Click here to access article by John Pilger from his website.
I am posting this article only because of its shortcomings that I think should be addressed.
Pilger continues his practice of condemning nearly every official leader of the Empire, corporate media for their warmongering, and the pervasive nationalist propaganda that seems to exist everywhere in the US. However he fails, or refuses, to look deeper at the forces that drive people to promote the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Such superficial and cynical critiques, I think, serves not to enlarge people's understanding of the real world to that they can take effective actions to change things, but instead drives them into cynicism and despair.
Pilger offers critiques that are more scathing than most, but unfortunately he is much too typical of the many that one can find on the web. I often wonder about this. Are these people really that shallow or do they limit their analysis because they are afraid of going after the real puppet masters who pull all the important strings of the Empire, and their system which they so vigorously protect? If this is so, then they differ only in degree from the people they attack.
Bear with me here because I don't like criticizing people like Pilger. But, it seems to me the difference is that many critics like Pilger refuse to go deeper because they fear doing so might bring repercussions to the modest perks they enjoy, while those who allow themselves to be used as puppets do so for all the abundant material rewards they will come their way. To be a real revolutionary requires one to live fearlessly, but that is asking a lot of people who have families, some security and comforts.
We are all faced at times to deal with threats and rewards from powerful agents of capital, and even the best of us make compromises. I have, and I refuse to any longer, but that may be because I am an old man who has lived a full life. Now the threats to humans are of such an enormous scale that if most of us continue to do this, we as humans will surely perish from the Earth.
Anyway, if you have read his commentaries before, I think you can pass on this one.
