Well the plot thickens with the appearance of the Carlyle Group that has come galloping in on a very white horse to rescue Conrad Black’s Hollinger International, no doubt via the Perle/Kissinger/Bush connections. And it’s not surprising given Hollinger’s media outlets decidedly ultra-rightwing position especially on the imperium and the important Israel connection in the assault on the world’s resources and its people.

Carlyle is a who’s who of the right-wing elite both here in the UK and over the pond in the US, with former Prime Minister John Major as a director, George Bush Snr and his Secretary of State, James Baker, as advisers, and it’s headed by Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan's Defence Secretary.

Carlyle also has a stake in Qinetiq, the UK government's privatised defence research laboratories, and CSX Lines, a logistics firm that ships heavy equipment for the military. Carlyle manages more than $14 billion in funds on behalf of investors such as George ‘friend of the Third World?’ Soros and the Bin Laden family.

On the Hollinger side Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger sit on the board and there are dubious (to say the least) connections to the Bilderberg ‘group’, an elite assemblage of businessmen and politicians, a kind of international version of the Tri-lateral Commission and the subject of many conspiracy theories.

For a potted history of Perle, I recommend you visit PRWatch's Richard_N._Perle that also contains many links to further info on the ‘Prince of Darkness’ aside from the ones I supplied in ‘Poisonous Perle’ and elsewhere on this site. Ditto for his mentor Henry_Kissinger and I might as well throw in Hollinger International while we’re at it, Hollinger_International_Inc. The site, disinfopedia, is an excellent resource on propaganda and disinformation and well worth a visit.

It doesn’t need a conspiracy to explain the links ‘when birds of feather flock together’. After all, the three critical arms of inperialism, weapons, media and politics (WMP) make a logical alliance in the context of global capitalism. And as I pointed out in ‘Poisonous Perle’, these are just the tip of a vast iceberg of connections between British and American capitalism that extends its tentacles into virtually every aspect of the critical sectors of the economy that aside from WMP, includes information technology/telecommunications, pharmaceuticals/genetic engineering, and of course, oil.

Central to any examination of this unholy alliance or ‘axis of interests’ is the role of the media. So far, the only reference I’ve found in the corporate press to connections between WMP and Hollinger is a piece in the Guardian, ’Pentagon bankers may bail out Black'. And it’s the wholesale refusal of the mass media both print and electronic, to investigate the connections – and the reasons for the connections – that is to put it mildly, scandalous and an outright dereliction of duty of the alleged 4^th estate.

And to prove my point, today’s Independent (25/11/03) in its media section carries a piece by Tim Luckhurst on the Hollinger debacle and it too, fails even in 12 paragraphs to make any reference to the Carlyle/Perle/Kissinger involvement. Instead, it focuses on the ‘awful’ prospect that Richard ‘tits and arse’ Desmond, the ‘porn king’ might buy both the Daily/Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. Luckhurst, quoting ‘insiders’ at the Telegraph, tells us that the idea,

Horror of horrors that these two bastions of the Establishment should fall into the hands of the nouveau riche and a purveyor of porn at that. But it’s okay if they fall into the hands of the real pornographers, the purveyors of weapons of mass destruction, Carlyle. And in another story in the business section of the same edition, the Carlyle connection is also noticeable by its absence.

Astute readers and listeners of the mass media will no doubt have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the disintegration of USUK foreign policy and the nature of the coverage. As the imperium’s policies have become increasingly non-viable, that is non-saleable to the citizens, the coverage has kept pace, getting thinner and less critical with each setback.

For example, when the Hollinger bubble burst last week, the Independent carried stories on several pages in just one edition about Hollinger International without a single reference to any of the links between Black’s empire and the emperium. Ditto for the BBC whose coverage of the occupation of Iraq, Israel and the Blah government’s role is best described as wholesale capitulation to the imperium. Continuous listening to BBC news reveals a pattern of deception where even nominal ‘opponents’ of the imperium are at best, relegated to the periphery.

So for example on BBC Newsnight last night (24/11/03) in a report from Istambul on the bombings, people who had a different take on those responsible than the one accepted without question by the BBC – that is was al-Qu’eda – were described as expressing their "prejudiced" views on the subject. The reporter’s prejudices however, were assumed to the ‘truth’. Moreover, the reporter insinuated throughout the report, the centrality of Islam as being the reason for these "prejudices".

Even the Kelly ‘affair’, itself a massive diversion from the central issue – the lies and deception of the Blah/Bushette clique’s rationale for war – has all but disappeared. The press would like us to think that the war and occupation is a ‘done deal’, it’s time to move on to ‘more important issues’ such as the Christmas sales. Spend, spend, spend, it’s time for an injection of good ol’ conspicuous consumption to smother those uneasy feelings that all is not well in the state of Denmark.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to do is to unpack the way this process operates as omissions far more than out and out lies are the most insidious aspect of the collusion between the media and the state in the process of deceiving the public.