Would Murdoch become Turkish, endorse Obama?
Thu May 29, 2008 at 08:40:30 AM PDT
I know, it almost sounds like a troll diary (but do check my other entries to see that I'm no troll). But there are two very real questions I'm asking here:
Would Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, ever change his nationality and become Turkish?
Would Rupert Murdoch actually endorse the almost-presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President in the US, Barack Obama, over John McCain?
The answers may surprise you. More, below the fold...
First, a bit of history. In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph. In that year's election, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party (translation: left-center Democratic Party) under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it win power.
So he started by supporting the left-of-center party.
He then moved to the UK markets, saw a shift in the wind and changed to conservative endorsements.
Murdoch bought The Sun and News of the World newspapers in Britain, and promptly threw his considerable weight into supporting the UK Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher.
The next bit of this diary entry might seem like déjà vu, so here goes...
Rupert Murdoch helped the Conservatives hype up a foreign war with a former friendly country that cost billions, and those that said it should not have happened were labeled 'traitors'.
He helped perpetuate the image that Conservatives were the part of employment for all (employment rose dramatically to 4 million under Thatcher, and was down to under 2 million under Blair). He helped spread the talking point that the Tories were the party of Godliness too (but an almost never-ending multitude of Conservative sex scandals put a stop to that nonsense).
He also helped perpetuate the old "Conservatives are the fiscal responsible ones" myth, which lasted right up to the bit where Black Wednesday forced the Tories to withdraw the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after they were unable to keep Sterling above its agreed lower limit when currency markets believed the policy was unsustainable.
The most high profile of the currency market investors, George Soros, made over US$1 billion profit from Black Wednesday. Which means George Soros, the person so hated by the [f]right-wing over here, put his money where his mouth was by betting against the Conservative way of doing business. So now you all know why the GOP hates him with a seething irrational hatred... they fear him because he was 100% correct and they lost their little fluffy dreams (and possibly some of their cash too) based on Conservative sound-bites.
Oh, and Murdoch perpetuated the names "The Iron Lady" and "The Decider" in his media too. Nothing like a good strong name to help drive the message home.
Eventually, some of the UK Tories started writing books saying "it wasn't me" (Scott McClennan is just the first over here, trust me). Even when Alberto Gonzales testified over Iraq, he followed Maggie Thatcher's example and gave his answers as "I don't recall", such is the amazing string of coincidences!!
And then, in the late 1990s, Murdoch said it's time for a change, and that he was endorsing the union-friendly UK Labour Party.
Like I said: he started by supporting the Left and it won. He then moved to the UK markets, saw a shift in the wind and changed to conservative endorsements, and they won. Then he saw another shift (because of the reasons previously mentioned, which the GOP are now repeating) and went back to the Left in the UK. Since those endorsements in his media, Labour has beaten the Conservatives in three successive General Elections.
If anyone thinks this doesn't constitute a pattern, you might have had a point. Until recently. When he did the same thing in his native Australia. For years he was behind the Conservatives there, then he endorsed Kevin Rudd and Rudd was elected in as Prime Minister of Australia. To let you know what kind of politician Rudd is, so there's no misunderstanding: Rudd's first act as Aussie PM was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. As can be seen here in Murdoch's The Australian newspaper, it was reported in a very positive light:
Within hours of being officially sworn in as the nation's 26th prime minister, Mr Rudd held his first executive council meeting with Governor-General Michael Jeffery, who agreed with his request that Australia ratify the decade-old protocol.
News of the ratification spread quickly, sparking a sustained burst of applause on the floor at the UN climate change conference in Bali, which Mr Rudd will attend next week on his first overseas trip as Prime Minister.
The page contains a video from Sky News Australia. Owned by Rupert Murdoch.
It's also something I would like the next POTUS to do, too. But don't say it yet, or Bush might decide it's the betterest thing to do. Just putting that out there. It would be a nice gesture.
So what does this have to do with Barack Obama? The Silicon Valley Insider has an article today that says Murdoch is pessimistic about the financial situation in the US...
"for the next 18 months, I think this country is in for a very hard time"
...and that he is cautiously optimistic about Senator Obama becoming President, adding:
"I want to be convinced that Obama is the real thing, that can really carry through. I'm open to that."
Look at it this way: Rupert Murdoch was the 33rd richest American on Forbes' list of wealthy people for 2007. Yet I said he was Australian, right? yes, he was born Australian and considered himself to be an Aussie under oath.
In fact, he told the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal in 1979: 'I carry an Australian passport. My children are Australian. I pay my taxes in Australia...' He did hold a 'green card' issued by the US Immigration Service, but just as a necessity of working for Australia in America. Did not this mean he would soon be entitled to US naturalisation? a lawyer asked. 'Yes. But I think I have stated many times it is not my desire.' The lawyer wondered if such a desire might sometime emerge? 'I cannot imagine it,' said Murdoch.
But when he wanted to buy his way into the US market, something was in the way. His lack of American-ness. So he changed his nationality as quickly as he could.
His 1985 purchase of the Metromedia television stations required him to become an American citizen to comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restrictions on foreign ownership of U.S. television stations; many felt he received inordinately preferential treatment by the Reagan administration in expediting the citizenship process.
If anyone thinks this doesn't constitute a pattern, you might have had a point. Until recently. In his push to expand, old problems keep re-emerging. But if there's one thing we know about Murdoch, he puts his earnings above everything else. Even his nationality.
Recently, Murdoch has bought out the Turkish TV channel, TGRT, which was previously confiscated by the Turkish Board of Banking Regulations, TMSF. Newspapers report that Murdoch has bought TGRT in a partnership with Turkish recording mogul, Ahmet Ertegün and there are alleged reports that Murdoch has acquired Turkish citizenship to overcome the current obligations against capital sales to foreigners.
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I'm not saying we should trust the man. Personally speaking, I trust him about as far as I could spit him. But consider this: the man is opportunism personified. He will change his nationality to make money. He will wrap himself in any flag for a buck, lessening the value of what that flag means as a result (are you listening, lapel pin flag wearers?). He will hype wars to curry favor with those in power.
And now he has seen a new thing emerge: The Long Tail, first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article, works in politics.
To paraphrase the idea: forget squeezing millions from a few mega-money contributors at the top of the pile. The future of politics is in the millions of niche contributors at the shallow end of the populace. You. me. Us. Those of us that can't afford $10,000 for dinner and a photo with the candidate, but can afford a $25 online donation, have changed the face of politics.
I may not trust a man that may have become a Turkish national just to buy a TV channel, but one interesting fact remains. Throughout recent history in English-speaking countries, history has repeated. And that history has Keith Rupert Murdoch smack-dab center in it. He'll support the "business-friendly" side, until that conservative business-friendly side self-destructs. Then he'll switch to the left-of-center choice, because there's no profit in aligning with the conservatives anymore.
It's all about advertising dollars.
It's all about what's good for Murdoch.
And it may just be, very soon, that a lot of Fox Noise, Faux News fanboys are going to wake up one morning and wonder why the hell 'their' network has changed.
It's nothing to do with you, dear Republicans. It's because you were nothing to do with it in the first place. It's about cash. Just ask the Turkish guy with the Aussie accent over there, he'll tell you.
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