Image: ssoosay

The corporate media have so much power to frame the nation's political debate that most people often aren't even aware of what has been done. An excellent example of this is how the corporate media have gone along with British Petroleum's sleazy marketing ploy to call itself "BP." This marketing scam was created for two purposes.

1) British Petroleum didn't want the portion of the US populace that doesn't follow the news to know that a foreign corporation had bought major US oil companies.

2) Using "BP" allowed them to run these fraudulent "Beyond Petroleum" commercials where British Petroleum had the nerve to actually present itself as an alternative fuels company, a presentation even more offensive given the fact that British Petroleum joined with other Big Oil corporations to lobby against alternative fuels and public transportation while pushing for wars for oil here and in Britain.

Yet, the corporate media have completely gone along with the "BP" fiction. This wasn't just based on the general far right bias of corporations owned by rich Republicans. British Petroleum is a major advertiser on corporate media outlets. That ad money buys a lot of bullshit, and the bullshit isn't just being shoveled at us during the commercials.

Notice to the British Petroleum PR Person Posting Anonymously:
Trying to cynically exploit what happened in Bhopal in order to promote the interests of a truly monstrous corporation like British Petroleum is absolutely reprehensible. It's obvious that you couldn't care less about people in India or the US.