The downfall of the Murdoch empire is well underway, and the conventional wisdom seems to be that this will be limited to "the Murdoch Empire." And in a sense, perhaps it will be - but you really must think in terms of what that empire entails.
If you think only in terms of media, you would be quite wrong. If you were to think in terms of influence and corruption - well, you would be closer to the mark. If you were to think in terms of "what would have happened had Murdoch been against the Iraq war" - well, now, you are starting to get the shape of it. But you'd still be out of scale.
Media and money influence in two ways - by what they choose to "invest" in and what they choose to ignore. And both depend very heavily indeed upon credibility. RJ Eskow writes in an Truthout Op-Ed:
History books record an empire's fall as a series of dates and events. Battles are fought, people resist, elections are called, arrest warrants are issued. But those are just details. An empire really falls in that moment when people stop believing that it's invulnerable. Whenever the spell is broken, whether it's by anger or just by awareness, the end becomes inevitable. It doesn't matter what happens to Rupert or James Murdoch now. They may return to positions of relative wealth and privilege or their lives may take unpleasant turns. Either way, the Murdoch empire has already fallen.
But what will that mean in practical terms? There was something very telling to be found in a discussion of Murdoch's "hands on" approach to the news and his choice of politics and his choice of candidates to support.
Neil, the editor of Britain's Sunday Times for 11 years, told a House of Lords committee looking into media ownership in 2008 that he was never in any doubt what Murdoch wanted, even though he could not recall a direct instruction telling him to take a particular line.
"On every major issue of the time and every major political personality or business personality, I knew what he thought and you knew, as an editor, that you did not have a freehold, you had a leasehold ... and that leasehold depended on accommodating his views," he said.
"Rupert Murdoch is obsessed with what his newspapers say. He picks the editors that will take the kind of view of these things that he has and these editors know what is expected of them when the big issues come and they fall into line."
In the 1980s, the Sun's MacKenzie would hear from Murdoch on a daily basis -- not quite to discuss exact headlines, but to make sure the newspaper would report the major issues as the press baron saw fit.
Nor is it particularly surprising (or difficult) to find out that he Murdoch hive-mind approaches political clients the way he approaches employees.
In 1992, when Britain was unceremoniously ejected from the European Exchange Rate mechanism and forced to raise interest rates to double digits, then Prime Minister John Major called Kelvin MacKenzie, the editor of Murdoch's tabloid The Sun, to ask how he planned to play the story. Mackenzie famously told Major: "Well John, let me put it this way. I've got a large bucket of shit lying on my desk and tomorrow morning I'm going to pour it all over your head."
The Global Post goes on, a bit smugly:
Here is the important point: This is a story about journalism and its unique power — for good and evil Journalism is not like any other business — and it's product cannot be measured by normal business school taught analytics. The main product of journalism is not tittle-tattle and check-book obtained "scoops" about celebrities — as Rupert Murdoch has found to his cost. It is about digging out the facts about how societies are governed, about corruption, about eyewitness accounts of how the world works. Strong institutions — led by editors who are willing to give reporters the time and space — are necessary to fund that work.
And without their efforts and vigilance then parliaments and congresses and presidents can be cowed by all manner of powerful special interests, especially those whose idea of the journalism business is give the people what they want: tits and ass and a large dose of prejudice.
A keen observation that misses one of the great truths of history, even as they note in passing that Murdoch's tabloids are read by at least 40% of the UK population. While upmarket papers are included in his stable, I'm sure their private briefs are more about what will not be covered than what will be exploited. The way you deal with thinking people is to avoid giving them anything to think about that leads them to think about what you are up to.
His taste in politicians runs to those who are controllable and who's politics appeals to his tabloid demographic; Those who have no thoughts of their own, or have some weakness that can be used to keep them on a leash. Interestingly enough, the currently leading Republican contender (or so we are told...) is Michelle Bachmann. She reportedly suffers from such debilitating headaches that she's probably incapable of actually steering the ship of state. She would need to rely on some quiet, grey Eminence.
But she does appeal to the mob. And that, combined with built in leverage, is her appeal to Murdoch. And she's the only sort that has such appeal. So if you have wondered why those suppored by the media on the Right have turned out to be such a sorry, corrupt and shallow lot - well, consider the source of their support.
Nobody better has a chance with the yowling rabble - or the man who whips them into a froth.
The problem for Murdoch, Bachmann and the GOP is that the mob is ... a mob. And not only have they turned on Murdoch - they are likely to turn on anyone that reminds them of Murdoch.
Let me remind us all how this often works out.
The execution of Robespierre and his supporters on 28 July 1794
Oh, that's a fine way of puttin' it, Pegeen! Via HuffPo
On ABC News' "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," George Will echoed several Bush officials when he criticized the release of the memos, saying "The problem with transparency is that it's transparent for the terrorists as well." Will expressed concern about the cost of letting "the bad guys" know what techniques, such as waterboarding, will be used on them. He went on to add, as noted by HuffPost's Jason Linkins, that "intelligent people of good will" believe the President of the United States can do whatever he wants to "defend the country."
Peggy Noonan went even further, articulating a position that upends George Santayana's famous quote: "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
"Some things in life need to be mysterious," said Noonan, adding, "Sometimes you need to just keep walking."
She also added:
"It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that."
Oh, dear Peggy and fellow-traveling moral failures; it's not the documents that are the problem - it's the torture. Or did you think that there was some doubt as to what was going on? The knowledge, as the White House put out, was out there. Techniques and all.
As I stated a few days ago, the practice of torture makes little sense in terms of intelligence or security, but as a means of social control and as a recreational activity, it makes perfect sense.
[I]t seems to me the whole torture/don't torture debate is fundamentally misinformed.
Torture is an instrument of terror.
Permit me to repeat. Torture is an instrument of terror. Conducted by officers of the state, its state terror.
It's purpose is to terrorize the torturee, the torturer, the community from which the tortured is drawn, and, most importantly, the community from which the torturer is drawn.
Torture is not intended to extract information. Its intended to extract confession. Its intended to exact submission. Its intended to cow, to intimidate, to humiliate. Its intended to ensnare us all in the crimes of the regime. Its intended to plant a feeling of helplessness in the occupied population. Its intended to divide the occupied population into informants and informers. Its intended to demonstrate the complete power of the regime to dispose of people in any way they wish. Its intended to terrorize the population the regime fears most; us.
Do not be confused. All this blather about how torture is needed to compel captured al-Qaeda to spill the beans on their super-secret plans for murder and mayhem is absolute horseshit.
We know that few of the captives held at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA black sites are, in fact, al-Qaeda. Most of them are people swept up in pacification sweeps for being out after curfew, or whose papers were not in order, or who were denounced by informants, probably as payback for some quarrel. They could not be compelled to give information about al-Qaeda plans because they had no information. They could be compelled to confess. They could be compelled to infect their communities with terror.
And if you think the community the regime wished to terrorize was the Iraqi nation or the Afghan nation, think again.
Indeed. You should think again, and you should re-think any unexamined assumptions or principles you may have that would lead you to accept the rationalizations of torture. You see, while the above is correct - it is state terrorism - that is also beside the point. The important thing here is who controls the state, by what means they gained control, and to what end do they think that effort will profit them. What tactics and ideals do you see most commonly exemplified from the grassroots upward?
To be blunt, it's authoritarianism, the celebration of the domination and degradation of the weaker by the stronger, the basest and most destructive human motives re-cast into a sociopolitical philosophy that is sometimes called NeoConservatism . But the words and the rhetoric do not matter, for they are made a mock by the evident truth:
The means, the ends and the fallout have been equally well documented in history and literature. The sum of it is "no good can come of this."
It is not in your interest or in mine, not in the interest of your children or your neighbors, to accept this all-too present future.
And yet, every single decade, another crop of Great Leaders comes to the fore to try and disprove the premise, at least for a time. Since no sensible, sane person working from either an ethical OR a purely utilitarian perspective would advise anyone to build a nation or a legacy in this way, it's clear that the flawed and fatal process has an overwhelming appeal in spite of the obvious. It must be some very primal force. You would think someone would just say it.
But it seems that none dare call it sadism.
Nonetheless, it is. Both directly and vicariously. When you water-board someone over one hundred times, and they are able to give you no more information than they had given before being water-boarded for the first time, it's for the sheer, sadistic fun of it.
And as you can see, sadism is fun, as documented on AntiWar.com in 2006.
Oh, one may rationalize torture and abuse in many ways. One may, for instance, excuse it as a means by which one may actually break and reform the person, to make a brainwashed slave. Citations of "Stockholm Syndrome" are bandied around.
But it's all bullshit. Brainwashing, meta-programming and mind control were - and the CIA is very expert on this - blind alleyways leading to nightmarish blowback. The CIA knows better.
Torture is not a good way to gain intelligence, nor is it a terribly effective tool for "turning" an agent. Even if it were, when a person is known to be held and subsequently released they are likely to be suspected as an agent. Trust me, there is a great deal known about torture-enhanced brainwashing, interrogation and mind control. It's simply not an effective way of creating a reliable follower with the capability of acting independently and without direct supervision. The Manchurian Candidate was either a cautionary tale or a wet dream - depending on your point of view - but it did not prove out in practice, though there are many hints, much hearsay and even declassified documents to suggest that a large number of people who should have known better tried very hard to make it a reality. No doubt they still are.
None of this is secret. Nor are any of the techniques used for torture. "Water boarding" itself has been used in various forms for two or three thousand years. One form - The Swirly - is a favorite with grade-school bullies. The strong and sociopathic have always found it amusing to degrade and half-drown the weaker and better. And you can find no more pure manifestation of this mindset - and the society in which those who wish to become powerful and "socially significant" must learn to thrive - than Jr. High. And so long as bullying is allowed to thrive in our schools, so long as "boys will be boys" and "girls will be girls" is permitted to be an explanation for recreational sadism on playgrounds and schools, the very worst of us will always triumph over the very best, for they look out for their own, while carefully tending the breeding grounds of future victims.
The worst fear of the American Right is that Obama will implement some form of "re-education" programs that teach values contrary to their own bible-thumping, baby-beating, authoritarian and eliminationist "family values."
I think that their worst fear should be implemented - and without waiting for Obama.
The first step is for people with an ethical view of civilization to retake the arts, crafts and structures of education - and they must keep it. Nor must any institution that teaches children that "winners" are actually BETTER than "lusers" be permitted to continue.
I'm by no means saying that competition is bad. But children must be taught that success and failure are both good things in their way, and that all people are valuable, as much because of their differences as due to their similarities.
I have come to believe that we need a radical transformation in our imagination as to what civilization can be and - far more importantly - for whom it exists. Currently, all of society and culture exists to serve the ambitions, lusts and needs of those at the very top of the pyramid; with everyone else being assigned a "value" in accordance to their utility toward meeting those needs. Not only are individuals neglected and discarded; entire races, nations and continents have been arbetrarily designated as strip mines and toxic waste dumps, simply because none of "the people who matter" come from those places.
I say that it should be obvious that pandering to the interests of less than 5% of the human race at the direct expense of the rest of us is a mug's game. Collectively, creatively, non-violently, but gently and relentlessly, we must resist - and communicate the need for that resistance as widely as possible.
So long as there are large numbers of human beings living in poverty, in daily fear, concerned about the most basic necessities of life, we will all suffer oppression in the name of keeping those desperately poor people from resorting to acts of desperation. It should be clear by now that the oppression itself makes resistance and defiance inevitable, and you would think that after several thousand years of history, we would have grasped the essential lesson - that the oppression generates it's own justifications.
We now have the technology, the resources and the tools to ensure that every single human being on the planet has secure access to the basic necessities of life. We can ensure it, we can afford it and that one simple thing will inevitably unleash a mind boggling amount of creativity which will of course translate into greater prosperity.
Ultimately, those who have the talent to foster and manage wealth will become far more wealthy then even now, though it may not be measured so much in terms of their ability to crush or advance the fortunes of others, there will certainly be enough rewards out there for all - so long as we can at least statistically resist the darker urge to proper at the expense of others, rather than the far more effective strategy to prosper by enlarging the fortunes of all.
The need to do this is urgent. We simply cannot afford to have such a high proportion of the human race wasted on survival-level concerns.
For whatever reasons, the climate of the planet is shifting and no area will be able to isolate itself from the impact. Huge population shifts will occur; the areas best suited for food production are going to shift, global trade routes are changing - and it's all too easy to see nations, peoples and corporations positioning themselves to exploit the "unavoidable" misery about to occur.
The idea that such misery is, in fact "unavoidable" is absolute bullshit. As a species and as a global civilization - for that is a matter of practical reality - we have a simple and stark choice.
We can choose to devolve into small clusters of squabbling apes competing for diminishing resources - or we can choose to survive as a species, with the pragmatic determination that we are not wise enough to know what traits and talents will be needed for as yet unforseen challenges.
I know where my advantage lies. It differs from the advantage of those who are yammering at you that we cannot afford to not torture, to not invest in regieme change, who tell you that we cannot afford to trust individuals with their own life choices. The rhetoric and threats vary from the left to the right of the political spectrum, but it all boils down to a subliminal panic amoung the elietes that they are losing their grip upon the the information flow and the decision making process of people in general.
Glenn Greenwald, among others, has been relentless in documenting examples of this, but it's difficult to think of an example less subtle than this.
Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.
By whom were these "ties to companies" undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as "analysts"? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox -- the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow's story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon's secret collaboration with these "independent analysts" shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called "independent analysts" the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow's story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.
I no longer consider any of the networks to be a primary source - and I hold reservations about the rest of the MSM. Nor are my reservations particularly new. Their coverage has always been suspect, but without access to the raw data and the ability for individuals to gain accesss to a global marketplace of ideas in which even linguistic barriers are falling, we need not rely upon them. Increasingly, we do not.
But the stories we are not told, the information that is not cited, the stories that become commonly known without ever seeing a mention on major American networks, that very silence speaks far louder than words.
And so, it comes right back around to education - for learning is a life-long enterprise. We can no longer allow ourselves to be led by those who's most important life experience was learning how to stuff the nerd in the locker - and get away with it.
Really, everything you need to know in life, you should have learned in kindergarten. Is it not time that those who learned how to "beat the system," to take advantage of the "naive" and "idealistic" and "sentimental," to be kept far from the levers of power.
One of the marvels of these here "Internet Tubes" is the marvel of telepresence, wherein some good internet angel allows you to talk to your client or boss in real time, face to face, without having to cram your busy entrepreneurial butt into Business Class for three to seven hours while inhaling every new flu bug known to man.
Insert obligitory reference to Isacc Asimov's "The Caves of Steel" here. Few realize that far from being a Disutopian vision, his idea of a society that starkly limits interpersonal contact was his own fondest desire.
Mine too. The fact is, that aside from making it possible to "do bidness" across vast spaces, telepresence will also allow you to "do bidness" across certain sorts of interpersonal divides as well.
But more importantly, it's emblematic of a change in the way "bidness" is done, the sorts of people you will be doing it with, and of course, the time frames in which you will be doing it.
Telepresence is just one example of technical capacity that is making the "old economy" obsolete and the new economy mandatory. Oh, it doesn't hurt that for every telepresent conference, you reduce your carbon footprint significantly. Indeed, that one change alone in getting things done could add to your bottom line while taking huge steps toward a "greener" operation.
The beauty is, while this is a first-class, top tier, status-forward solution, it's still probably going to cost less than the fuel for a single cross-country trip in a company jet.
I suspect that in the future, corporate jets will be reserved for technical people who have to actually - you know - touch things.
