Now pilgerize me a bit, please

The shock an awe techniques of some famous journalists have never failed to shock an awe me. Not exactly in the way the authors intended, though. I am continuously shocked and awed by the shameless ways some people choose to create a scoop, to attract attention or just to pursue a political end they desire most.

This article by the famous (or odious, you choose) John Pilger is a good example of shock and awe genre. It starts with (borrowed) image of Jews being led to a concentration camp, supposedly to focus your attention. The image is swiftly superimposed by the image of British public "being led towards perhaps the most serious crisis in modern history". Do you see the subtly drawn parallel? If not, you must be a running lackey dog of capitalist Zionist neocons.

To compound the shock, Pilger piles on an awful image of the usual suspects (the word "cabal" will appear later in the article, no worries) contriving a nuclear holocaust for 70 million Iranians:

The Bush administration, in secret connivance with Blair, has spent four years preparing for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Forty-five cruise missiles are primed to strike. According to General Leonid Ivashov, Russia's leading strategic thinker: "Nuclear facilities will be secondary targets, and there are 20 such facilities. Combat nuclear weapons may be used, and this will result in the radioactive contamination of all the Iranian territory, and beyond."

A secret connivance, 45 (why precisely 45?) cruise missiles "primed to strike", combat nuclear weapon, horrible death of Iranians, whatnot...

The rest of the article is not much better, resorting to histrionics like "non-existent weapons of mass destruction" (no one said yet that they already exist in Iran, but who cares?) or outright lies like "Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

It is not for nothing that another expert in bullshitting the masses and deftly ignoring inconvenient facts, one Noam Chomsky, stood up in defence of a colleague:

Noam Chomsky has claimed that the reason why journalists have invented the terms 'to pilger' and 'pilgerize' is because, when faced with the uncomfortable facts about the consequences of U.S foreign policy that Pilger presents, 'ridicule' is the only response they are capable of.

See who is talking about "uncomfortable facts"? It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad, really...

But all this is a matter of pilgerizing. What is remarkable in the article is the consistency of drawing the Nazi parallel.

On April 6 Blair accused "elements of the Iranian regime" of "financing, arming and supporting terrorism in Iraq". He offered no evidence, and the MoD has none. This is the same Goebbels-like refrain with which he and his coterie, Brown included, brought an epic bloodletting to Iraq.

Do you see what I see? If not... but I have already mentioned it.

So, John, pilgerize me back a bit more, OK? No no, a bit lower... now a bit to the right... yes, that's the spot... oh boy...

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