John Pilger and the war on democracy

I share many of John Pilger's prejudices, so I watched his 2007 documentary The War on Democracy last night on Maori Television. Maori TV shows somewhat out of date documentaries every Tuesday.  Current or out of date, we must be grateful for any serious program on our small screen. Anyway, though I accept that the CIA are bad guys, that the American policy of self interest, in the 'national interest' according to an awful CIA operative that Pilger held up for ridicule, is bad, there was something unsatisfactory about Pilger's account. Chavez was his great hero, and Chavez certainly came across as a likeable man,;the universal health care and almost universal literacy in Venezuela is admiral, if in fact it is true, but there are problems, and we know about these problems, not only in Venezuela, but also in Bolivia, Guatamala, Nicaragua, and the other countries Pilger covered, these problems however were left unexplored. Why are these countries so poor? Why did they not make the progress that the countries of South East Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, made? Is there something patronizing in accepting that these are countries of poor peasants, seeking dignity, freedom from oppression and exploitation, but not fussed about significant economic progress. Pilger criticizes Chile for its economic success, driven by neo-liberal economics, while the poor are still poor. He doesn't consider that China's economic miracle started with low wage workers making by hand things the market wanted, before these low wage workers or their children acquired new skills, built cars, aeroplanes and sophisticated gadget, and a whole generation moved from great poverty to reasonable affluence. Pilger admits that American policy has changed. They no longer murder democratically elected politicians they don't like because their policies adversely affect American business interests,  but they have other ways of putting pressure on countries. These pressures are evident in New Zealand. The government flogged off some of the large state owned companies, and the Labour government of the 1980s like the government of Chile, flogged off everything that that had any value. Now there are big issues with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would give  rights to American companies, like pharmaceutical and tobacco companies to sue the government if they see their commercial interests threatened. A question in the back of my mind is: had we followed the "Think Big' economic policies of the Muldoon government, hung on to our assets and reinvested them, fostered local economic initiatives, would we be better off now, would New Zealand be a more self-sufficient economically dynamic country? These are questions no one, except Hugh Templeton, a minister in the Muldoon cabinet and I dare to ask, because they run counter to the neo-liberal orthodox faith that has swept the world.