rid the world of nuclear weapons while secretly ordering one of the biggest nuclear bomb programs. And so it goes on, courtesy of the NED/CIA.