Official Truths Are Often Powerful Illusions.

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.

An Elite Group Of Less Than A Billion People Now Take More Than 80 Per Cent Of The World's Wealth.

The People Who Died In The Twin Towers In That Terrible Crime Mattered. The People Who Were Bombed To Death In Dusty Villages In Afghanistan Didn't Matter, Even Though It Now Seems That Their Numbers Were Greater. The People Who Will Die In Iraq Don't Matter.

The Major Western Democracies Are Moving Towards Corporatism. Democracy Has Become A Business Plan, With A Bottom Line For Every Human Activity, Every Dream, Every Decency, Every Hope. The Main Parliamentary Parties Are Now Devoted To The Same Economic Policies - Socialism For The Rich, Capitalism For The Poor - And The Same Foreign Policy Of Servility To Endless War. This Is Not Democracy. It Is To Politics What Mcdonalds Is To Food.

Israel Is The American Watchdog In The Middle East, And That's Why The Palestinians Remain Victims Of One Of The Longest Military Occupations.