I'm stepping out from my usual "What's Going on in Wisconsin" diaries to take a stab at a national issue.
The coverage I've seen on the Rupert Murdock Media Hacking Scandal has been missing the most important point.
It's not about the hacking, or the ideology, or the political wrangling or maneuvering. It's not about leverage or blackmail to use against politicians, public officials, or opponents.
It's about monopolies and what happens when one person or one corporation owns so much of an industry that they control almost everything else. It's about time to break them up.
Rupert Mudochs media empire controls so much of the worlds media that it has become a power unto itself. When I read about Tony Blair flying to Australia to get Uncle Ruperts blessing to run for Prime Minister of Britain, my mouth fell open. There should not be one single person who has that much power, nor anyone allowed to control that much power.
Teddy Roosevelt broke up the monopolies. Lobbyists and campaign payola have eroded our anti-trust laws over the decades to enable the formation of enormous entities that should not exist. A few mega oil companies acting in together wreak havoc. A few mega ISPs can do the same. Ditto Microsoft with its worldwide technology empire. Ditto Media Mogul Murdoch. Ditto Banks and Wall Street firms that are now not only Too Big to Fail, but also Too Big to Jail. The list goes on and on.
Becoming that big has enormous consequences on nations and individuals. They can dictate legislation through political pressure or mega bucks in campaign donations or attack ads. They can avoid taxes (a majority large number of Fortune 500 US companies pay ZERO taxes or negative taxes). They can pay fines (a small percentage of their ill-gotten gains) rather than face prison when they willfully violate the law. They have their minions write loopholes and subsidies into legislation so they can both avoid taxes and get tax payer dollars as a bonus (yes, oil companies, I'm talking about you).
The discussion of the Murdoch Scandal must expand to include the need to prevent any one person or one corporation (or a handful of mega corporations) to become so large that they threaten a nation or the world. This discussion really didn't happen when a few banks and Wall Street crashed the worlds economy. It must happen now.
We can't afford to continue to allow Too Big to Fail / Too Big to Jail corporations to exist anymore.
Your thoughts?