This article, the story, the writing is so great and I have become so much a part of it when suddenly I am thrown off by RED lettering that states: "Stay informed with free Truthout updates delivered straight to your email inbox. Click here to sign up."

I don't want to be informed more than I am in the moment, I don't wish to be distracted by advertising. Please stop placing ads in the middle of such great story! Just Wait till the end of the article, then is when I an absorb the invitation and act on it. You make it feel so commercial when this is alternative media. Please act alternatively in placing the ads, give respect to both reader and writer. I understand and support your growth but don't turn me away by killing exactly why I'm here to begin with. I would appreciate this consideration!

Thanks for the larger story.

Just remember that in USA that it happened few months back, those coal miners in W Virginia got entombed. You can guaranteed that if it happens in USA, you WILL get killed.
More in line with likes of airline...you are better off dead than alive and injured. Mo' money!

Thank you, John Pilger! We NEED to know the truth. Those commenters who are offended by hearing the truth of Chile should be ashamed. It isn't a matter of Pilger's need to be the first to tell the truth - he's been doing precisely that for decades. It's that we need to know the truth behind the effective lie of the miners' rescue.

It doesn't mean you can't rejoice at the good fortune a lucky few - but that you must not allow it to redirect your attention away from the bigger reality. Chile is a horribly corrupt nation that routinely allows miners to be brutally treated, underpaid, and killed for the benefit of the elite.

If Pilger made you uncomfortable, then that's wonderful. You need to be.

Watching the staged ceremonial images on CBC and CNN it was sickeningly obvious that presidential photo op was all over this spectacle. I was reminded of the right-wing politicians who lined the TV screen in Caracas during the April 2002 coup when big business re-define democracy for Venezuela's citizens. The symbolic message, "See how we care for our workers in Chile?" was betrayed by the polished, rehearsed, and chilling program, the planning of which, was worthy of Joseph Goebbels.

My, my we are sensitive! Can't stand a bit of truth at a
time when the world is paying attention? What Pilger says is true and well-documented and we need to remember.

I am a glass half-full kind of guy.

As a person with an intimate acquaintance with Chile, I can give you a hundred examples of how Chile has come a very long way since the Pinochet years. Not perfect, but then, what country is?

Sure, the Piñera government is anxious to get some mileage out of this. Who wouldn't?

But it is a fact that they organized and paid for a gigantic effort to get these guys out alive.

It is also a fact that there are responsible parties, and they are being held to account.

It is a fact that there is complete transparency in the coverage of this drama.

Compare all of those facts to the recent coal mine disaster in the USA.

Oh and by the way, the re-opening of the mine was approved by Bachelet government officials, during her pristine government.

Finally, it is GOOD NEWS, for once. Let's enjoy it and empathize with the families and the miners.

Viva Chile, mierda!!!

They say Nero was playing his fiddle as Rome burned, celebrating what I wonder? No doubt he was surrounded by people clapping & cheering.....

Piñera privatized the pension funds of the workers but not the pension of the military. Why is that privatized pension is good for civilians and not for the military? On the other hand Chile has given a lesson to countries like ours. They saved these 33 miners and we are still in debt with the Katrina’s victims, our veterans and those affected by the impact of 9/11.

John Pilger is saying what I was thinking as I watched the media circus and PR exercise taking place on TV....good on the rescuers and the great job they did...but call me cynical...Chile is not a great example of a functioning democracy !!!!

Your commentary is mean spirited, Mr Pilger, and ill-timed. And your interpretation of history is faulty. How naive to cast Allende as "the great democrat and reformer." Allende destroyed the Chilean economy and social institutions, and the women who marched through Santiago's streets before his fall were common people who suffered greatly under his regime, not of the aristocracy. If you had visited Chile in 1973 as I did and found the restaurants plying customers with wine and bread so they would not notice after a while that there was no food, or tried to hail a taxi with meters tied to the official rate of exchange when the real rate was 10 or 12 times as much, you would know how hollow and destructive Allende's "reforms" were. None of this is to excuse the horrors of the Pinochet regime and its remnants extant until today, but what you miss is that Allende created Pinochet, and without Allende there would not have been a Pinochet. Give the Chileanos credit for what they have accomplished pulling away from both of those terrible eras, and particularly on a day that they have set an example of faith and crisis management for the world to emulate.

Can the USAmericans who are whining about having their mythology-moment spoilt take note of Pilger's final sentence:

The reason why this article could not wait is that the President of Chile's visit to London, Paris and Berlin is IMMINENT.

So, if you want us to miss an opportunity, then yes, let's let you sit and raise a toast and savour the moment until the moment has gone.

The preposterous right-wing distortions in the comment by Richard Pigossi are quite disturbing to anyone who has studied in some depth what happened in Chile before and after the bloody coup d'etat of 1973. As in Guatemala earlier, the overthrow of a democratic, elected government was planned and "assisted" by the US. Kissinger openly vowed to make Chile's economy scream and he succeeded in totally disrupting life in Chile prior to the coup. It is not surprising that in 1973 there were food shortages. If so, they were "made in Washington" and not by Salvador Allende.
As for Pinochet, first and foremost he was the brutal servant of US corporations who refused to pay fair prices for Chile's copper.
To blame Allende for creating this monster is absurd.
I am ashamed of what the power-mad Kissinger did to Chile and disturbed that - as Pilger has shown us - the country still has a long way to go before fascist elements that are remnants of the past are eliminated.
Pilger is a great journalist. We need to heed what he has observed. Let's urge our President to press for humanitarian reforms in Chile and higher mine safety standards both here and in Chile.

Richard Pigossi's comment is exactly correct. The irresponsible, anti-democratic policies of Salvador Allende created the Pinochet regime.

Just because the electorate of Chile elects leaders who are not resolutely anti-American does not call into question the legitimacy of their democracy. Likewise, Venezuela should not be praised as an "independent democracy" solely because their democratically elected leader spews anti-Americanism. A comparison of Venezuela and Chile shows the former's system of government to be wrought with cronyism, corruption, an overly influential executive and ineffective social programs intended to win the votes of the poor. You tell me whether Venezuelans or Chileans have more "independence."

It is pathetic that the masses of international "journalists" in Chile over recent weeks have not explored other stories, such as the Mapeche hunger strike. They willingly became part of a very skillfully managed Chilean public relations campaign. Ugh!

Thank you, John Pilger, for setting the record straight.

While I appreciate the educated article I questioned what was the point in talking about Pinochet when the whole world is celebrating the release of guys we supposed would die. Their story of survival is no doubt a great human story, and in the world in which we live I hope it is they who profit from the bestselling books, T shirts, and movies, that will no doubt be on our screens for years to come. However the last paragraph about the hunger strikers is almost as insulting to those who are refusing to eat, as both Chile and the worlds refusal to take this opportunity to look at their plight. A story that perhaps started with highlighting them in the wake of the miners freedom, and then explaining their plight would have gone far more to moving people to action than a long tirade about Pinochet, Allende, the brits and the Yanks... I am too, very tired of reading what's wrong. I firmly believe if we focus on what is right in our world, the world itself will follow. But hey, don't let me knock you. My point is, history is, the present  is the  miners and hunger strikers. Give us more, give it to us sooner, the hunger striker story could have been done as an investigation into Chile when the miners story broke, and if the issue Mr Pilger is trying to raise is the hunger strikes, then please target more precisely your pieces. This just comes off as a bitter history lesson from a man who is an eternal pessimist, which I hope is not the case. Many thanks for you continued fight for justice and journalism"
 

Ok, fair enough. There is a rather systematic neglect of safety standards by government agencies in matters of mining among other industries. This is not new but it is certainly not the monopoly of Chile. The US does not have a very good record. REmember BP?
Now, the media circus which gave us 69 untinterrupted days of Rocky style emotional pornography is not interesting in its relation to the political history of the country but rather as a representation of the present. Bare in mind that the beneficiary of this story of fear, trembling and resurrection was narrated in the context of a new right--neo liberal style--government.

Martin Gak
The Radical Secularist . com

All true as far as it goes, but for the uninitiaed, it would appear that the Pinera government followed Pinochet, thus overlooking 15 years + of socialist governments that have in their own way done quite a lot in Chile.

Great resources will be put into rescuing a kitten from a drainpipe if the television news gets the story for their 5 o clock. Meanwhile factory farms perpetrate horrible treatment to their "product" and no one cares. Sentimentality is the shallowest of emotions. I salute those that worked so hard to get those miners rescued, and the kitten from the drain. If only all stories that need reporting could have the same appeal.