「今の仕事飽きちゃったなぁ」と悩んでいる人は、是非読んでみて下さい。
The thrust of author John Pilger's argument is essentially, "if you look at the 'right' places, pick the 'right' pieces, they all fit to explain that everything from Suharto's near-genocidal suppression of his people, the Iraqi people's suffering under UN sanctions, even his native Australia's treatment of the Aborigines, are part of a grand Western scheme to subjugate the world".
And here is where his arguments crumble--SELECTIVEly picking sources, testimony and data.
Any assertion is fine and deserves to be heard as it is presented and argued, true. But INTELLECTUAL AND JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY dictate that it be examined against ALL available facts, REGARDLESS of whether it ends up confirmed or dismantled. Yet Pilger sounded so breathlessly fired up by his indignation against world injustices that he does not even BOTHER to even FEIGN objectivity or balance--he simply SELF-ASSUREDly speeds on, displaying "consistent" one-sidedness. It is not what is expected of an OTHERWISE-brilliant mind--gone to waste by an unbridled tongue (or pen).
To his brandishing of countless "high-level UN and CIA sources", objective minds ought to say:
[1] give us one major organisation without disgruntled elements--
critics with no axe to grind;
[2] weed out the adjectives and conclusions--
just give us the VERIABLE FACTS, and
we shall pick our own adjectives and draw our own conclusions.
How much does that leave for Pilger to say?
Curious observation: his ONLY mention of Al Qaeda was to point out that George Bush Sr was consultant to the Bin Laden family.
Curious question: so how do the "Western Imperialists" go about their schemes--pick up the telephone, and give instructions to
Asian, African and Arab leaders? They who at remotest chance, rail against "intervention in domestic affairs".
Pilger has often been described as someone whom "a reader needs COURAGE to read through". But what I needed while reading this book was enough space between the eyelids left after squinting the eyes and furrowing the eyebrows in INCREDULITY that this is the same man twice-named Britain's Journalist of the Year. Any BBC commentator a tenth of Andrew Marr's intellectual prowess and eloqeunce has more credibility.
And until John Pilger learns to divide his intellectual basket space to accomodate both sides of the argument, weighing them in
order to lead himself to a plausible conclusion, instead of pre-selecting them . . . how is he distinguishable from loudmouths
we often see in the pubs just before closing time?
.
