Hidden Agendas

by John Pilger

Book Overview

In these passionate reports from Vietnam, South Africa, and Burma, award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger gives the unfiltered truth about worldwide struggles for justice and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0099741512
• ISBN13: 9780099741510
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 720 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Journalism - a rarity in 'Western' countries

Pilger's book covers various different stories effectively, but the common theme is exploitation of people and global resources, firstly by European imperialism, then by it's American successor.Some principal areas covered are: Burma and Indonesia - very useful for anyone considering an 'exotic' holiday in either location; the effects of sanctions on Iraq's civilian population; the British armaments industry and how during the past 20 years it has been the only manufacturing actively supported by government; the demise of journalism and the rise of 'infotainment'There are also precious few journalists willing to expose the lies beneath the veneer of Blair's so-called 'new' Britain. There are also some incisive insights into his native Australia.Pilger writes with compassion and dry wit. An essential book

Biting, scathing and ultimately brilliant

John Pilger, the Australian documentarian and journalist has collected some of most scathing recent pieces in this book. Like his kindred spirit Noam Chomsky, Pilger doggedly pursues the Truth as he sees it or finds it, as disturbing as it is,. Here, he seizes uopn the indifference on east Timor, Cambodia and the senseless.obscene embargo on Iraq.{the current president during the last campaign was asked about the situation in east Timor. Hiis response:"if the people of east timor rise up in revolt, I'll have a comment then." When informed that they had, in fact a YEAR BEFORE, he smiled and shrugged}Pilger and Chomsky and Ed Said and others are consigned to the "far left" part of the spectrum, only because in this country the enitre pictur is controlled by huge corporations, thereby far right wingers. This is so sad in that it leads to no debate,and no action. No wonder the political lanscape is so sterile,and that Pilgers words ring so true.The hypocricy on Cambodia and Iraq at high levels is repugnant. this book helps bring some of that darkness into light.

A British Perspective on the New World Order

Though the perspective of this book is from Great Britain, the issues discussed in it certainly apply to and should interest the citizens of all countries.The world Pilger describes is one where the power of multinational corporations is ever increasing at the expense of the rest of us. In Australia and the United States, wages are stagnating or declining for the majority of the population and full time, secure employment is greatly diminishing in favor of part time, service oriented, insecure, low wage type of work, a major factor why the American economy is "booming" as we are constanly assured by its pundits. The "outsourcing" of employment to cheap, repressed, sweatshop labor in countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Burma will only perpetuate this system. It is a world where the major industrial powers can attempt to put together an agreement called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment at the Organization For Economic And Commercial Development (OECD) that would abolish laws in its signatory countries protecting labor, consumers, the environement, etc. and services for the general population against transnational corporations and allow these corporations to sue governments at an international tribunal but make corporations immune from lawsuits by governments or citizens. It is a world where, at least in the United States, this treaty goes almost completely uncovered by the mainstream media. It is a world where the United States can back the murder by death squads of tens of thousands of people in Central America in the 80's yet its fulminations about the menace of terrorism against it are accepted unquestioningly by the Western media. In Australia, beginning with the Hawke labor government, and in the U.S. under the Reaganites, the standard of living for the general population greatly declined, poverty rates shot up, social services were cut, a very regressive tax system was instituted, and so on. But Britain, beginning with Thatcher,and continuing with "New Labor" tops them all. In Britain, childhood diseases which had been virtually extinct since the Victorian era made a reappearance as did widespread child malnutrition. Most of British industry was destroyed, one exception being the arms industry, receiving much of its research and development from British taxpayer money, as they receive taxpayer money from the subsidies given to fascist and genocidal governments like Turkey and Indonesia to purchase their murderous weapons. One particularly interesting example is the case of Robin Cook, the current foreign secretary, who while a Labor backbencher in the 70's and 80's vigorously denounced Labor and Tory governments for selling weapons to fascist and genocidal regimes such as Indonesia as it was committing the worst genocide relative to population since the Holocaust in East Timor. But by the time he became foreign secretary in 1997, he continued to support and even extended arms sales to Indone

Another winner from Pilger

Once again, John Pilger has looked beneath the smug, facile face of modern journalism to produce a book which tells the truth about issues across the world. From the horrors of Burma, to the hypocrisy of Anzac Day in Australia to poverty in Blair's New Britain, Pilger tells the truth that other journalists will not touch. Pilger is a thorn in the side of the establishment telling the stories that they would rather we didn't hear. Moreover, his writing style is accessible - you don't need a vocabulary the size of a dictionary to read his books. But most of all, Pilger is passionate about injustice and inequality and fighting to change these, and this most of all is what makes his books worth reading.