Blair was virtually installed by the corporate media.
The corporate media is capital’s conduit for conditioning and controlling the public, including the politicians. The typical alternative outlook is that government controls the media, but that reverses the power relationship; capital dominates government, which is why government so consistently serves capital.
(“typical alternative” – is that oxymoronic?)
Sure, the corporate media serve government occasionally – on those matters in which government is doing what capital demands, such as moving towards war in places with oil.
The corporate media forever dumbs-down the public. It typically depicts science as a battle of incomprehensibly complex opinions between white-coated authority figures. Look at the stupid graphic heading this Guardian article; they look like gladiators! Then there’s this:
– “Report on face masks’ effectiveness for Covid-19 divides scientists”
– “Experts clash…” – “A row has erupted…”
Was there any “clash” or “eruption”, or did the Guardian ‘phone around and garner some conflicting “opinions”? We don’t know, because like TV camera operators, the journalists and their actions don’t appear in the article; the media has again painted itself out of the picture. By contrast, the systematic review this concocted drama is based on is very clear; it sets out all the research and finds that masks help:
– “Face masks could offer an important tool for contributing to the management of community transmission of Covid19 within the general population. […] If correctly used… face masks, including homemade cloth masks, can contribute to reducing viral transmission.”
The corporate media is most people’s window onto science; it’s obvious why most people think of science as merely a battle of opinions. The corporate media subjugates any sort of objectivity beneath its own authority, and routinely deprives the public of the objective understanding needed for critical assessment of the advertising that funds it. It is currently very aggressively shifting anger away from the government’s abject failure to prepare, and onto the ‘lockdown’ (that very word is a negative propaganda term) and actively demonising the scientific community.
It is tragic to see so many commenters at Craig’s supposedly enlightened blog meekly falling into line without even realising it. UK Column and the UK papers, unanimous that Ferguson should be skewered, never mind that the UK is just one country in this global pandemic.