Tony Blair
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Media Lens: The Value of Blood – Sovereignty Shattered By Brute Force
It is astonishing to reflect, for example, that our mass media system is not in fact state-controlled. Who could guess from the unvarying support of our media corporations for mass violence committed by our government and its allies? From their eager demonisation of leaders and countries labelled ‘enemies’ of the state? From their consistent indifference… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Demolishing Lebanon – Part 1
The rules are clear but never discussed – corporate reporters are free and happy to declare their personal views insofar as they accord with state interests, but not when they conflict. To criticise the powerful is to be ‘biased’ and ‘crusading’. To support the case made by power is to be ‘measured‘, ‘objective’ and ‘balanced’.… Continue reading
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Climate of Fear By William Bowles
So finally, the reality of global climate change hits the media? The BBC for example, is blasting the public with blood-curdling doccies with titles like ‘Climate Chaos’, the series, and they’ve roped in the venerable David Attenborough to host, along with the predictable line-up of ‘experts’ suitably equipped with charts and computer predictions of impending… Continue reading
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Wakey-Wakey! By William Bowles
I’m tempted to say that the British have, with Tony Blair’s corporatist, security state, gotten no better than they deserve. After all, though deeply in debt, by and large they live in a kind of comfort zone albeit one that insulates them from the realities of a world gone totally insane. Continue reading
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Beware the Ides of March By William Bowles
Unlike many of my brethren (and not for the first time), I am seem to be out of step about the apocalyptic visions that are currently populating the Webosphere concerning an immanent invasion of Iran. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Iraq Anniversary – BBC Whitewash
How could the war possibly be justified when the ‘justification’ was said by Tony Blair to be the “serious and current threat” posed by Iraqi WMD? And how can “disastrous miscalculation” be presented as the opposing argument? Continue reading
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One nation under the sleaze By William Bowles
L’affaire Berlusconi is just the latest in a long list of sleazy goings-on that reveals a cynical ruling class that long ago abandoned any pretence at representing the citizens and a labour government that is in bed with big capital in a big way. Cosy relationships such as the one Blair has with Berlusconi, darling… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Bambi Journalism – The Art Of Professional Naivety
9 January 2006 — Media Lens On October 20, 2005, we published a Media Alert, ‘Real Men Go To Tehran,’ www.medialens.org/alerts/05/051020_real_men_go_to_tehran.php We detailed media reactions after an anonymous British official had accused Iran of supplying Iraqi insurgents with sophisticated roadside bombs that had killed eight British soldiers and two security guards since May, 2005. Tony Continue reading
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Media Lens: Real Men Go To Tehran
20 October 2005 — Media Lens The Roman historian Tacitus observed: “Crime once exposed has no refuge but in audacity.” What better example than Tony Blair’s declaration at an October 7 press conference: “There is no justification for Iran or any other country interfering in Iraq.”? (Adrian Blomfield and Anton La Guardia, ‘Stop meddling in Continue reading
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Mantra politics By William Bowles
Once the state acquires such draconian powers it is unlikely to give them up voluntarily. We need only look at countries that have adopted comparable laws whether it be Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, through to the various Latin American dictatorships and how they were removed, not that removing them necessarily guarantees removal of the… Continue reading
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Jive8: Bob Geldof does damage control for international war criminal By William Bowles
The last few weeks have seen a gigantic propaganda onslaught by the state and corporate interests to confuse, misdirect and finally channel peoples’ concerns anywhere except where they truly belong, that is, directed at big business and the political class that represents them, that has for hundreds of years raped Africa and the rest of… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Conspiracy – The Downing Street Memo – Part 2
Imagine our surprise, then, when we finally got round to reading Smith’s original May 1 article, including the memo itself, and found that the real story was the revelation that Straw and Blair had conspired to use inspections to lure Saddam into obstructing the UN, so providing an excuse for war. By implication, the leaks… Continue reading
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Crunch time in ‘old’ Europe By William Bowles
The only option for the Blair government is to try and force its agenda onto the EU or pull out of the EU which is simply not a practical solution, economic integration is just too far developed. It would mean dumping a slew of legislation passed over the past thirty-plus years! A gargantuan and immensely… Continue reading
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Downing Street Memos – the silence is deafening by William Bowles
As the memos pour forth from who knows where (somebody on the inside is obviously very pissed off with the actions of the Blair government), aside from the two articles in the Sunday Times, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain not a single mainstream media outlet in the UK has picked up on… Continue reading
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Why I’m still a lefty or the rake’s progress by William Bowles
I’ve come to the conclusion that the UK exists in some kind of parallel universe, outside of normal space and time. A medieval bubble of a place, where ‘tradition’ has replace reason, where animals engender more concern than people. A place where mediocrity rules and which appears to be hurtling back into the past at… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Burying the Legal Advice for War – Part 2
The following day, this astonishing exposé of government lying and criminality was simply dropped by the broadcast media. There was not one substantive discussion of the legal advice on BBC 18:00 News, the ITN 18:30 News, or the Channel 4 19:00 News. The issue was almost completely invisible in the days that followed. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Burying the Legal Advice for War – Part 1
Marr was clearly using the idea that the Attorney General had not declared the war illegal in his March 7 advice as a reason for dismissing the story as a damp squib. The briefest of glances at earlier media coverage indicates what a mendacious liberal herring this was. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Walking Over Corpses – The New Statesman and the Guardian on Voting Labour
In the New Statesman, the editor declares that despite “Mr Blair’s prosecution of a murderous, illegal war” two considerations “compel a Labour vote on 5 May”. Not a strategic vote, notice, not a vote to rein in and punish Blair without empowering the Tories – we are compelled simply to vote Labour. Continue reading
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A life out of balance By William Bowles
A reader turned me onto two movies this past week, ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ (or on Amazon.com) the Hopi word for a ‘Life out of balance’ and, ‘Powaqqatsi’, ‘Life in Transformation’ both of which I recommend not only for the way they reveal the staggering beauty of Planet Earth but of how they compare our natural Home to… Continue reading
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Media Lens: No Politics – Only Elections
Issues like the environment, foreign policy, poverty and defence were “all but invisible”. (Golding, email to Media Lens, June 10, 2001) Defence, for example, comprised 0.6 percent of reporting. There was no mention of New Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” deception, of the non-existent “genocide” used as a pretext for Blair’s bombing of Serbia, of his… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 