It Is Time We Recognized

Since September 11, The Mirror Has Reached Back To Its Roots, And Decided, It Seems, To Be Something Of Its Old Self Again. I Received A Call Asking If I Would Write For It Again, Which I've Done. It's A Pleasure To Be Able To Do That. It's Become An Important Antidote To A Media That Is, Most Of It, Supportive Of The Establishment, Some Of It Quite Rabidly Rightwing. The Mirror Is Breaking Ranks, And That's Good News.

Orwell Is Almost Our Litmus Test. Some Of His Satirical Writing Looks Like Reality These Days. When You Have Someone Like Cheney Who Talks About "endless War" Or War That Might Last Fifty Years, He Could Be Big Brother. You Have Bush Incessantly Going On About The Evil Ones.

In Western Australia, Minerals Are Being Dug Up From Aboriginal Land And Shipped To China For A Profit Of A Billion Dollars A Week. In This, The Richest, 'booming' State, The Prisons Bulge With Stricken Aboriginal People, Including Juveniles Whose Mothers Stand At The Prison Gates, Pleading For Their Release. The Incarceration Of Black Australians Here Is Eight Times That Of Black South Africans During The Last Decade Of Apartheid.

The Attack On Iraq Has Been Long Planned. There Just Hasn't Been An Excuse For It. Since George H.w. Bush Didn't Unseat Saddam In 1991, There's Been A Longing Among The Extreme Right In The United States To Finish The Job. The War On Terrorism Has Given Them That Opportunity. Even Though The Logic Is Convoluted And Fraudulent, It Appears They Are Going To Go Ahead And Finish The Job.

Many Journalists Now Are No More Than Channelers And Echoers Of What Orwell Called The Official Truth. They Simply Cipher And Transmit Lies. It Really Grieves Me That So Many Of My Fellow Journalists Can Be So Manipulated That They Become Really What The French Describe As Functionaires, Functionaries, Not Journalists.