The media predator. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

My piece yesterday, Howard’s roads to absolute power, has struck a chord, and some have pointed to overseas musings on whether the western world might be heading towards a form of fascism.

 

I’ll put off my piece on the risks of Howard’s game plan and how it might be countered for a couple of days until we’ve digested your comments. Please feel free to send me your thoughts on the risks of Howard’s grand plan, and the possible counter-strategies. And have a think about this thought from Peter Burton in Tamworth: “Murdoch, following the complete privatisation of Telstra takes a controlling interest. This isn’t a bad dream is it?”

There are two articles on the media ownership debate at onlineopinion. They are Let’s not throw in the towel on media diversity – it’s too important by Jock Given andProposed media ownership changes are out of step with world experience by Democrats Senator John Cherry.

To begin, a reader sent me this June 27 piece by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, which reflects on a similar game plan for total power by Howard’s Republican soulmate George Bush.

Toward One-Party Rule

by Paul Krugman

June 27, 2003, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/opinion/27KRUG.html

In principle, Mexico’s 1917 Constitution established a democratic political system. In practice, until very recently Mexico was a one-party state. While the ruling party employed intimidation and electoral fraud when necessary, mainly it kept control through patronage, cronyism and corruption. All powerful interest groups, including the media, were effectively part of the party’s political machine.

Such systems aren’t unknown here – think of Richard J. Daley’s Chicago. But can it happen to the United States as a whole? A forthcoming article in The Washington Monthly (Welcome to the Machine) shows that the foundations for one-party rule are being laid right now.

In “Welcome to the Machine,” Nicholas Confessore draws together stories usually reported in isolation – from the drive to privatize Medicare, to the pro-tax-cut fliers General Motors and Verizon recently included with the dividend checks mailed to shareholders, to the pro-war rallies organized by Clear Channel radio stations. As he points out, these are symptoms of the emergence of an unprecedented national political machine, one that is well on track to establishing one-party rule in America.

Mr. Confessore starts by describing the weekly meetings in which Senator Rick Santorum vets the hiring decisions of major lobbyists. These meetings are the culmination of Grover Norquist’s “K Street Project,” which places Republican activists in high-level corporate and industry lobbyist jobs – and excludes Democrats. According to yesterday’s Washington Post, a Republican National Committee official recently boasted that “33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans.”

Of course, interest groups want to curry favor with the party that controls Congress and the White House; but as The Washington Post explains, Mr. Santorum’s colleagues have also used “intimidation and private threats” to bully lobbyists who try to maintain good relations with both

parties. “If you want to play in our revolution,” Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, once declared, “you have to live by our rules”.

Lobbying jobs are a major source of patronage – a reward for the loyal. More important, however, many lobbyists now owe their primary loyalty to the party, rather than to the industries they represent. So corporate cash, once split more or less evenly between the parties, increasingly flows in only one direction.

And corporations themselves are also increasingly part of the party machine. They are rewarded with policies that increase their profits: deregulation, privatization of government services, elimination of environmental rules. In return, like G.M. and Verizon, they use their influence to support the ruling party’s agenda.

As a result, campaign finance is only the tip of the iceberg. Next year, George W. Bush will spend two or three times as much money as his opponent; but he will also benefit hugely from the indirect support that corporate interests – very much including media companies – will provide for his political message.

Naturally, Republican politicians deny the existence of their burgeoning machine. “It never ceases to amaze me that people are so cynical they want to tie money to issues, money to bills, money to amendments,” says Mr. DeLay. And Ari Fleischer says that “I think that the amount of money that candidates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country.” Enough said.

Mr. Confessore suggests that we may be heading for a replay of the McKinley era, in which the nation was governed by and for big business. I think he’s actually understating his case: like Mr. DeLay, Republican leaders often talk of “revolution,” and we should take them at their word.

Why isn’t the ongoing transformation of U.S. politics – which may well put an end to serious two-party competition – getting more attention? Most pundits, to the extent they acknowledge that anything is happening, downplay its importance. For example, last year an article in Business Week titled “The GOP’s Wacky War on Dem Lobbyists” dismissed the K Street Project as “silly – and downright futile.” In fact, the project is well on the way to achieving its goals.

Whatever the reason, there’s a strange disconnect between most political commentary and the reality of the 2004 election. As in 2000, pundits focus mainly on images – John Kerry’s furrowed brow, Mr. Bush in a flight suit – or on supposed personality traits. But it’s the nexus of money and patronage that may well make the election a foregone conclusion.

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Caroline Thomas, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, Sydney

Following ‘Howard’s roads to absolute power’, I thought you’d be interested in this talk by George Monbiot. George is a UK columnist for The Guardian, and a fervent writer on life, democracy and society. He’s in Australia to launch his new book as part of the “Adelaide Festival of Ideas” and has agreed to talk to supporters of Oxfam Community Aid Abroad. This is an excellent opportunity to pull together those who are concerned with recent events. We’d be delighted if you can come, and please send this invite to those you think should be there too.

…

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS OF WORLD DEMOCRACY

The existing global system is in trouble. Increased prosperity for some goes hand in hand with increased poverty for others. The UN has been bypassed by the war with Iraq. Global institutions such as the WTO and World Bank are undemocratic and unaccountable. Everywhere, people are asking what comes next.

If Naomi Klein’s No Logo tells us what’s wrong, George Monbiot’s The Age of Consent shows us how to put it right. We’re delighted that controversial Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, has agreed to talk to supporters of Oxfam Community Aid Abroad and the Make Trade Fair campaign about his views on the future of world democracy.

“Our task is not to overthrow globalisation but to capture it and to use it as a vehicle for humanity’s first global democratic revolution,” he says.

“All over our planet, the rich get richer while the poor are overtaken by debt and disaster. The world is run not by its people but by a handful of unelected or underelected executives who make the decisions on which everyone else depends: concerning war, peace, debt, development and the balance of trade. Without democracy at the global level, the rest of us are left with no means of influencing these men but to shout abuse and hurl ourselves at the lines of police defending their gatherings and decisions. Does it have to be this way?

When: Tuesday 15th July, 6:30pm sharp

Where: The Valhalla – 166 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Price: $8 / $5 conc & gleeclub

RSVP: Contact GleeBooks on Tel: 02 9660 2333 or email books@gleebooks.com.au

***

Daniel Maurice

Wow Margo, the ol’ conspiracy paranoia is running hot today!! Rupert, Kerry and John Howard’s secret agenda to rule Australia unchallenged via a change to media laws. Who would have thought? I’m surprised you forget to include that they also intend to legislate to force everyone to consume genetically modified food, thereby ending bio-diversity and generally life as we know it on Earth. Maybe that’s for tomorrow’s article.

By the way does it occur to you that it’s just a little strange that your otherwise ideological foes One Nation is happily on board with the Greens, Dems etc on this issue? When it comes to blind and unthinking prejudice masquerading as nationalism you can always rely on the lunar right to see eye to eye with the loopy left.

MARGO: Regarding GM food, Jozef Imrich sent me Power comes to those who own our media in the New Zealand Herald. Academic Paul Norris wrote:

Consider this example. Two reporters for an American television station were working on a story critical of the giant chemical firm Monsanto. They were asked by their bosses to soften their report. They refused and were fired. The station had recently been bought by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch. Defending their firing of the reporters, the station executives explained: “We paid $3 billion for these stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is.”

This example is unusual only in that the incident was so transparent and the justification so candid. It is certainly not atypical of Murdoch’s style. When the BBC’s reporting offended the Chinese, Murdoch promptly removed the BBC service from his Star satellite beaming into China because the issue threatened his delicate negotiations to break into the vast Chinese media market.

Thus the free flow of information falls victim to the commercial priorities of a media mogul. Indeed, governments have been made or broken by the deliberate actions of media owners.

Regarding One Nation, it’s not strange at all. This is issue about all voices being heard in the mainstream media.

***

Greg Weilo in Adelaide, One Nation member

I am still a One Nation member, and I have already started some agitating regarding the cross media laws. I have emailed Len Harris myself, as well as encouraging other members to make their views known.

Although I agree with your opposition to the proposed changes to media ownership laws, I have to say that not all ON members are as interested in this issue, and many of them need to be persuaded to take an interest.

You might find it difficult to believe, but I can honestly say that I have never heard any “hateful” comments at ON meetings against Aborigines, Asians, Jews, Muslims or any other racial group. When “hatred” does arise, it is inevitably targetted against journalists and the Big Media. The fact is that Bob Brown, Natasha Stott-Despoja, John Howard & Simon Crean would be more welcome than most journalists at ON meetings.

The feeling is that the politicians mentioned above are “honest” about their opposition to us in that they have declared their colours, whilst journalists pretend to be impartial but are usually even more biased than the other political players.

One Nation members never expected any favouritism from the media, just a fair go. We received undiluted hatred, and it didn’t take long before the hatred became mutual.

The point of all this is that there is a widespread opinion amongst ON members of: “Who cares about Big Media ownership laws – how can the Big Media treatment of ON get any worse, and anyway why should we try to help all those journalists who hate us?”.

Personally, I think that it can get worse. Maybe not One Nation related reporting, but certainly with other issues such as Middle Eastern politics, globalisation, environmental issues and the developing police state. There are issues where ON policy is much closer to Democrats & Greens rather than Liberal & Labor.

Murdoch & Packer want to marginalise all the political parties that they can’t control, and they certainly don’t want any allegiance (even temporary) between the “loose cannons”. They just want the best “democracy” that (their) money can buy.

Anyway, even if we can build a temporary alliance on media ownership, there is still a good chance that the ALP will fold. They are already underdogs, and having Murdoch & Packer offside might write them off altogether. In both major parties, pragmatism will win out over principle every time.

I will do my best to oppose the cross media ownership proposals amongst my part of the political spectrum, but I can’t say that it will be smooth sailing.

***

Tom Shanahan in Fairlight, NSW

I’m so glad you’re restricted to the web. To print your views would be outrageous. Have you gone completely mad???

You say: “And he wants Australia to divorce itself from the multilateral system of international relations AND become part of the American world…But Australia would be a different place from America. We do not have a bill of rights, which in the United States keeps the Government and its powers in check. Howard would be much freer than the American president to trample our human and civil rights.”

Where oh where has PM Howard EVER made any minute possible iota of a sound that we would divorce ourselves from the UN??

Yes, the UN failed this time. Do you walk away from a problem when you’ve failed once? Or do you stick around and try to fix it. Howard is committed to international relations, which is a school of thought I feel you may know little about.

Formed in Wales, The School of International Relations (IR) has a primary aim being to avoid conflict. In Bougainville, we sent PEACE keeping troops. In East Timor we went in to restore PEACE. Only in Iraq have we invaded, and even then it was both legal and justified. (Oh, and I have a clear conscience about Iraq. There is no blood on my hands, nor will there be, because we freed a people from subjugation by an armed minority).

I am but a 20 year old Arts student, but for goodness sake, have some sense please and be at least a little positive about the man who allows you to write this rubbish without being hurled in jail. Please recognise the excellent state of the economy and the intensely positive view of Australia around the Globe. (Given I just worked a year in England, along with stints with Elected Representatives in the UK and Brussels don’t try to tell me the world thinks bad things of Australia. Left wing think tanks don’t count.)

You are an excellent writer, but I feel a person lacking in journalistic ethics.

***

Patricia Murphy in Sydney

Thanks must go to Brian Harradine for putting up the amendment to the proposed cross media bill and thereby stopping what would have been the total media dominance of Packer and Murdoch. May they never succeed – John Howard’s Australia is a scary enough place as it is.

***

Sue McDonald in Concord West, NSW

What is the best course of action? Can you organise an action group to get supporters to send e-mails to all Senators? I have seen my uncle influenced by the power of the “shock jocks”. He believes everything he is told and does not question anything that is said. Most people just accept what is said or printed and do not question the news reports.

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Andrew Armstrong in Melbourne

I have just read your series of articles regarding changes to media ownership law and am rather perturbed (to say the least) by the implications, particularly in light of recent government undermining of the ABC. Thank you for informing me! I have sent copies to all persons on my email list, but what next? The common response from my friends is, “What can I do to voice my opposition?” What do you suggest, Margo? How can I stay in control of the future of my nation? How can I keep my right to know and my right to be heard? I’m feeling frustrated and powerless.

Margo: Me too. I’m thinking about it. Webdiarist David Hannaford sent me the link to this petitiononline (for US citizens only), demanding that Bush provide the evidence for Iraqi WMDs. Maybe that’s a way to go?

***

Denise Parkinson

The father of Fascism, Benito Mussolini once said: “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate.”

Great piece yesterday, though I’m still reeling from it. A lot of people I know who can see what’s going on are switching off as they can’t take anymore. As I see it this could be our last stand. I have been screaming since 98 that we have to get rid of Howard – as an artist I had been on the front line of what was coming down. Of course nobody took any notice and people just write you off as being over the top. People don’t see things until their little island of freedom is completely sunk and then they are willing to swap their “bit part in the war for a lead role in a cage”.

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Sandy Johnson

Please, please, please keep the media “reform” issue as alive as you can. I despair for my children when this legislation gets passed, as they will never know democracy, and it will eventually lead to violence, either revolution, war or social breakdown, sometime in the next 30 – 150 years.

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Andrew Byrne in Chiswick, Sydney

It is a daring action for any mainstream journalist to write words such as “Australia’s democracy is in grave danger and the people of Australia have three months to save it” (Governing for the big two: Can people power stop them?)

Due to the psychology and mechanics of our society (i.e. a pair of horses blinkers and a nose bag of Received Opinion) your statement is open to heavy howls and catch-cries from the majority of government, media, academia and society in general.

Yet the mere rarity in the media of such a view as you expressed speaks volumes about the state of democracy here and in general. Consider this: It is a rare you will see the view expressed in mainstream press that democracy is in a very bad state. Try being a journalist and actually stating how it really is.

So who are the owners? Corporations run by people who like running corporations and want to stay running corporations. This is not leftist dribble, this is economic fact. Even a United States founding father Benjamin Franklin wrote a warning about these corporations vying for control of the government for their own desires, which in his view were the antithesis of the nations.

So how do the corporations ensure increased power and profit? The Media Moguls want control of the market (and the money would be handy too). The government want the public’s flag-waving, rabid ANZAC-digger-true-blue-mateship support. Failing that, beige ambivalence will do nicely thank you.

In general, the media has behaved exceptionally well. The government is happy and now the media is waiting for its back-scratching. As you correctly reminded us such media change is also going on in the US and the UK right now. (Well, what a coincidence!) The big winner will be Murdoch and AOL Time Warner.

Then we’ll be in a world of mono view – a one world view. It will be doled out by Murdoch and his fellow Media Deities of the same theology. The crowds will watch as the government answers the pleas of salivating corporations eyeing public assets. The government will then be very busy putting price tags on everything while the media gush about how wonderful life will be once your water costs 300% more than yesterday.

Could this happen to this democracy? It’s already started with the invasion of Iraq.

Yet, heads shakes and brows frown at all this nasty cynicism still. This could never happen in Australia – we love freedom, we care, we’re friendly, we don’t invade or attack, we have free press, we can argue and disagree.

On February 28 1933, Hitler was assigned Emergency Powers by the Reichstag (German Parliament) following the burning-down of the Reichstag building. Within months, the Gestapo were given freedom from the law. The press was mauled until the only real national media remained in the form of the Der V*lkischer Beobachter (The People’s Observer). Puppeteered by Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Der V*lkischer became the mouthpiece for the Nazi Party and the government.

And what of the government? The parliamentarians became, as the American journalist Bill Shirer said at the time, the robots of Reichstag. Hitler had control.

As for Hitler, there’s a little understood aspect to his rise. People forget that he was a clever operator of the German industrialists who were at the time screaming for the repayments from WWI to be ended. Hitler needed their power and support.

Corporate donations, arm twisting and promises played a hugely vital role in Hitler’s path to 1933. It certainly helped the rise of a mentally unstable, broke and failed artists rise to running a major world power.

Hitler also scratched the industrialists back by re-arming the Ruhr industrial zone, abolishing independent labour unions and controlling the market. With his increased powers and media silence new laws allowed for the arrest of suspicious persons.

Although it’s never simple using an example to demonstrate such a complex point, the fact remains that the Nazi/Industrial model shares similar methodological characteristics with the current issues (eg Media Ownership, ASIO’s free hands, pre-emptive invasion, bald excuses for war being accepted by most of the people).

If you can fool the people via the media you can get away with anything. Orwell knew it. Goebbels used it. Murdoch wants it and so does the government. If we lose the slim media diversity we have we will find you correct. Democracy in this nation was in grave danger.

But we’re still here in the present and they don’t control that enough yet to control our past so we’ve still got a chance to control our future.

But what do we do? Pound the government with pleas? They only sneer at the camera and say they’re acting in the public interest. Protest in marches bigger than before the war? Refuse to pay taxes? Civil disobedience? Civil disturbance? Riot? Phone John Laws?

I think whatever we do, it has to be big and loud enough to get past the kaleidoscope of big media editorial censorship and outgun the guffaws from Howard. We need those in the media that actually care enough and can see the truth enough to take a stand.

What happens if we get more Wilkie characters willing to stand out of the crowd and say what they know? If the government and their corporate friends are exposed from as many angles by as many people as possible would that tip the scales? If we could get the people interested again in having a say in their nation’s future, how would the government handle that?

Your warning will seem luridly out of place to many out there. Some will blink from behind heavily medicated views. Some of their fellow-patients will react with shrugs. Some will react violently, as if they’d been personally insulted by such a concept. Others will nod sadly, long since worn down by shouting compassion at a wall of ignorance.

The question is will this medicated hospital ward of a society fall quiet once the hubbub is over and democracy is smothered in its bed? Will the patients slip into the haze, into the numb glow of TV hiss? I can say for myself at least – I’m not going to sit back quietly and watch. Time to pull the plug, folks CLICK!

***

Mark Carey in Sydney

I think you are right on target with what Howard is about. It’s particularly galling how far a society appears to allow itself to be mesmerised by the “leaders” with a strange personal psychology, often one dominated by a sense of personal inadequacy or just plain fear. History show how this is particularly so on the radical authoritarian side of politics like Howard, Bush, Thatcher, Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon …

Howard is just so driven by his own need to take all power unto himself, just like these people. While of course I don’t suggest that Howard is as bad as the latter, I can’t help but find the similarities. The connection is of course the desire for accumulating power. And no-one who feels good in themselves needs to accumulate power like Howard does – yet people seem naturally follow people like him rather than follow someone who is driven by values of participation, democracy and genuine service – like maybe Crean is?

The mesmerising power of “evil” and authoritarianism never ceases to amaze me. They are evil, these people; they do not really believe in democracy and freedom and do not act consistently with such a belief, even though they dress it up in language that seems to suggest that they do. In the short term, their evil always seems stronger than the power of honesty, of participation, of inclusion, and human values. For some current popular insight into this, try the apparent power of Voldemort in Harry Potter or Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. I’ve been reading these with my kids and I can’t help but see the reflections.

You are right about the power of the media. Education is also on his agenda, as he struggles to take ideological control of the society. Militarisation too. Go back to the marxists of the 70s for insight into Howard’s blueprint for accumulating power.

***

Nick Smith

Have you and Alan Ramsey and a few others considered that your voices may not be heard in the near future through the usual press, and that it will be hard to find your voices unless the source has your name for the search engine? Maybe I am being pessimistic, but I’ve just finished reading Martin Gilbert’s “Descent into Barbarism” 1933-1951, and it is uncanny how the laws passed on early Nazi Germany are similar to those being passed now.

I now empathise with the German people who had no idea because of media control what their government was really doing. How long will we have the net? This little loop-hole of information must be plugged for Goebbel’s like propaganda to control.

I confess, as a professional and well paid, I have travelled from being a capital L Liberal party person – because I believed in what they were doing – to a questioning person disillusioned with them as their corruption has become more apparent and their aims clearer.

Australia desperately needs a statesman/woman to get through the very difficult times ahead, someone with integrity and spine. It is time we moved form the dirty ethics of economics as our guiding principles and back to truer Australian principles of justice and equality and fairness for all. No more favours for corporate buddies, no more stacking committees, no more “self-regulation” of the self interested, no more refusing to attend senate enquiries, no more gagging debates, no more corrupting our Intelligence via the PM office, no more appointees who are already compromised.

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Trudy Bray

What you have also done in Howard’s roads to absolute power is give an almost text-book description of a sociopath (socialised psychopath). Of course, sociopaths are very common in the higher echelons of business and politics, but Howard stands above them all.

Howard is a conman of the highest order. He has no conscience and will say whatever it takes to convince people to think and do what he wants, e.g. ‘I am working in the interests of the country’, ‘I have to do what is best for the Australian people’. Of course, if you then look at his actions, he does no such thing.

His appeal to patriotism puts people in his pocket because they have no way out.

People point to his ‘support’ of people in Bali and in Tasmania. He has the role of playing a caring human being down pat. He knows all the moves to elicit maximum admiration. When you look at his policies however, there is no caring human being there. I believe Brian Deegan has seen through the ruse.

Peter Foster could only dream to be this good! Howard has conned at least half the Australian people, most of the media and all of his own party. One cannot blame apathy for this. All people respond to an accomplished conman and feel they have been done a favour by giving him what he wants.

Our country is in extreme danger.

***

Martin Whetton in the UK

That is a very scary assessment of the new landscape for Australia. I left for the UK because I couldn’t stand the way things were turning out under John Howard and I am saddened whenever I am back how the country has become. The materialistic culture has overtaken Australia and I don’t see it as somewhere that is as kind and thoughtful as I feel it once was.

I think you are completely correct in suggesting Howard will dismantle the Senate’s power- I see Blair doing a similar thing in stripping the Lords of meaning. The destruction of Lord Chancellor’s office 2 weeks ago- being one example of absolute power (I do however agree on some watering down of hereditary peers).

What I find amazing with Howard, is that the electorate- and the press at large due to concentration and strong media relationships at PBL/NCP – don’t attack the Government more over its failures. The Peter Reith affair/Tampa/Bali/Iraq (and soldiers operating there pre-war) are examples that come to mind, where I see no public lynch mobs.

I hope it doesn’t turn out as you suggest, but at this stage I can’t see a change!

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Gary Ralph

Thank you for your regularly informative and balanced observations in SMH. They deserve even wider reading by the sadly mis and uninformed Australian community at large.

It is suggested that the American public can in no way bring themselves to confront the thought that they may have been misled by their illustrious leaders (described by musician Jackson Browne as a semi-literate unelected pretender surrounded by a band of his father’s cronies and established corporate criminals, heavily financially supported by the oil and arms industries).

[You’ve probably come across it, but if not, the first 20 pages of Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men could be interesting].

I share your concern for the direction matters are moving in this country – the massive over-reaction to the dreaded illegal immigrant terrorist threat at the last election was horrifying – as was the under-response to the subsequent exposure of the manufactured framework of lies and duplicity. Modern-day lotus eaters?

Remember the good old days? Remember ‘Honest John’?

Recent criticism of the failure to more widely publicise the intelligence regarding potential dangers of travel in Indonesia up to 12 months before the Bali bombings has frequently resulted in John Howard asserting the folly of rushing to action based on ‘speculation’. Yet no-one appears to have questioned that basically he alone determined (months before acknowledgement and certainly without the counsel of the electorate) that this country would be thrown into some other megalomaniac’s war in which thousands of people, mostly innocent civilians, have been killed, and the country thrown into total chaos, based essentially on speculation and little else. Maybe it’s different.

Then we saw all the exploit-the-media pantomime of welcome-home and thanks-to-heroes parades. To treat the people as such morons is little short of contempt, but appears not to be resented. It seems that the dumbing-down is well on the way to being a fait accompli. The real brain drain?