John Pilger lecture video
John Pilger, a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker recently gave a guest lecture at the University of Kent, Rutherford College, Department of Politics and International Relations – Conflict Analysis Research Centre, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom, 2-29-2008.
John Pilger says we live in a critical and contradictory time, never a more dangerous time, and that includes the Cold War, which itself was presented in a way that was not really true. It was an assault on a large number of people in the developing world for strategic position, economic gain, for their resources – all the things that lead into the War on Terror. There was a desperate search to replace the coming down of the Berlin Wall during the time when people were looking for a peace dividend – that the great world arms trade would go away, or begin to go, so that we could all relax. People were looking for a time when real interaction between society would take over from Manufactured Fear. But at the same time, there was a search taking place to see what would work as Fear: War on Drugs-No, Foreign Demons-it needed context, Somali Warlords-didn’t catch, Axis of Evil – War on Terror-that succeeded in the media though it is a journalist’s job to be a critic of his own craft. Information is Power. But lots of information we get in our media is False–as it has Other Agendas. It is created for a certain political class, largely of media. National Intelligence got tired of being the patsy any longer for false information. It made a mockery for an attack on Iran which came through very powerful newspapers, both liberal and conservative. Fortunately, Charles Lewis broke rank by breaking the silence on the buildup of the Iraq War. There had been a turning point in journalism where instead of challenging and investigating outright deceptions and lies, the media (academia had responsibility too) amplified and echoed all these justification for a rapacious (taking by force or plundering, subsisting off of live prey) attack on a defenseless country.
Speaking of the Axis of Evil – Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran