There can’t be democracy and colonial war; one aspires to decency, the other to fascism. Meanwhile, once welcomed mavericks are heretics now in an underground of journalism amid a landscape of mendacious conformity.
Sen. McCarthy, center, confers with Roy Cohn, chief counsel for House Un-American Activities Committee, Aug. 23, 1953. (Los Angeles Times/UCLA Library/Wikimedia Commons)
By John Pilger
Special to Consortium News
Spartacus was a 1960 Hollywood film based on a book written secretly by the blacklisted novelist Howard Fast, and adapted by the screenplay writer Dalton Trumbo, one of the ‘Hollywood 10’ who were banned for their ‘un-American’ politics. It is a parable of resistance and heroism that speaks unreservedly to our own times.
Both writers were Communists and victims of Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, which, during the Cold War, destroyed the careers and often the lives of those principled and courageous enough to stand up to a homegrown fascism in America.
‘This is a sharp time, now, a precise time …’ wrote Arthur Miller in The Crucible, ‘We live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world.’
There is one ‘precise’ provocateur now; it is clear to see for those who want to see it and foretell its actions. It is a gang of states led by the United States whose stated objective is ‘full spectrum dominance’. Russia is still the hated one, Red China the feared one.
From Washington and London, the virulence has no limit. Israel, the colonial anachronism and unleashed attack dog, is armed to the teeth and granted historical impunity so that ‘we’ the West ensure the blood and tears never dry in Palestine.
British MPs who dare call for a ceasefire in Gaza are banished, the iron door of two-party politics closed to them by a Labour leader who would withhold water and food from the children.
In McCarthy’s time, there were bolt holes of truth. Mavericks welcomed then are heretics now; an underground of journalism exists (such as this site) in a landscape of mendacious conformity. Dissenting journalists have been defenestrated from the “mainstream” (as the great editor David Bowman wrote); the media’s task is to invert the truth and support the illusions of democracy, including a “free press.”
Social Democracy has shrunk to the width of a cigarette paper that separates the principal policies of major parties. Their one subscription is to a capitalist cult, neoliberalism, and an imposed poverty described by a U.N. special rapporteur as “the immiseration of a significant part of the British population.”
War today is an unmoving shadow; “forever” imperial wars are designated normal. Iraq, the model, is destroyed at a cost of a million lives and three million dispossessed. The destroyer, Blair, is personally enriched and fawned over at his party’s conference as an electoral winner.
Blair and his moral counter, Julian Assange, live 14 miles apart, one in a Regency mansion, the other in a cell awaiting extradition to hell.
Julian Assange inside London’s harsh high-security Belmarsh Prison. (Taken covertly by an unknown fellow prisoner)
According to a Brown University study, since 9/11, almost six million men, women and children have been killed by America and its acolytes in the “Global War on Terror.” A monument is to be built in Washington in “celebration” of this mass murder; its committee is chaired by the former president, George W. Bush, Blair’s mentor. Afghanistan, where it started, was finally laid to waste when President Biden stole its national bank reserves.
There have been many Afghanistans. The forensic William Blum devoted himself to making sense of a state terrorism that seldom spoke its name and so requires repetition: In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries. It has attempted to murder countless leaders.
Perhaps I hear some of you saying: that is enough. As the Final Solution of Gaza is broadcast live to millions, the small faces of its victims etched in bombed rubble, framed between TV commercials for cars and pizza, yes, that is surely enough. How profane is that word “enough”?
Afghanistan was where the West sent young men weighed down with the ritual of “warriors” to kill people and enjoy it. We know some of them enjoyed it from the evidence of Australian SAS sociopaths, including a photograph of them drinking from an Afghan man’s prosthetic.
Not one sociopath has been charged for this and crimes such as kicking a man over a cliff, gunning down children point-blank, slitting throats: none of it “in battle.” David McBride, a former Australian military lawyer who served twice in Afghanistan, was a ‘true believer’ in the system as moral and honourable. He also has an abiding belief in truth, and loyalty. He can define them as few can. This coming week he is in court in Canberra as an alleged criminal.
“An Australian whistleblower,” reports Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer at the Australian Human Rights Law Centre, “[will face] trial for blowing the whistle on horrendous wrongdoing. It is profoundly unjust that the first person on trial for war crimes in Afghanistan is the whistle blower and not an alleged war criminal.”
David McBride (Sydney Criminal Lawyers)
McBride can receive a sentence of up to 100 years for revealing the cover-up of the great crime of Afghanistan. He tried to exercise his legal right as a whistleblower under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which the current attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, says “delivers on our promise to strengthen protections for public sector whistleblowers.”
Yet it is Dreyfus, a Labor minister, who signed off on the McBride trial following a punitive wait of four years and eight months since his arrest at Sydney airport: a wait that shredded his health and family.
Those who know David and know of the hideous injustice done to him fill his street in Bondi near the beach in Sydney to wave their encouragement to this good and decent man. To them, and me, he is a hero.
McBride was affronted by what he found in the files he was ordered to inspect. Here was evidence of crimes and their cover-up. He passed hundreds of secret documents to the the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Sydney Morning Herald. Police raided the ABC’s offices in Sydney while reporters and producers watched, shocked, as their computers were confiscated by the Federal Police.
Attorney-General Dreyfus, self-declared liberal reformer and friend of whistleblowers, has the singular power to stop the McBride trial. A Freedom of Information search of his actions in this direction reveals little, at most, an indifference.
You can’t run a fully-fledged democracy and a colonial war; one aspires to decency, the other is a form of fascism, regardless of its pretensions. Mark the killing fields of Gaza, bombed to dust by apartheid Israel. It is no coincidence that in rich, yet impoverished Britain an “inquiry” is currently being held into the gunning down by British SAS soldiers of 80 Afghans, all civilians, including a couple in bed.
The grotesque injustice meted out to David McBride is minted from the injustice consuming his compatriot, Julian Assange. Both are friends of mine. Whenever I see them, I am optimistic. ‘You cheer me,’ I tell Julian as he raises a defiant fist at the end of our visiting period. ‘You make me feel proud,’ I tell David at our favourite coffee shop in Sydney.
Their bravery has allowed many of us, who might despair, to understand the real meaning of a resistance we all share if we want to prevent the conquest of us, our conscience, our self respect, if we prefer freedom and decency to compliance and collusion. In this, we are all Spartacus.
Spartacus was the rebellious leader of Rome’s slaves in 71-73 B.C. There is a thrilling moment in the Kirk Douglas movie Spartacus when the Romans call on Spartacus’s men to identify their leader and so be pardoned. Instead hundreds of his comrades stand and raise their fists in solidarity and shout, ‘I am Spartacus!’ The rebellion is under way.
Julian and David are Spartacus. The Palestinians are Spartacus. People who fill the streets with flags and principle and solidarity are Spartacus. We are all Spartacus if we want to be.
John Pilger has twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism and has been International Reporter of the Year, News Reporter of the Year and Descriptive Writer of the Year. He has made 61 documentary films and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Royal Television Society prize. His Cambodia Year Zero is named as one of the ten most important films of the 20th century. He is the winner of Consortium News’ 2023 Gary Webb Award. He can be contacted at www.johnpilger.com and on X @johnpilger.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
CORRECTION: McCarthy was chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate.
From Carl Jung: The State has taken the place of God; that is why, seen from this angle, the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship. But the religious function cannot be dislocated and falsified in this way without giving rise to secret doubts, which are immediately repressed so as to avoid conflict with the prevailing trend towards mass-mindedness.
The result, as always in such cases, is overcompensation in the form of fanaticism, which in its turn is used as a weapon for stamping out the least flicker of opposition. Free opinion is stifled and moral decision ruthlessly suppressed, on the plea that the end justifies the means, even the vilest. The policy of the State is exalted to a creed, the leader or party boss becomes a demi-god beyond good and evil, and his votaries are honored as heroes, martyrs, apostles, missionaries. There is only one truth and beside it no other. It is sacrosanct and above criticism. Anyone who thinks differently is a heretic, who, as we know from history, is threatened with all manner of unpleasant things.
Carl Gustav Jung, The Undiscovered Self, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958; Taylor and Francis eLibrary, 2005), 17, hxxps://fleurmach.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/jung-the-undiscovered-self-1957.pdf
Or, rather, is it the abscence of the spirit which would compel us to stand up for our brothers, for those who have the courage to stand up for us, that must be addressed?
We must address the presence of the spirit which prevents us from standing up right alongside good men like Julian and David. Every single time someone, like they, show the courage and the will to actually act and do something that can bring about change, our societies stand aside and do nothing as they watch men like these be crucified. It happens every time. Why? And, what is it going to take to change that?
Resolution to the UN regarding Palestine and Gaza 05/11/2023
250 words
1; In order to protest against the genocidal policies that the current administration in Tel Aviv are carrying out against the Palestinian People in Gaza, this resolution calls for the immediate diplomatic isolation of Israel, via closure of all of the statelets’ embassies of the Zionists, until this war crime against the Palestinian People in Gaza is stopped and also until such a time arrives that a 2-state solution, as defined by the UN is realized.
2; Also call for, if possible, the simultaneous opening of Palestinian embassies in all countries that support this resolution to close the Israeli embassies with the latter remaining closed until the 2-state solution, as defined by the UN, is realised.
3; Therefore, this resolution calls for the immediate closure of all the Israeli embassies in the world or in countries that support this resolution for the reasons given above.
4; In addition, this resolution calls therefore, for the immediate opening of Palestinian embassies in all of the countries of the world or in all countries that support this resolution and also if at this present time, countries are unable or unwilling to support this resolution calling for the immediate diplomatic isolation of Israel, via closure of the Zionist embassy in their own particular country, then in the event of such a scenario occurring, this resolution still calls for the immediate opening of a Palestinian embassy should such a scenario present itself.
as sigh:——- I don’t believe in any God—-it’s hard enough to believe in politicians. But for Israel to act as if they are somehow chosen people—well that makes no sense —-what are they chosen for besides murder and mayhem?
To read of the past and live in the present, but realize that no one’s future is guaranteed—-is it easier humans to have an evil overlord ( perhaps what some cll the devil—-) I do not understand the yes of “the other.” I do not recognize how America and the Uk and others do not see that Julian Assange is the most valuable man in the world—–he works for the truth of the world—and not wars.
As for America—well China , Russia and others will be taking over soon—-nothing you can do about it Biden and Blinken. It’s sad that you never were a real world leader—oh well, with a few more honest people, maybe we could have made America into something inspiring.
But—–We live in hypocrisy—and there’s nothing inspiring about that. : (
Did anybody catch where obama called for a two state solution a few days ago?
He did that with a straight face without apologizing for vetoing the UN resolution for a two state solution eight years in a row. If not for obama this problem would already be resolved.
obama is without a doubt the most hypocritical ex-president in memory.
Obama was no Profile in Courage, but to claim that he had the power to solve the issues of the Middle East is a dangerous stretch.
No. Obama is useless, but ne never had the power or ability to change the situation. The Israelis call the shots knowing that they will get what they want. Even if Obama wanted to do it, he would not have been able to.
Beautiful piece my friend.
Your comments were confirmed for me yesterday when the “chief political correspondent”, of a major mainstream Australian television station tried to ambush me Government talking points on my case. She had just stepped off the plane from covering our Prime Minister’s travels (favourably, of course, in thanks for the ‘privileged access’).
Praise from you confirms for me everything I fight for, and is like a shot in the arm. There may only be a few of us, but hearing your words give me the same sort of spark that those original gladiators felt to hear them ring out. We used to celebrate the glory of the Legion, but now I see the greatest bravery is in those who not only stand up, but do so in defiance and fellowship, a not a little gallows humour. We are Spartacus, as are all your lifelong supporters. Proud to stand as your friend, and Julians.
I’ll watch the movie tonight and think of you.
When I was a teenager, I heard a foreign leader call America to be ‘the Great Satan.’
I did not understand, then.
I was young, then.
I am no longer young, and so now I understand.
I’ve been thinking about that too–it was Khomeini (sp?) in Iran. Even speaking as a reactionary religious type, it was an apt description then as now.
If ‘we are Spartacus’, then why don’t I look out the window and see a slave rebellion?
Every person reading this article has more power at their disposal than the inmates of Gaza Prison.
The ‘celebration’ of Juneteenth says a lot about this country. They celebrate the end of slavery. They don’t celebrate date of America electing the anti-slavery, radical Lincoln. They don’t celebrate the date of the Emancipation Proclamation. They don’t celebrate the date of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Nope, the date they celebrate for the ‘end of slavery’ was the date when a Union General rode into Galveston, TX, months after the war was over (and the slaves had thus been freed) … and then informed the still working slaves of TX that they could now have permission to throw a party.
America does not celebrate the fight to end slavery. America celebrates the date when a general rode into town and gave permission.
There was a fight against the old blacklist of the 50’s. There is no fight against the modern blacklists that obviously have Hollywood churning out pro-corporate, pro-war dreck. America only dreams it is Spartacus. Then, the Woke go back to Work.
I am Antoninus!
I AM SPARTACUS!!!
Thank you my friend
We are all Spartacus! To the very last one.
“In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries. It has attempted to murder countless leaders.”
And in mostly my lifetime, too; I am 72, almost 73.
It is very sobering, and very painful for me as an American, to realize that it was not just the big bad Communists, the big bad Soviets, the big bad KGB, who were in the business of subverting and overthrowing democracies, for which we condemned them during the first Cold War, while America was allegedly and supposedly all about and all for freedom and democracy.
Pilger is excellent as always. Sadly, all the “West” is a fascistic oligarchy that controls all the means of violence. Resistance is useless. Now I need to go and do some more shouting.
I am Spartacus!
Mrs. Pilger hay varias formas de luchar, sin la necesidad de empuñar las armas asesinadas, una de ellas es la que usted hace en defensa de los desposeídos y olvidados del mundo. Continúe con ese brío sin arriar banderas ante los enemigos de la humanidad. Saludo de Lima, Perú.
Raffi Simonian, can you please explain why you call yourself Spartacus? What qualifies you? Does have anything to do with your Armenian ancestry?
Wars are evil fighting evil and evil wins, but provoking evil is considered wise by the unwise. The wars of civilization today may have even been spawned centuries and millennia before. Perhaps even a religion stolen and weaponized by Rome for antisemitism. And then a solution offloaded ease conscious of some and loaded over to others.
A reconciliation of all wars and times may be required for civilization to come to its senses and finally become civilized rather than destroyed by addiction to aggression and dominance behavior fueled by hatred and dehumanization.
Excellent invocation to courageous action! Thank you, CN and John Pilger.
I’m rereading Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, published more than a decade before the start of the second war to end all wars in which, incidently, he discloses a world bent on suicide. Things seem much worse now.
As with Assange, David McBride is being tormented for exposing the horrific crimes of the US empire. Vassal States, such as the UK and Australia, have lost all autonomy and serve their American master for fear of losing favor. And the sleep-walking masses go about their lives neither knowing nor caring what their governments are doing in their names and with their money.
Excellent comment!!! Exactly right, especially “the sleep-walking masses go about their lives neither knowing nor caring what their governments are doing in their names and with their money.” So true, unfortunately. JFK assassination, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, 9/11, COVID, Ukraine and now this in Gaza – all these for spreading “democracy”, defending our freedoms …. actually, it’s all for money so we can control the world.
Amen. The whole stated purpose of Australia sending troops to Afghanistan, thus ultimately sacrificing soldiers lives, and participating in the deaths of many thousands of Afghans, was to ‘strengthen the strategic alliance’, possibly the most awful debasing phrase in the English language.
Thank you once more John Pilger. Please continue to shine a light on darkness.
Agreed…
This is a great article by John Pilger!
Ditto on all the above (below)
Here! Here! Amidst the tears this morning, my fist rises Yes! Yes! Yes!
to freedom and decency –over compliance, collusion and deceit!
Long live (the) Spartacus (in me, in us). May the Force be with us!!
Americans are not Spartacus. We have become spineless lapdogs of the Zionists. If we were brave we’d do the right thing…we would cut off all funding and arms to Israel. We’d stop electing Zionists to any political office. We’d take away their tax shelters. We’d allow any US citizen to boycott Israel…without fear 0f reprisal by the state. We would shed the fear that they have instilled in us. We would be proud to cry out:
“I AM SPARTACUS ! “
Amen!
We would halt the practice of allowing any foreign government to “lobby” our elected leaders. We would sever relations with any country that tolerates apartheid.
“I AM SPARTACUS! “
Great article!
Thank you
Bless you, John Pilger.
And as ever, Consortium News.
Both beacons of light in this tawdry age of the neocons.
Pilger is one gutsy writer, and one wonders when “they” will come to silence him. As we witness American-led carnage around the world, presently manifest in the unbelievable brutality of the Gazan massacre, there are calls from every corner of the planet demanding it stop, but these calls are ignored by the neo-Con cabal leading us into more endless war.
And one recent victim, of which presently we hear next to nothing, is the issue of Climate Change. Do we think this non-stop bombing of trapped civilians is carbon-neutral?
Exactly, gcw919!
We can all gladly compost and recycle, forego plastic drinking straws and plastic shopping bags, and use ‘keep cups’ at cafes. But that amounts to a drop in the ocean when placed against pollution from the Nordstream destruction and the almighty US war machine.
What a brilliant article, I didn’t know anything about the McBride case until now, well, what do you expect from the msm bbc & itv news channels.
Thank you John
No, me neither. Will be interesting to see if it is covered by The Guardian’s Australian edition. In their UK edition what they call ‘moderation’ in Comments BTL has been off the scale since the beginning of October… But then again given The Guardian’s shameful treatment of Assange, I don’t know why I am at all surprised. The founders of The Manchester Guardian will be turning in their graves.
Fantasy
Resolution to the UN regarding Palestine and Gaza 05/11/2023
250 words
1; In order to protest against the genocidal policies that the current administration in Tel Aviv are carrying out against the Palestinian People in Gaza, this resolution calls for the immediate diplomatic isolation of Israel, via closure of all of the statelets’ embassies of the Zionists, until this war crime against the Palestinian People in Gaza is stopped and also until such a time arrives that a 2-state solution, as defined by the UN is realized.
2; Also call for, if possible, the simultaneous opening of Palestinian embassies in all countries that support this resolution to close the Israeli embassies with the latter remaining closed until the 2-state solution, as defined by the UN, is realised.
3; Therefore, this resolution calls for the immediate closure of all the Israeli embassies in the world or in countries that support this resolution for the reasons given above.
4; In addition, this resolution calls therefore, for the immediate opening of Palestinian embassies in all of the countries of the world or in all countries that support this resolution and also if at this present time, countries are unable or unwilling to support this resolution calling for the immediate diplomatic isolation of Israel, via closure of the Zionist embassy in their own particular country, then in the event of such a scenario occurring, this resolution still calls for the immediate opening of a Palestinian embassy should such a scenario present itself.