Shaking the Foundations - Corporate media realigns itself

[Kellanved]

Corporate media realigns itself as revelations of bogus justifications for war shake the two-party system

It's a little odd that as soon as discourse over why the United States and Britain went to war against Iraq began to get interesting it had quickly taken a back seat to other less important questions, ultimately fading from view altogether. At one point it seemed that both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would be shown to have started the war on false pretenses. But the thrust of the discourse suddenly stopped, shifted a little, and then changed course altogether.

In retrospect, it can be easily seen why mass media discourse on the reasons behind the war was suddenly dropped. It was going too far out of control. In fact, it threatened to shake the very foundations of the two-party system in the US, thereby jeopardizing the dominant position of the incumbents. Uncomfortable questions pertaining to why the US and UK went to war against Iraq may do more harm than just tarnish the image of a few politicians; it might open the door to reform and the emergence of third and even fourth party alternatives.
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One of the main success stories corporate media has had in framing the issue of war is their ability to maintain a disconnect between the past and present. Everyone seemed to forget that the concept of "regime change" was outlined by Bush the very moment he stole the office of President of the United States in January 2001. Then it was already felt that Bush wanted to go to war against Iraq but it didn't know where to find the justification for it.
To this extent, the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York in September later that same year was a godsend. One of the first tasks Bush set out to do was to try and pin the blame on Iraq, even though no evidence has ever existed of any kind of involvement whatsoever. In fact, Wesley Clark, the general who commanded ground forces during the first Persian Gulf War, recently noted on "Meet the Press" that the White House had asked him only days after the attack to help them in putting together a case against Iraq. Lacking any sort of hard evidence, he refused.

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In Europe, the alleged suicide of the top British biological weapons scientist, Dr David Kelley, helped to divert the focus of discourse. In the US, news of the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons similarly provided an opportunity to divert attention away from more pressing questions. Without doubt questions as to why the US and UK went to war in Iraq still linger, but politicians and the corporate media both have a little more room to maneuver. Their only hope now is that people will either forget or grow tired of the issue to the point that it will no longer be of much concern, and only serve as an ignominious footnote in history much like the Gulf of Tonkin incident was during the Vietnam war.
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/15452/1.html

I tought this article might be of interest - it goes too far (two party system) but I found it interesting.

[asjr]

1. media

Quite interesting. And it proves what most of us have suspected or known for a long time. In mainstream media it has been mostly Peter Jennings and Dan Rather who have put forth anything that goes against the administration. It seems they may be defying their own networks just to get out what they have. Something is terribly wrong when 2 journalists among thousands are the only ones brave enough to do this. It also speaks to the iron hand the administration has on us.