When was the last time anyone read the 'Australian'?

A cast of characters appear in Murdoch's latest advertisement being screened on SBS during the cricket. Peas in the 'Australian's' pod!

From David McKnight's chapter - 'Murdoch and the Culture War' - in 'Do Not Disturb: Is the Media Failing Australia?' (edited by Robert Manne, 2005):

"The 2004 move to change the legal domicile of News Corporation from Australia to Delaware, USA symbolises an ideological orientation within the Murdoch camp and the wider conservative elite of which it forms a part.

This intellectual orthodoxy is most obvious in the broadsheets such as the 'Australian' and the 'Courier-Mail' and is also present in a populist and more aggressive form in the mass-circulation tabloids such as the Sydney 'Daily Telegraph' and the Melbourne 'Herald Sun'. The senior editors of News Ltd. are quite conscious and open about their role in the crusade for conservative hegemony. To frame this crusade they have introduced the term 'culture war' from the lexicon of US conservatism. In an editorial celebrating the US invasion of Iraq an anonymous editorial writer at the 'Australian' discussed the conflict between radical Islam and the West and added:

"Of course, there is another war of values, and it is the culture war being fought within the West. This is the war between those who feel that on the whole our values and traditions are sound, and those among the intellectuals who argue that they are simply a cloak for racism and brute power."

In the intellectual universe of the right, legitimate criticism on a variety of social and cultural issues is treated as a full-scale attack on Western values. Those who applaud the invasion of another country, and its bloody consequences, are able to parade as moral standard-bearers defending Western values against the barbarian critics who oppose such invasions.

Today this intellectual universe and its aggressive 'war of values' sets an agenda for public debate. They can do this thanks to the monopolistic newspaper holdings of News Ltd. News owns the biggest selling daily (the Melbourne 'Herald Sun') and in Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart and Darwin, it has a daily press monopoly; in terms of circulation it has almost 70 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market."

Imagine a desperate drug-pusher. Nobody is buying his poisonous, addictive and deadly mind-altering wares anymore. He has enormous financial problems even though he still drives a big black car and has huge and intimidating thugs all around him. What will he do to make sure that he stays at the top of the heap?

He'll push more poison onto more suckers and he'll get as many street-pushers to help him as his diminishing influence can muster. He needs to use his last ounce of power and capital to make sure that he doesn't go down alone.

Well, he could pay all sorts of has-beens to appear in a formerly credible place to suggest users should perhaps get just a bit more of that stuff he's pushing. Sadly, it may just work.

"When was the last time you smoked crack?"

Why not give it another go? Seriously, you'd be helping a dealer and the overall economy and in the end that's also good for you!

If you give a rat's jacksie you can take any of the actions we have suggested in previous posts, or better still come up with your own and tell us what it is.

"When was the last time you did anything about Murdoch?"