Medialens critique of Blair warspeech and fawning media reaction
'Anyone who has seen the footage of Hitler giving his rasping, demonic speeches must surely wonder how anyone could have taken him seriously. Now, of course, Hitler strikes us as plainly mad, a case study in egomania - we feel sure we have grown beyond the gullibility of the past. But established power never loses its capacity to mesmerise. Psychologist Stanley Milgram noted the disturbing fact that there is "a propensity for people to accept definitions provided by legitimate authority", not because those definitions are rooted in reason, but because "those in authority acquire, for some, a suprahuman character". Philosopher Henry Thoreau identified one interesting consequence: "Every generation laughs at the old generation, but follows religiously the new."'

Medialens critique of Blair warspeech and fawning media reaction
'Anyone who has seen the footage of Hitler giving his rasping, demonic speeches must surely wonder how anyone could have taken him seriously. Now, of course, Hitler strikes us as plainly mad, a case study in egomania - we feel sure we have grown beyond the gullibility of the past. But established power never loses its capacity to mesmerise. Psychologist Stanley Milgram noted the disturbing fact that there is "a propensity for people to accept definitions provided by legitimate authority", not because those definitions are rooted in reason, but because "those in authority acquire, for some, a suprahuman character". Philosopher Henry Thoreau identified one interesting consequence: "Every generation laughs at the old generation, but follows religiously the new."'