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Comment by andrewjl | Hacker News Reader

I'm well familiar with the directors other work to know he has next to zero credibility on economic issues. And after reading the directors quotes on the 2016 election[1], I don't think he has any credibility period.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger

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Your rejection of Pilger is baseless and your reduction of his works as dealing with `economic issues' is equally so. Your comments reminds me of Slavoj Zizek's phrase: ideological par excellence in that while you're free to think of Pilger as you want, even biased, you're not absolved of similar issues.

Putting the topic on its head, he is still widely respected in academia by amongst others, IIRC, Chomsky

I never reduced his works to dealing with economic issues and saying so is a misreading of what I wrote. What I meant was that the aspects of his work that do focus on economic issues betray a lack of technical understanding and a clear ideological agenda that biases presentation. The former is especially useful to the latter in that it uses deliberate ambiguities to allow one to sprout falsehoods via false analogy and omission. One can then lie by stating facts, selectively.

If that's what you enjoy watching, that's cool man, but just keep in mind it's fiction and is of very little practical use besides entertainment value. Definitely don't try to build a political movement based on it! Unless you want it to fail. Repeatedly.

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