Rupert Murdoch, already an American citizen, pulls up News Limited’s stumps from Australia to become an American company and the very next day presumes to tell Australians what to think and who to vote for!
Murdoch backs Bush and wants troops to stay reports his decrees on Sydney radio today:
Media baron Rupert Murdoch today backed George Bush to win a second term, said Australian troops should see the job through in Iraq, and said he would push for changes to Australia’s cross-media and foreign media ownership laws, despite shifting News Corporation to the US.
The News Corporation chairman said today the coalition of the willing had largely been successful and Australia needed to maintain its presence.
“We have no alternative – we must see the job through,” Mr Murdoch told 2GB radio.
He also said George W Bush would win a second term at the US presidential election in November because the American people strongly supported the president’s efforts in Iraq and the resurging US economy.
“They’re with him on that, completely. He’s going to walk it (the election) in,” he said. (The interview with, you guessed it, Howard favourite Alan Jones, is at interview.)
So Murdoch and his papers and TV empire back Bush and Howard. Murdoch’s proved a loyal ally to Bush and Howard, in exchange for more power, of course. See Murdoch: Cheap oil the prize, Murdoch’s war: 175 generals on song and Murdoch’s war on truth in war reporting. And see Webdiary’s cross media archive for his attempt to extend his domination of Australian media, courtesy of Howard.
Murdoch and his editors have lots of tricks to mess with your minds. He brought his editors and selected commentators from around the world to Cancun recently and ensured they knew the line. Bush’s national security adviser Condi Rice obeyed her masters voice and addressed the Murdoch crew, as did UK opposition leader Michael Howard. (Last year Murdoch publicly announced that his UK papers would switch their support from Blair to Howard because he didn’t like Blair’s wish to endorse a European constitution. He had the hide to say this would downgrade “our” sovereignty – he must have meant “our” in the Murdoch nation sense.)
Murdoch helps fund the Washington neo-con bible the Weekly Standard. Last year, the magazine falsely claimed it had proof there were links between Saddam and al Qaeda before S11. Murdoch’s New York Postand The Australian dutifully republished it as truth, minus official denials by the US Defense Department (see His lie-master’s apprentices).
And have a look at Tuesday’s Australian, which headlined its Newspoll ‘Latham’s bubble bursts’. It must have given one Stephen Morris the results in advance, because on the opinion page that very day he wrote Latham an open letter condemning his ‘troops home’ policy, citing “today’s Newspoll”!
What can the people do?
For a start, we can expose the hypocrisy of Murdoch and his media mouthpieces. Eddie Davers did it in Overland magazine. In Our Australian? Murdoch’s flagship and shifting US attitudes to Iraq, he examines howThe Australian reported Saddam when the Americans liked him:
“In Australia, one newspaper now stands out for its hawkish tone. ‘The Australian’ (was) the loudest and most persistent in calling for an invasion of Iraq. It never tires of reminding its readers that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons (sing along) against his own people. It is worth reviewing how ‘The Australian’ covered the atrocities when they actually occurred. Quantitative aspects of the coverage are revealing; today’s profusion is in marked contrast to the paucity of coverage during the 1980s. However, this article focuses on the qualitative aspects: how reports were packaged, what was stressed and what was de-emphasised, and the nature of visual coverage.”
We can also get together and seek real answers to important questions on Iraq from politicians where WE live. The North shore Peace and Democracy Group is leading the way. Last year, it organised a political panel to answer community questions on why we went to war – see Tony Abbott to eyeball North Shore against the War: Truth possible, Don’t let pollies get away with murder, Liberal elder to Abbott: Dear friend, make amends on Iraq and The Valder indictment: full text.
Their latest event, called ‘Secrets and lies destroy democracy: a discussion on the impact of decisions behind closed doors on democracy in Australia’ will be held Monday 3 May, 2004 at 7:30pm at Willoughby Town Hall, 409 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood (400m from Chatswood Station). On the panel: Senator Marise Payne (Liberal), Kevin Rudd (Labor), Kerry Nettle (Greens) and Aden Ridgeway (Democrats).
The questions to be asked of each panellist are:
1. We were told the invasion of Iraq was necessary because of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. John Howard said on 14 March 2003: “If Iraq had genuinely disarmed, I couldnt justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime.” How can we trust future justifications for war in the light of this?
2. There has been little informed democratic debate in Australia about the causes of terrorism, in particular the unresolved Israel-Palestine conflict. The War on Terror cannot succeed by dealing with the symptoms alone. How can Australia work to address the causes?
3. “It wasn’t a time in our history to have a great and historic breach with the United States,” Alexander Downer said recently. Does a request for support from the US automatically and always pre-empt Australian policy and budgets at the expense of education, health and welfare, and if not, how should we decide which requests to refuse?
4. Free trade agreements and decisions that impact on all our lives are negotiated behind closed doors, without the wider participation of the Australian people. How can these decisions be made more democratically?
5. The present rigid control of Australian political parties over its members effectively hijacks much of the decision-making process from open debate in the parliamentary chambers – where it is meant to be – and cloaks it in secrecy behind the closed doors of party rooms. Should this be allowed?
6. Australians are very cynical about the political process, and the extent to which secrecy and falsehood are used to justify policy decisions. How can our faith in the system be restored?
Everyone is welcome to go along. For details of the group’s next venture, go to ademocraticaustralia.com