Dial M for Murdoch

Phone hacking crimes committed by Murdoch’s foot soldiers brings all the intrigue and conspiracy of that Alfred Hitchcock 1954 thriller, “Dial M for Murder”. Laced with mystery and drama, the ever widening scandal threatens to contaminate the highest echelons of governments around the world.

Bill Moyers, one of the greatest journalists of all time, more accurately portrays Rupert Murdoch as the Antichrist. In this June 2007 clip video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA5z-quW2E8 Moyers describes the vileness of Murdoch's corrupting influence on media and politics. Murdoch, both feared and courted by the rich and powerful across the world, cleverly conceals his hidden agenda beneath a mask of salacious media, while masquerading as a free market capitalist. Unfortunately, he is anything but harmless! Rupert Murdoch's destructive influences have resulted in the steady rise of neo-conservative mainstream media around the world peddling a distinct brand of crony capitalism. The cumulative effect is warmongering over resources in developing countries, especially in the Middle East, Africa and Central and South America, that has resulted in widespread death and destruction.

Murdoch supports Bush (2000)
The neo-conservative agenda of Murdoch’s media empire greatly aided Bush in winning the corrupt 2000 US presidential election and holding onto two terms to execute their neo-conservative agenda. Bush’s razor thin “win”, gave America, once the beacon of democracy, the dubious honor of finally attaining Banana Republic status in the eyes of the world. In 2003, Murdoch turned his dogs of war loose in one of the many the newsrooms of this media empire, Fox News, and in collaboration with the Bush-military-industrial machine, were directly instrumental in initiating two prolonged wars in the Middle East that has killed and injured millions, irreparably destroyed American international standing, and the American economy closer to near financial ruin. Also in 2003, he deliberately mislead the public into believing that invading Iraq will ultimately result in oil coming down to $20 per barrel! http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/rupertbig.gif The subsequent misguided Bush economic strategy of lowering interest rates to almost one percent created the domino effect of a false economic boom fueled by the property bubble, followed by the sub-prime crisis which triggered a worldwide recession that will most likely still wreak havoc for decades to come. US author and blogger, David Swanson covers it best in his investigative writings - http://valoansguidelines.org/2011/07/14/murdoch-has-blood-on-his-hands/ on how Murdoch colluded with US President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard and used his media to sound the drumbeats of war just before the invasion of Iraq.

Murdoch attacks Obama (2009)
Prolonging the war was essential to generate obscene profits for the Bush-military-industrial machine complex and Murdoch's rich and powerful buddies in the oil business. So its not surprise that Murdoch's support of the McCain-Palin candidacy resulted in increasing attacks on Obama and his family before the 2009 US presidential elections. A sampling of his extreme
views include:
* Murdoch calls Obama a 60s style communist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBNjqZcSYYY
* Murdoch actually agrees with one of his Fox News minions that Obama is a racist! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLe-x6bA8G4 btw. this is similar tactic to the charges of "black racism" leveled at the ANC government by many white South Africans.
* Murdoch’s Fox News ratchets up the tempo of personal attacks against Obama and his family just before the presidential elections. Obama was forced to meet secretly with Murdoch http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/inside-barack-obamas-secr_n_123188.html to actually warn him of the repercussions of these unwarranted poisonous attacks from his rabid employees.

Murdoch supports David Cameron (2010)
The fact that Andy Coulson was a former reporter for Murdoch's News Of the World and then became the Director of Communication for British PM David Cameron is no coincidence! Further proof that Murdoch had his tentacles embedded in the highest echelons of the British Government. Just as the Bush-military-industrial machine turned its sights to oil-rich Iraq after his election, David Cameron's recent presidency ushered in yet another oil-crusade. This time, to satiate the thirst of Britain, France and other European countries for cheap oil in the coming decades. Libya is now bearing the brunt of their warmongering.

Rupert “Crocodile Dundee” Murdoch
Of course, as an Australian, Murdoch practically owns the entire Australian media establishment so its no surprise that most Australian politicians are in his back-pocket! When will the people of the Banana Republic of Australia wake up to this systemic corruption?

So how does one even begin to quantify the evilness and destructive nature of Murdoch’s empire in our world? Instigating wars, peddling crony capitalism, propagating racism, corrupting democratic processes, desecrating the memories of victims of war and terrorism, and recently, possibly causing the death of an innocent little schoolgirl, Milly Dowler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Milly_Dowler.

A few of his minions falling on their swords and their hollow apologies are meaningless, since Murdoch’s stranglehold over international media persists. Just as monopolies are inherently bad for capitalism, his grip on mainstream media across the world is a threat to world peace and democracy. Just a peek at at what is publicly known about his vast media empire reveals a staggering media conglomerate with a global footprint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corporation
http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=newscorp

One small example of the reprehensible tactics employed by Murdoch's media empire, is the recent attempt at damage control from the phone hacking scandal - The Times, engaged in the age old technique to trying to deflect public attention by fabricating a "corruption in the third world" cartoon, depicting a group of starving Somalian children where one of the children says, "I've had a bellyful of phone-hacking." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/murdoch-times-cartoon-hacking-somalia_n_905899.html
This constant negative portrayal of Africa has now an intrinsic part of the neo-conservative media agenda. BTW. Similar racist tactics are used by our very own South African media conglomerate to paint our government as utterly corrupt to deflect attention away from the real underlying causes of our vast socioeconomic disparity along racial lines.

Now lets wait and see if the FBI and the US Department of Justice have the courage to unearth the many skeletons in the dungeons of Murdoch media mansions. The hacktivist community are salivating at the opportunity to plumb the depths of the electronic treasure trove of Murdoch’s empire to uncover more damming evidence that shows that Murdoch, together with his mini-me James Murdoch, were complicit in the nefarious activities of their top lieutenants around the world. Murdoch needs to spend some serious jail-time in the US to acclimatize him to his imminent afterlife. But hey, there’s also a high likelihood that Americans will finally get back their beloved Wall Street Journal if the US authorities break up his media mafia!

The real irony however is, convicting Rupert Murdoch for the crime of contravening the phone laws is a bit like how the mafia boss Al Capone, one of the most ruthless heads of organized crime, was finally nailed for tax fraud! Anyway, at least there is a special place in Hell reserved for someone like Rupert Murdoch.

SA radicals - our hottest new export?

In a recent development in the US, a group calling themselves "Guardians of the free Republics" apparently wants to strip Washington of its ability to tax citizens' income and dismantle the FBI and other federal agencies. The group created a stir recently since a letter to all 50 governors demanding they step down within three days or be removed, contained an implicit threat, triggering an FBI investigation.

What does this have to do with SA? Well, according to Mother Jones the websites for this lunatic militia group (goftr.com and guardiansofthefreerepublics.com) are registered to one Clive Boustred of Soquel, California—a British-educated former SOUTH AFRICAN soldier with an apparent knack for "anti-terrorist warfare". Both the sites and the group seem to have suddenly sprung up about two months ago. The youtube video of one of Clive's interviews, shows an individual in a state of confusion and paranoia. My sympathies are with his recently divorced wife and kids who have to put up with all his BS.

Anyway, the attraction of extremist South Africans to neo-conservative and militia groups around the world is a known fact and perfectly understandable given their apartheid indoctrination, army training and super-size egos. Furthermore, these like minded lunatics make effective use the Internet to advertise their groups with the view of attracting new recruits and are constantly exchanging ideas and strategies on how to propagate their false beliefs to a wider audience.

This unique brand of South African radicalism, courtesy of the previous apartheid regime, parallels the right wing militia groups and the neocons of Republican party in several ways:

1. They both paint the government as utterly corrupt, totally inefficient and morally depraved.

The recent spate of media headlines braying corruption at every level of the ANC, surprisingly turn a blind eye to corruption in our private sector, where fatcats pay themselves obscene bonuses while their companies stock price plummets and hundreds of thousands of workers are retrenched in the process. Our corporate fatcats seem to get a free ride from the media scrutiny. In the US, the necons in the Republican Party are constantly speaking of deregulation to the point that the capitalism itself has been pushed to the edge of the precipice while the fatcats on Wall Street, feed at the trough, paying themselves the biggest bonuses in history! The neocons in SA media, constantly fixate on government corruption to deflect public attention from companies bereft of any conscience, raping SA consumers on a daily basis. The abhorrant practice of price-fixing continues unabated in our economy due to the lack of consumer advocate groups and toothless government watchdog organizations.

2. They both propagate the myth that businesses and the rich pay a disproportional share of tax revenues.

The bulk of our taxes are derived from middle class wage earners and ordinary SA consumers. Big business and the wealthy have always had the best resources to minimize their taxes through planning and exploiting legal and sometimes illegal loopholes. This will ALWAYS be true due to the nature of the complex tax laws and its in democracies. Today in SA, one hears constant rumblings from the previously privileged to use "lifestyle audits" against political opponents, a strategy guaranteed to gut our tax system. Similarly, the "Guardians of the free Republics" in the US advocate abolishing the IRS and other neocon groups like the Tea Parties are well known for their tax protests and undercurrent of racism.

3. They both use the divisive politics of fear and personal attacks to demonize the opposition to win elections and cling to political power at all costs.

The racist element of the DA (Democratic Alliance) leadership with their cohorts in the media, have constantly engaged in personal attacks e.g. against President Zuma and Malema just before the elections and recently again when Malema brought up the issue of nationalization of the mines. Just recently, racist saboteurs used fear extremely effectively to scare of tourists to the FIFA World Cup and the media whipped up a storm both locally and the internationally until FIFA were forced to step in to reign in our OWN local journalists. The neocons in the US, under Karl Rove's masterful ocherstration, have repeatedly used the fear of terrorists attacks and outrageous personal attacks to accomplish the impossible - successfully elect George W Bush for TWO terms. Unfortunately these shortsighted strategies ultimately work against them, since Bush left in his wake a trail of destruction that will take the US decades to get out of.

4. They both vehemently oppose Affirmative Action.

The racist neocons of the US Republican party and the DA have both used the "merit" argument against the SA and US governments attempts at creating employment equity through AA. Civil Rights groups in the US have been instrumental in holding the government and companies accountable for the implementation of AA. Tremendous progress has been made over the years culminating in the election of the first African American President - a watershed moment in US history. In SA however, recent studies have shown that over 90% of CEOs are white, yet the DA still opposes AA! Go figure.

5. They are both Nazi sympathizers to varing degrees.
The far right elements like the AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging or Afrikaner Resistance Movement), Afrikaner Broederbond etc. here in SA and militia groups in the US, have always had an affinity for Hitler's false belief of racial superiority. Ironically, here in SA, these Nazi sympathesizers are quick to compare themselves to the German Jews or the compare black leaders to Hitler, with the view of portraying themselves as being under assault by the black majority. Some elements in SA media use underhanded techniques like juxtaposing and comparing Hitler with Zuma, Mugabe, Malema to propagate their twisted fear based politics.

Unfortunately, due to the previously privileged's continued denialism, amnesia and refusal to take responsibility for apartheid, racism in SA has will take generations to overcome, but in the meantime, many our homegrown racists are voting with their feet and spreading across the globe since the end of white-AA in SA is imminent. Just like the Canadian government's fiasco in admitting Brandon Huntly, the "white SA refugee" fleeing persecution from "black criminals", the US government however, is also unwittingly allowing this cancer to infiltrate their society by not understanding the unique brand of racism that has been festering in our country for centuries. Like the jihadists, our SA racists are adept at manoeuvring through the bureaucratic morass of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Homeland with the help of militia groups, neocon organizations etc. made much easier through the Internet. By sheer serendipity however, the worldwide recession has in a strange way slowed down this movement since ALL countries have effectively closed their doors on immigration making it more difficult for these sometimes smart and determined radicals to exploit immigration laws to export their unique brand of extremism abroad.

Just like certain tourists and immigrants are subject to additional security clearances based on their nationality, one can only hope that the US government wakes up in time to stem the infiltration, influence and free movement of these undesirables from our shores into their free societies.