“If [Albanese] fails to secure Julian's release, Australia will cease to be sovereign”..... perhaps the issue is the other way around: Australia is not a sovereign state, the PM has no say. The sad part is, rather, that he does not even try!
John Pilger along with Wilfred Burchett and Julian Assange - and more recently Caitlin Johnstone - are the four Australian journalists of international repute whom I most admire and respect. I have just tried to contact the John Pilger www/site at the foot of the essay intro PL and each attempt was disallowed! In 1990 I was editing a couple of linked anthologies for OUP (Melbourne) designed for senior level secondary students in Australia. Exploring the cultural diversity of Australia with aspects of First Australians scattered throughout the thematically-based chapters. The text anthology (lots of short writing) was titled Made in Australia and John Pilger - along with other luminaries such as Tom Keneally (author of Schindler's Ark - later after Steven Spielberg's movie title change - Schindler's List) who was reflecting on all the Cool Hand Lukes who emerged in Australia as he went on author interviews - many indeed of Schindler's "factory" ended up in Australia - and polymath broadcaster Phillip Adams (an essay on bigotry and prejudice) made his essay: "Why I Love Australia" (written in the mid-1980s) available to me to include - free of charge. I never met John Pilger until at an art Exhibition at the Mori Gallery I attended in Sydney (2010 - recorded somewhere in one of my diaries) the work of one of Wilfred Burchett's sons, George Burchett - opened by John Pilger - at which he spoke of having just come from a meeting in the UK with Julian Assange. I was then not long returned from my many years in Japan - and endeavouring to make sense of a much changed political landscape in Australia. The images of the present Australian PM - Anthony Albanese - hob-nobbing with the ultra-Hindu nationalist PM Narendra Modi just two days ago (cricket diplomacy it was called - best buddies) then yesterday morning-walking with a US military minder in San Diego - no news of Julian Assange's release - says it all really - as much a quisling as the previous Australian LNP politicians and lapdogs of the US. So disappointing. John Pilger is totally correct on every point!
Ah, Mr. Pilger, you have it exactly backwards. You said: "Australia is said to be an inspiration for the master across the Pacific." The US created the secret courts and secret evidence and secret miscarriages of justice in the 1950's when our Supreme Court carved out the National Security Exception which doesn't exist in our constitution when the state didn't want to prove their case. It got worse in the 2000s when the Ironically titled PATRIOT act came into being. The FISA court is just that – a secret kangaroo court that that reviews secret evidence, issues secret court orders and has perpetrated injustices. I think you learned from us not us from you.
I'll leave you with one final thought. The little country of Costa Rica, just south of Nicaragua, was the target of a US fomented coup in 1948. When they got their civil government back a few years later, they disbanded the military. The Ticos still don't have a military or a coup. Why does Australia need one?
“If [Albanese] fails to secure Julian's release, Australia will cease to be sovereign”..... perhaps the issue is the other way around: Australia is not a sovereign state, the PM has no say. The sad part is, rather, that he does not even try!
John Pilger along with Wilfred Burchett and Julian Assange - and more recently Caitlin Johnstone - are the four Australian journalists of international repute whom I most admire and respect. I have just tried to contact the John Pilger www/site at the foot of the essay intro PL and each attempt was disallowed! In 1990 I was editing a couple of linked anthologies for OUP (Melbourne) designed for senior level secondary students in Australia. Exploring the cultural diversity of Australia with aspects of First Australians scattered throughout the thematically-based chapters. The text anthology (lots of short writing) was titled Made in Australia and John Pilger - along with other luminaries such as Tom Keneally (author of Schindler's Ark - later after Steven Spielberg's movie title change - Schindler's List) who was reflecting on all the Cool Hand Lukes who emerged in Australia as he went on author interviews - many indeed of Schindler's "factory" ended up in Australia - and polymath broadcaster Phillip Adams (an essay on bigotry and prejudice) made his essay: "Why I Love Australia" (written in the mid-1980s) available to me to include - free of charge. I never met John Pilger until at an art Exhibition at the Mori Gallery I attended in Sydney (2010 - recorded somewhere in one of my diaries) the work of one of Wilfred Burchett's sons, George Burchett - opened by John Pilger - at which he spoke of having just come from a meeting in the UK with Julian Assange. I was then not long returned from my many years in Japan - and endeavouring to make sense of a much changed political landscape in Australia. The images of the present Australian PM - Anthony Albanese - hob-nobbing with the ultra-Hindu nationalist PM Narendra Modi just two days ago (cricket diplomacy it was called - best buddies) then yesterday morning-walking with a US military minder in San Diego - no news of Julian Assange's release - says it all really - as much a quisling as the previous Australian LNP politicians and lapdogs of the US. So disappointing. John Pilger is totally correct on every point!
Ah, Mr. Pilger, you have it exactly backwards. You said: "Australia is said to be an inspiration for the master across the Pacific." The US created the secret courts and secret evidence and secret miscarriages of justice in the 1950's when our Supreme Court carved out the National Security Exception which doesn't exist in our constitution when the state didn't want to prove their case. It got worse in the 2000s when the Ironically titled PATRIOT act came into being. The FISA court is just that – a secret kangaroo court that that reviews secret evidence, issues secret court orders and has perpetrated injustices. I think you learned from us not us from you.
I'll leave you with one final thought. The little country of Costa Rica, just south of Nicaragua, was the target of a US fomented coup in 1948. When they got their civil government back a few years later, they disbanded the military. The Ticos still don't have a military or a coup. Why does Australia need one?