Rupert Murdoch should be in prison

[sweetheart]

Like he is doing with Faux TV in the US, this single insideous bastard believes he is an untouchable kingmaker as is evidenced in the following article where he's positioning to unseat blair.

I really believe in free press and free speech, but i think that man should be in prison for subverting democracy... its a crime against free speech, like shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. Is there no law against such outrageous crime?

Rupert Murdoch, the 72-year-old media mogul and owner of the Sun and the Times, has hinted his newspapers may throw their support behind Michael Howard's Conservative party at the next general election.
He told Jeff Randall in an interview for tonight's Newsnight on BBC2 that he was was "torn" between the Tories and Labour.

"We'll have to see how the Tory front bench looks, it looked like a viable alternative government, which it hasn't so far.

"And we will not quickly forget the courage of Tony Blair in the international sphere in the last several months, so we may be torn in our decision. So let's wait and see," Mr Murdoch, in London for today's stormy BSkyB annual general meeting, told the BBC's business editor.
...

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1085538,00.html

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. Murdoch is our own version of Russia's oligarchs

Where is Newscorp chartered anyway, Delaware? Is it even a US company? Forget putting Murdoch in prison, let's just revoke their corporate charter. I don't see any reason we should allow people like him to dominate our airwaves anyway? He can get a show on public access TV like everyone else!

[sweetheart]

5. federalizing corporate law

A wise democrat would do this, and use a federal regulator to strongly regulate abusers, like they do in banking... remember the japanese bank that was shut down for bad practices in copper? trading... or was that bonds... several banks have been shut down or forced out of the US for market abuse... similarly that principal should apply to ALL corporations. Abuse of power is criminal in this respect, more so than in banking... and to not call it a crime is sooooo republican.

At the very least, these right wing networks should be forced to offer equal time... but murdoch has gone beyond that. He should be barred from that business by public law by his criminal track record.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

2. If Blair gives him Channel 5 then I'll be mighty pissed (nt)

[sweetheart]

7. skytv is bad enough

I can tell you who loves bush in scotland by whether they have a sky dish on their houses... you could say that they all love bush, and that is why they bought sky (as channel 5 is not available in the north) or that as few folks round these parts have any knowledge of the US at all, that their opinions are pro-war-bush-poodle because of sky brainwashing.

Without regulation, propaganda completely subverts democracy. Murdoch is goebbels for his own cause, global power broking by subverting governments the world over before their legal systems can catch on to him. I really wish he'd try it in russia, putin is the only sort of guy who's smart enough to take him down.

If democracy survives the next century, it is very likely that we will discover a very different way of regulating the media airwaves, and only with that evolving body of law from the future can criminals like murdoch be taken down. A wise political leader, would put him in jail on terrism charges and he could chat with his taliban buddies at gitmo while he issued orders to overthrow governments from his cell.

[IronLionZion]

3. fair and balanced

rival news sources need to expose him

[DEM FAN]

4. Throw Bush In There With Him.

:-(

[Catshrink]

20. And Cheney, Rove, Rummy, Rice, Ken Lay...

Robert Novaks, and oh heck, why not Bush Daddy?

[SeveneightyWhoa]

6. This is insane.

"his newspapers may throw their support behind..."

So THAT's what the media has turned into? The media as cheerleaders, deciding who people will vote for. What a joke.

[laura888]

8. I'm actually glad he is up there in age...

...he won't be with us for ever...

[legin]

9. don't quote me on this

but I think his mother is still alive, if i remember rightly

[legin]

10. At least April 30th she was anyway

"Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, 94, the matriarch whose generosity shaped Melbourne, closes her eyes as she speaks, in a gesture that suggests passion rather than fatigue.

Yesterday, before the start of a ceremony honouring her 70 years of philanthropic service, the mother of media magnate Rupert Murdoch talked of the responsibility that comes with privilege."

(more...)

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/29/1051381947586.html

[sweetheart]

11. waiting for people to die

is not very effective politics. That treasonous worm can do a lotta damage given a decade... and his son will pick up after him.... the son that just took over bskyb is 30 years old. He's doing a randalph hearst... and that bastard should have been imprisoned also. Printing a rag is not a free license to subvert democracy.

[laura888]

12. agreed! Would like to drive him from his powerful position...

...but what can a lone (not rich) person do??

[sweetheart]

13. What can we do?

Leaving aside direct action, as certainly if somebody kneecapped murdoch and stapled a note to his forehead, it would send a message to potential criminal elites to keep clear of democracy... leaving that aside.

We can write about him and expose him on the web for a start.. like in this thread, raising public awareness however little as to the unjust power of a single person to swing an election because our legal systems have never caught up to the age of electronic propaganda.

Imagine if TV had existed for 300 years before america was formed... the constitution's framers would have put articles in the constitution to prevent the electronic media from perverting the principals of the enlightened republic they tried to form. Mass media IS better regulated in more modern constitutional states where the founders had some time to reflect on ww2 and its lessons... except in america where ww2 was just a profit opportunity, but not a lesson.

I myself believe that direct action, Putin-style, against oligarchs that subvert states is acceptable and necessary. I don't like what putin is doing in chechnya and in most of his repressive/totalitarian thinking, but in preventing media moguls from playing kingmaker, he's a wise player. Free speech is different than broadcasting to 100's of millions of peoople... and corporate personhood, were it properly revoked would set the foundation.

Property rights are not absolute, especially over a public good like broadcast frequency in the airwaves. The airwaves are like the public park, and if someone just TOOK the public park in your town for their own, the people might object... but when it is taken by broadcasters similarly, our legal system falls over OJ-simpson style and gives the money guy faux justice.

My thinking is direct action.... CEO's are not above the law, and only a lynching will get them to realize that.

[laura888]

15. absolutely a great answer - thanks! Does "lynching" involve law suits?

I can recognize propaganda when I see it on FOX - this is more than 30% of the U.S. population (at the least) is able to do.

But I am clueless as to how to subvert the source of the propaganda.

Beyond forcing the U.S. media to be more diversified, what do you propose can happen to tangle up these guy's plans?

[sweetheart]

17. capping the propaganda well

Think of the media-common as a huge public park between all of our houses. It is where our kids play ball, where we go jogging and where lovers have picknics. When someone commandeers the park against the will of the greater community, there are laws to preserve the public rights. The law may very well be "Abuse of the community park is not allowed." Then the courts and the police determine what "abuse" means depending on what comes about.

Similarly, a set of case law can be evolved for regulating the media common that it support the WHOLE community. All political media should be blacked out during 2 months before an election. ironically, there is exactly such a blackout for news releases from public companies before quarterly public disclosures of "the numbers.".. but financial markets are deemed more sacred than democracy ? somehow in some perverted republican courtroom.

A media blackout on political topics from september to november every year would give the community an unprecedented break.

Also, if a news company can be charged with broadcasting lies, even if it is merely broadcasting a politician lying without exposing it, then that station can be shut down in the public interest. News has a public obligation... sort of like a house builder has a public obligation to make your house not collapse during use... a news broadcaster has a public obligation to tell the truth, and if they do not then serious remedies would quickly cure bad propagandists in the common.

Directors in companies that abuse the law should be permanently disqualified (struck off) like doctors that malpractice. They should be barred from holding any directorships or management responsiblities in any company, public or private. It is not a right to run a corporation, it is a priviledge, and only should it remain if it is being respected.

Finally, by ending corporate personhood, news companies would lose the "right" to freely spew their ideas and half truths. Companies are not individuals, and their actions are not rights under the constitution. That would end the current ruse they use to justify propaganda manipulation under the "free speech" auspices.

The law should be strengthened to call the internet and the airwaves/spacewaves a public good. They are never "owned" by a broadcaster, merely licensed to use provided they keep within the law...

The changes necessary are not rocket science. I'm sure dennis kucinich has more refined ideas on this...

[11 Bravo]

14. Rupert Murdoch should be in the ground.

n/t

[Zero Division]

16. Murdoch's from Australia, right?

So he's spread his poisonous propaganda in at least three different English-speaking countries (does he own any media in Canada?).

We need an international movement against Murdoch. :evilgrin:

[beanball]

18. Rupert the rat

deport the evil bastard.

[beanball]

19. Oh my God

I forgot America only deport Mexicans and Arabs.

[meow2u3]

21. Murdoch's NewsCorp is a foreign corporation

And Murdoch has no business dictating to Americans.

In other words, the United States is under foreign corporate occupation!

[Dirk39]

22. Call me a cynic...

but I would somehow be amused, if Murdoch would end Blairs' career. It was Blair, who decided to become Murdochs' whore, just like Schröder here in Germany decided to let the right-wing idiotic BILD-daily-news-paper make him the president. If those same people now should decide, to let them fall, who cares?
As long as he gets into the same prison as Blair, I support you.
Call me a dreamer, too, but I think somehow, the influence of Murdoch and his comrades is overestimated, their propaganda is too flat. They will be forgotten as soon as Blair or Schröder or Bush. If only we would have 1% of their money...
Dirk

[sweetheart]

23. the sun, the times and skyTV

We're not talking about a small bit of media. The equivalent in the USA would be Faux-tv AND USATODAY AND WASHINGTONPOST together. The influence he has on public opinion by pushing views in the rags is destabilizing. Though the SUN is a stupid flat rag, the times is not near as shallow, and he does an excellent job of veiling the propaganda across his publications that only a sophistocated reader can spot the deliberate placement of his political adgenda.

Murdoch is a case study of too much media concentration.

I agree that bliar, bush and murdoch should all rot in the same cell, or at least let blair and murdoch share a cell overlooking the gallows where they hang bush.