In today's Guardian we have John Pilger fulminating against people who purport to be attached to words like 'liberal', and 'democracy, reform... freedom', and 'liberal intervention'. If you were new to either the paper or the man you might be forgiven for taking away an impression that Pilger is himself to be counted amongst those he later refers to as 'people who still celebrate the virtues and triumphs of liberalism'.
But unless I'm very much mistaken this is the same John Pilger as the one who thought we 'cannot afford to be choosy' in supporting movements that deliberately kill civilians and Red Cross and UN personnel; the same John Pilger as the one who, in the wake of the Madrid bombings, was willing to 'derive' the motivation for terrorist murder from the long struggle against empire; the same as he who could write quite unselfconsciously of how safe he used to feel in Saddam's Iraq; and as he for whom Hizbollah represents humanity at its noblest. It is, I believe, the same John Pilger as the one lately spotted in Greater Surbiton.
It is no wonder, given that this John Pilger looks like being the very same man as that John Pilger, that he just can't get enough of denouncing the undemocratic system he lives under, run by people whose actions are 'little different from' the actions of fascists. Pilger enjoys the rights and protections of that system, avails himself of its resources and opportunities - and denounces it day in and day out while expressing his support and making excuses for forces that have about as much respect for democracy and freedom as does a bomb on a school bus.