Ideological work

Recent events have exposed the nature of things at the social and political level. The Fed's 'rescue" plan shows who the American economy works for (for those left who had any doubts, that is), politicians are not their to protect the people nd the media is their to distract and mislead.

These obvious points re obscured when the economy booms. In a downturn, especially one as severe as this one's looking, the role of the state becomes stark.

A tiny example of this in that most ideologically important papers, the Gruntinaid. Today, McCain suspended his election campaign in order to concentrate on a bipartisan solution to the catastrophe. Aljazeera called this a 'bombshell', French BFM (a rabidly pro-business channel) had the story on point this morning. Over at the Guardian, though, and the front page headline reads like something from the fifteenth century. See, the government has decided to change the rules concerning the monarchy. Now, Catholics and first born daughters can become King or Queen. In all this chaos and uncertainty, why choose that as the big news?

Sure, people in the government directed the editor to do it, but the question is just pushed back to why is the government releasing this information now? Nobody is really interested in this kind of dusty 'constituional' stuff. (Nobody really cares about religion or the monarch, really. We republicans have been opposed to the idea for so long, that it's as if we live in a republic anyway. Come the revolution, there will be no crown).

With a economic crisis this emmense and a political crisis of historical proportions devolping in the US, one can only conclude that this is a desperate measure to make readers think that fundamentally, all is well and that there's nothing to be worried about. Given that this ideological manipulation is being used, though, is a major hint that the crisis is even more profound than we thought. . .

And just to make sure that any reader might be hoping for a left wing response, the paper keeps up its drip-drip of anti-left wing news "Surge in support for far right ahead of poll reflects centre-left crisis across EU". Yeh well, fuck the centre left is, hopefully, their response

Further, what to make of this, in the same rag?
"De Menezes 'scared' by terror attack
Cousin tells inquest how Braziian shot in the head praised restraint of British police officers ". A truly terrible piece of reporting, or some more ideological manipulation?