The flagship Murdoch newspaper in Australia is The Australian. Not a tabloid for the brain dead like the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph, The Oz is a broadsheet aimed at the latte-sipping, chardonnay-swilling right wing elite. (Oops! As we all know, that's what the left drinks. Conservatives, not wanting to be tarred (and hopefully feathered) with the same brush, can be found drinking theirs out of paper bags.)
Of course, ring-ins from the other side buy the paper too, mainly to see what The Lone Lefty, Phillip Adams, has to say, and what misanthropic fulminations the papers cast of right wing robots are up to.
All three papers amount to what Willy Bach calls "Murdoch chip wrap," except that The Australian never has enough pages to hold more than a minimum order, while the other two are the wrong size.
The Australian's editorials are a real hoot, if you like Goebbels-inspired intolerance of everything that moves. (That which is static or regressive, like the Howard Party ideology, is, of course, championed.) But the opinion page contributors are the scariest. Janet "The harridan's harridan" Albrechtsen, General Greg "War is peace" Sheridan and Frank "Eat my elderly stool" Devine, all have this way of screwing up facts to suit their ideology. The same could be said of blogs like Bilegrip. But these arthritic fogeys are fully salaried and government-condoned right wing loonies while left wing loonies like me have to fund our own fulminations. Let's face it, by and large the media is under their control.
Yet, they're still trying to muzzle the ABC. Along with The Age, the ABC is the only mainstream media daring to interpret the world differently from the jackboot's in power. For them, no lefty comment is good lefty comment.
You have to read this opinion piece by one, Rudi Michelson, published yesterday in The Oz. Titled, Privatise the ABC, Michelson rails against the lowered standard of ABC content, without addressing the cause: years and years of government cutbacks. His solution is privatisation in order to save taxpayers money (which for the right is all that matters), so that Australians could have yet another commercial television channel and three more commercial radio stations all pouring out government propaganda in between mind-numbing advertisements. But best of all, Aussies would no longer have to put up with dissenting opinion.
Even though the ABC is a shadow of its former self, they still see it as a hotbed of content favoured by totalitarian regimes of the left (yes, the poor things still think Communism is a threat). And they want it replaced by a commercial venture that promotes totalitarian regimes like their own.
Michelson actually says this: "Government broadcasting is favoured by totalitarian states and Islamic theocracies. New Zealand has no government broadcaster and the CBC in Canada gets 60 per cent of its revenue from commercials."
He neglects to mention the most respected broadcaster of all times, the BBC. The last I heard Britain was not a totalitarian state, though, like Australia, it's heading that way. Furthermore, the CBC used to be non-commercial like the ABC and the BBC. When the hated Mulroney government made the changeover, Canadians protested vehemently. But what could they do? They were under the thumb of a misanthropic conservative government.
As letter writer Greg Hamilton said in The Oz,
"Rudy Michelson informs us that the reasons for establishing the ABC have become totally irrelevant. He may just as well tell us that Thomas Jefferson was wrong in warning of the need to maintain public dissent in order to preserve democracy. Or, equally, he may want to try to convince us that diversity is pernicious in society, that commercial media is good and public media bad, and that four legs are good and two bad, unless they have wings."
What is wrong with these people, who so vehemently advocate a world shrivelled to consumerism and flag waving? As we've said somewhere before, like factory recalls of automobiles with defective parts, they should be recalled by the incompetent god who made them … for having been issued with defective souls.
-- Olney Garkle
I have dug up this article from my archives, because it is even more timely now Rupert Murdoch has acquired a seven percent-plus stake in Fairfax.
Soon, Murdoch will have a TOTAL say in every newspaper in Australia, the 51st state of his propagandising base: America.
Yet, this is the man who, ironically, allows total freedom of expression from lefties to neocons in his newly-acquired My Space internet site, with a reach of well over a 100 million subscribers worldwide.
This is the same man who is backing Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton for President of the USA.
The delusional Murdoch now sees himself as 'the CE0' of a truly global 'evil empire.' His goal is to shape global politics and, in doing so, stash away riches which would feed and clothe billions of the poor.
Murdoch doesn't even know the extent of his own wealth these days.
The 'dirty digger' has so much money invested in different share-holdings, tax havens, banks, and hundreds of dubious enterprises-, t would take an army of accountants years to tally up every cent in the Murdoch coffers.
The power-crazed Citizen Rupert uses the world's stock market as his "plaything" ... his real-life game of Monopoly. He declares himself a conservative, but this is now only his personal political belief. Instead, the greedy, grasping magnate wields the might of his media empire to threaten political leaders in the UK, America, Australia and NZ.
Amazingly, he can even employ the small 'l' (Liberal) My Space to remind Bush, Blair and Howard that this is what his youthful subscribers think of them.
If these three neocon leaders don't acquiesce in his latest power grab, he can tell them to dial-up My Space and 'blackmail' them with this now very powerful new web toy of his.
They'll soon get the message that My Space, like Youtube, which Murdoch unsuccessfully tried to nab, reflects a growing tide of disenchanted youthful voters, and he, Mr Rupert Murdoch, intends to bump up the membership of My Space -until the leaders succumb to his demands.
The Australian and other Murdoch papers would have no compunction in turning their support to the Labor Party, if the Bomber, or whoever is at the helm, starts to show up as favorites in the polls. His global newspapers unfailingly change tack at the whim of their master.
This is the real concern.
Any truly democratic expression of opinion is being openly flouted by Murdoch whose desire is to become the richest and most powerful media tycoon the world has seen - before he shuffles off his pallid mortal coil.
The now septuagenarian Murdoch is beginning to realise that he belongs to the mortal species, homo sapiens, and death is staring even he, the modern-day media conquistador, in his sickly face.
Not even a successful prostate operation, his young Asian bride "Trendy Wendi" and two kids by her, can stave off a final visit by the grim reaper who will snatch him from his material universe, hopefully at the moment before he achieves a final smile of animal gratification.
This thoroughly unpleasant man cannot find an heir to his earthly kingdom-not even his village idiot son Lachlan is keen to take the reins after his father's death.
I predict when the old man dies, News Corp will die with him, and just maybe there might be a very gradual return to freedom of expression - once the sell-off of his papers,TV stations,internet sites, et al... starts.
david j.baird
Posted by david james baird on October 21, 2006
I find that The Australian's most insufferable columnist is Christopher Pearson. His position title should be changed to 'professional pompous ass.'
Posted by Slaymaster on October 21, 2006