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False Dawn, Hype and Reality.....

Sound all rather familiar?......as MediaLens so rightly puts things into context and reality:

"In 1997, the British media filled with talk of "historic" change. Blair's victory that year "bursts open the door to a British transformation," the Independent declared. (Neal Ascherson, 'Through the door he can begin to create a freer land,' The Independent, May 4, 1997)

A Guardian leader saluted the nation: "Few now sang England Arise, but England had risen all the same." (Leader, 'A political earthquake,' The Guardian, May 2, 1997)

The editors predicted that, by 2007, Blair's triumph would be seen as "one of the great turning-points of British political history... the moment when Britain at last gave itself the chance to construct a modern liberal socialist order." (Ibid)

The Observer assured readers that the Blair government would create "new worldwide rules on human rights" and implement "tough new limits on arms sales." (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5063)

This, after all, was the dawn of Blair's "ethical" foreign policy."

Fast forward to the recent election of Obama:

"Over the past two weeks - one decade and three wars later - the same media have been insisting, as one, that US president-elect Barrack Obama is another "new dawn". A Guardian leader observed:

"They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the American people yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world...

"Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory. Savour those words: President Barack Obama, America's hope and, in no small way, ours too." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ 2008/nov/06/barackobama-uselections2008)

In the Guardian's news section, Oliver Burkeman described the victory as "historic, epochal, path breaking". But there was more:

"Just being alive at a time when it's so evident that history is being made was elating and exhausting." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ 2008/nov/05/uselections2008-barackobama)".

Read the complete piece here. Another round of myth-making in progress?

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