Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
December 10, 2007
Third time is a charm?

by Debs is Dead
lifted from a comment

Virtually every human who takes an interest in things beyond their
front gate will have noticed the announcement by News Corp that Rupert
Murdoch’s son James Murdoch has been appointed heir apparent of the despicable NewsCorp.

The Grauniad’s Sunday edition, "The Observer" provides a little more
detail on the position James has been stuffed in to, in a weekend
sycophantic puff piece called a ‘profile’.
Writer James Robinson must consider he may one day return to the
Murdoch stable, which famed for their elephantine memory of past
slights is not a mob you want to offend. He therefore describes James
as a ‘quiet family man’.

Which is interesting because as Robinson goes on to say:

. . ."a newly created post at its parent company News
Corp, where he will run the group’s European and Asian operations. He
takes responsibility for the Times, the Sun and the News of The World,
the group’s powerful stable of British newspapers, a move that makes
him the most powerful opinion-former in the country. . . ."

Those unfamiliar with NewsCorp’s english titles other than The
Times, should know that News of the World and the Sun are the two most
reviled rags in the foul swill which passes for an English media. They
specialize in black-mailer style traps of their ‘marks’ where anyone
who has had 15 minutes or more exposure especially by way of a rival
publication’s exclusive, is likely to be set up with a live boy, dead
girl, gerbil and a container load of whatever drug the rag’s
‘contractors’ can get their hands upon. The result is then video-taped
at some ‘country hotel’ away from London to ensure that the victim has
no redress, Yet another human has their world destroyed in the
interests of selling the nasty, racist and capitalist lies the papers
put between their revelations about minor pop singers, fading athletes
, and of course, "The Royals".

What a quiet family man hopes to achieve by supervising this blackmailer’s paradise is difficult to imagine.

It would be foolish to think that he will be entirely free of "Daddy’s" shadow.  The last heir apparent number one son Lachlan Murdoch
had a very free hand but not only did he fuck up big by getting into a
silly bidding war/pissing contest with rival Australian Media magnate
Kerry Packer’s son James over sports franchises and their TV rights,
then he and James Packer blew millions on a Telco scam devised by a couple of poorer but less scrupulous "old school chums", he also managed to be implicated on the fringes of a corporate scam when Australian financier Lou Adler’s son Rodney played fast and loose with the shareholder’s funds.

Time has washed away most of the details but it appears the three
young anointed were a little too arrogant for their own good. James
Packer was also involved in the Insurance mess, I think he may have
lost a lot more of Daddy’s money than ‘Lauchie’ but since the Packers
have in the main preferred private company holdings to publicly listed
corporations, no one can be sure and without disgruntled
shareholders whining, it gets quickly forgotten. However Rupert didn’t
forget or forgive quite so easily and Lauchie was ‘encouraged’ to spend
more time in New York ‘learning the ropes’ than hooning around Double
Bay with his millionaire mates.

That became old fast, so Lauchie spat the dummy and came home. 

That was when James was first mooted as heir in waiting.

Before Lauchie was Elisabeth,
named after her grandmother and Rupert’s mother, Elisabeth was the
eldest child, with an interest in business, so got first crack of the
whip. A capable businesswoman, Elisabeth appears to have fallen out
with Rupert’s right hand man Sam Chisholm, and therefore fell out of
favour with Rupert.

Personally I doubt she ever was in favour. Murdochian misogyny would
not allow the empire to be run by a woman. Rupert sees women as the
duplicitous power behind the throne, never sitting upon it. Rupert has
founded his empire on exploiting women in one form or another, either
by way of his scantily clad page 3 ‘girls’ or by portraying them as
harlots and seducers in countless "Sex Scandals".)

The innate misogyny probably stems from the treatment he received at
the hands of Elisabeth Murdoch 1, his mother, as a child. Although they
lived in a huge mansion; when Rupert was allowed home from his spartan
and oppressive boarding school he would be ‘put up’ in a sleep-out.
This structure was made of plywood and mosquito netting and set in a
remote corner of the estate. The ‘sleep out’ had no running water or
electricity. Rupert was expected to live a lifestyle in direct contrast
to his wealth in the belief it would "toughen him up".

Rupert was the child of media boss Sir Keith Murdoch.  Keith’s interference in the running of WW1 is a typical piece of Murdochian media manipulation. 

Although ambitious Keith was an out and out bumbler in comparison to
Rupert. The edge in Rupert probably comes from Elisabeth who was her
husband’s intellectual superior.

Elisabeth 1 who makes Barbara Bush seem like Florence Nightingale in
comparison, manipulated Rupert into his father’s job ahead of more
worthy candidates (remember the Murdochs have always used other
people’s money) by using the iron paw concealed beneath a velvet glove
routine which Rupert himself has become famous for. I suspect his long
term adulation of the Thatcher thing, is related to the fear he has
always had for his mother. He saw two very similar people in Margaret
Thatcher and Elisabeth Murdoch.

Unfortunately for James Murdoch, he is unlikely to get the opportunity to step into his father’s shoes any time soon.

Hell Elisabeth 1 is still in charge anyhow, and
she is only 98. She will be bossing around her servants, bullying them
into getting everything ready for this year’s family Xmas party. I
betcha that will be a grim Presbyterian affair where all emotion is
subsumed to the great god mammon.

By the time Media Corp does need a replacement for Rupert, the
offspring of wife number 3, Wendi Deng, two daughters named Grace and
Chloe will loom large in the Murdoch consciousness. Wendi Deng is by
all accounts more like Elisabeth 1 and Margaret Thatcher than his
previous wives were, so she may succeed in trumping his distaste for a
female heir.

Third time’s a charm is not more than a long shot.

P.S. Others who also share a distaste for reducing a human’s life to
a series of scandals and/or repeating gossip, may want to remember that
the Murdochs live well on their lack of scruple or discretion about
other humans’ existence.

I have no compunction whatsoever about repeating Murdoch gossip, any
slight twists or exaggerations to be found in this account should be
regarded as an homage to the master distorter.

Comments

What does it say that all of these incredibly wealthy and powerful people are all scarred from horrendous backgrounds, playing out their wounds and fears on the public stage?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2007 8:59 utc | 1

Rupert was expected to live a lifestyle in direct contrast to his wealth in the belief it would “toughen him up”.
Wouldn’t naming him “Rupert” in the first place “toughen him up” (kinda like a “boy name Sue”)?

Posted by: DM | Dec 10 2007 9:30 utc | 2

A good overview of the Murdoch business is here.
I believe the best reason for high estate taxes is the prevention of such dynasties. I don’t mind people get rich, but it should be for merit, not inheritance.

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2007 13:34 utc | 3

I believe the best reason for high estate taxes is the prevention of such dynasties. I don’t mind people get rich, but it should be for merit, not inheritance.
Why?
Not too many rich people work towards the day they die — so that they can give their money to the government. And as we all know, governments are a pack of lyin’, thievin’ gangsters anyway.
So what’s so shit-hot about merit anyway?

Posted by: DM | Dec 10 2007 14:35 utc | 4

@DM #4
“So what’s so shit-hot about merit anyway?”
Lack of merit in others might not bother you very much. A baseless system of arbitrary rewards and punishments drives some of us absolutely batshit, though.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 10 2007 15:05 utc | 5

it is not news to anyone here that i believe murdoch to be a monster on a scale that is hard to measure. he makes hearst appear holy. makes even robert maxwell or a conrad black to seem the common criminals they actually were/are
murdoch is moriarty without the waterfall
evil is concentrated rarely in individual human beings. even in slaughterhouse of a century we have come out of can create few figures who in human form represent only carnage & catastophe
& it is day to day apocalypse – for which mr murdochh has hold of the steering wheel. how many millions & millions of people have lost their destinies & their desire to this thug – who from even shacross’s fawning book – appears to delight in the cruelty he conceives
it is murdoch who has made inequality ‘modern’ – he like one of his puppets – margaret thatcher – do not see society – i don’ think they even believe in family – the believe in a self that is so syphlitic – there are no words to decribe it – only nightmares. in galaxies of evil – toto riina or bernando provenanzo – are decent men – because they believed, really believed
murdoch does not believe anything. anything at all
economic histories of men like murdoch – always hide the construction of their liquidity. there is no mystery in how – the cia, nugan hand bank, containerisation, sir peter ables – & the mass market of heroin converged to offer a liquidity that built empires
the liquidity of a joseph kennedy, of a rupert murdoch, of a boris berezovsky come from the same place – crime

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 10 2007 18:16 utc | 6

Why is it that the most foul live so goddamn long. Isn’t say 55 yrs. long enough for them to befoul the planet. But at least muddoch did one useful thing – he roused R’Giap to write more poetry.
but R’Giap don’t forget to note that he is not really one among equals, he is Zeus of the Western World, always there insisting upon selecting the titular leaders who will kiss his ring.
and speaking about Zeus, it’d be enlightening if you felt like taking the time to construct a Pantheon of the Western Gods. Muddoch au Pinnacle – then??

Posted by: jj | Dec 10 2007 20:17 utc | 7

murdoch is responsible for the most terrible crimes
but the crimes which i think are the most terrible are those where he in complicity with governments has reduced the people to a crowd, a mass. sometimes it is a happy mutual infantilism but mostly it is fear. fear & celebrity – in their non erotic carnal embrace
western countries in the 60’s & 70’s were confronted by the people’s just demands for education health & housing. it is what they fought for in 2 world wars & every adventure their ruling classes had dragged them through. in australia – it was also represented by a just demand fro a real & functioning industrial jurisprudence
& we must never forget this – that in each instance whether it was suharto, thatcher, pinochet, howard or blair – their functional rejection of society – was illustrated in the first instance with an attack on the working class & the organisations of the working class. & they always went for the most militant members of the working class, the dockers, the ship workers, the building trades, the printers, the miners & teachers. they went for the throats of these defenders of the working class & they went for their jugulars. they deregistered unions, sequestered their funds & jailed their leaders & step by step in this war they were led in full fury by mr murdoch & his pygmy editors & vassal journalists
how i hate those fucking journalists. i am interviewed here quite often & even in the most sympathetic journalist i cannot gather within myself – any respect for them. as a class of professionals – whether it is here in france or elsewhere – they have not been guided by grace or by genius but by greed. a greed so venal – that it has effectively destroyed them as anything other than the short order cooks of communications. their leadership in the attack on the working class is a disgrace to all those who fought to write with their heads & hearts over the last century in the face of power & its propagandists
they are almost without exception scum
the least gifted & most alienated miner or docker is worth more weight than the most lofty journalist because the miner & the docker are the search for truth or the truth itself. journalism is the contrary – it is the escape from truth
in this time of war we see them as they are – in extremis – as valets
but their real damage, the very real damage they have organised from their offices & their notepads – is the destruction of equality in education, of reasonable health services & of decent housing
these animals do not care if we all lived on the streets in cartons as long as they eat at their sushi bars, drink in their tony clubs & fuck each other in a criminal carnival worthy of bosch or breughel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 10 2007 21:20 utc | 8

A baseless system of arbitrary rewards and punishments drives some of us absolutely batshit, though.
So who decides who’s funny? Mate, money is not baseless. I don’t have any – but if I did – I would make sure that it went to mine and not to a government or the amorphous masses.
RGiap. Get a fucking grip mate. The whole world knows Murdoch is an arsehole, but projecting every imaginable evil to Murdoch and a handful of your pet monsters is neither instructional nor helpful. Not when you start gushing about “defenders of the working class” in the same breath. Militant unionists were always only looking after their own interests. Just another bunch of arseholes.

Posted by: DM | Dec 11 2007 8:16 utc | 9

“Militant unionists were always only looking after their own interests” always eh? Stop talking out yer ass. Many ‘militant’ unionists lived on the basic wage of their members. They worked 7 days a week organising and ‘social working’ but no overtime for them because that was robbing the union when the funds were needed to support families whose bread-winner was on strike. This is no myth, these are real men and women who fought for something more than money.
They were arseholes in jail too no doubt when they got put there because they were so selfish they stood up for others’ right to earn enough to live. They were certainly arseholes when they were clubbed and shot by smarmy sons of the middle-class dragged out of university lectures to be made special constables and told the strikers would be a doddle to bash cause they hadn’t eaten a square meal for a month.
Money is shit to those people who don’t believe that a person’s worth is measured by what they consume. There may not be many left now but that wasn’t always the case.
But then some idiot who thinks he knows it all comes along and calls them all ‘aresholes’ without any proof other than his own bitter self hatred.
Murdoch is an extreme example of a man who won’t acknowledge that without other humans which he so obviously despises, and without the governments the Murdochs always want to be smaller, he wouldn’t be worth shit.
These people have no innate ‘right’ to their wealth they have taken it from others using shortcuts and trickery distorting the rules designed to keep humans safe.
Murdoch’s deliberate interference in the governance of the communities he publishes within means he has no ‘right’ to anything, he has no ethical standing, no superior right. He has behaved immorally for his own self interest. The same is true of all capitalists who ‘grow’ their business beyond the self perpetuating goods and service provision which characterised most industry until the growth, growth; grow or die ethos of corporate capitalism became the way of the world.
If they believe they have a right to accumulate their wealth by sailing as close as possible to the wind of the rules that society has made, then societies also have a right to change those rules and take as much of the accumulated wealth off the rich as they choose.
The only thing preventing that at the moment is gullible fools who imagine they too will somehow grab a piece of the action. People will wake up to the big lie as they always have done in the past and then they will demand a redistribution of what’s on this planet.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 11 2007 9:46 utc | 10

What era are you mythologizing? (“Clubbed and shot by smarmy sons of the middle class”)
Sounds like you’re harping back in the 1890’s. Nothing in my lifetime. (I’m the same age as you.)
Y’know, I’m tending to side with the “gullible fools who imagine they too will somehow grab a piece of the action”.
Maybe these “gullible fools” (you know – the working class – the ones who don’t give a rat’s arse for Jack Mundy or Frank Hardy – the ones that you despise so much) – maybe they are not quite as gullible as you think.
Maybe they‘d just rather take their chances with the moneyed elite rather than sign up with your selfless, tireless, social workers. I think people get the sense that the “Vanguard of the proletariat” are just another bunch of main-chancers, mate.
As for Australia, “the most militant members of the working class, the dockers” struggled for, and won, great benefits for their members. Above average wages. Decent, affordable housing.
Only trouble was – it was a private club. No meritocracy here. No brotherhood of the working-class. No wogs or New Australians allowed. I think you had to inherit a union ticket to get one of these nice houses down at Balmain or in the Rocks.

Posted by: DM | Dec 11 2007 11:32 utc | 11

history never repeats…

Posted by: jcairo | Dec 11 2007 12:30 utc | 12

@DM #9:
“So who decides who’s funny?”
These days, the lowest common denominator makes that call.
“Mate, money is not baseless. I don’t have any – but if I did – I would make sure that it went to mine and not to a government or the amorphous masses.”
Money may or may not be baseless, that’s a discussion for another day. The system for distributing it, though, is what we were talking about and that’s as arbitrary as arbitrary can be. “Want” figures into a lot when you’re four. After that, not so much. Couple problems here with what folk want to happen to their cash. For starters,
1.)Incompetents who were born into an unlimited supply of capital cost the rest of us poor, working stiffs. In the case of Neil Bush and S&L, it costs taxpayers billions of their favorite dollars that they were planning to bestow upon their own juniors. In the case of George W., it costs trillions of taxpayer’s dollars plus thousands of taxpayer’s lives.
2.) You want a fucking aristocracy, call it a fucking aristocracy. Or plutocracy, I’m not choosey. The system, as it is sold, is democratic on paper, if not in practice. Legacies are distinctly unfair and foster corruption, incompetence and lawbreaking. If the elite aren’t held to the same standard as Joe Taxpayer, then Joe Taxpayer assumes that adhering to the law is for suckers (and I wouldn’t argue the point with him). When a Kennedy can literally get away with murder due to the circumstance of some money his ancestor generated, but I would be hung, drawn and quartered for the same offense, then I’m starting to think the system might be in need of a tune-up. Don’t know how they pitch these things in Australia, but in the States we grow up hearing a lot about democracy and how “All men are created equal”. Dynasties are distinctly anti-American.
3.) You can’t take it with you, mate. When you’re pushing up the daisies, your offspring are on their own and they can either do well or sully the family moniker in spectacular, public ways. Want to do well by you and yours? Teach ’em some real values and how to fend; don’t drop a wad of cash in their laps and think they’ll do anything but make asses of themselves and hurt everyone around ’em in the process. Don’t want to render unto Caesar because he’s a corrupt fuckwad? Hey, I’m behind you there… donate the whole nest egg you won’t be needing in the hereafter to the charity of your choice beforehand and screw him.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 11 2007 14:52 utc | 13

dm
you liuve in australia & i have not even visited for nearly 20 years but other than this i think i possess almost an encyclopedic knowledge of the union movement & of workers parties so i don’t need a lesson on builders labourer & green activist jack mundey or communist writer frank hardy, thank you very much
until cia agent of influence bob hawke became prime minister – australia possessed a labour jurisprudence unpparalleled in other supposed democracies. the lessons of that american labor lawyer maître boudin had been absorbed & adapted. there was at least some fairness & at least some justice. the establishment of industrial tibunals were of historic importance. these were not small things
elites understood that the union movement was the muscle of the workers movement – in practice , in education & in law so they set about to destroy it. chile as naomi klein points out was the nascence of this politic then new zealand & england & their destruction of this movement was brutal, illegal & worked against the so called democratic institutions that pissant journalists praise to high heaven
the practice of isolating workers was key
& you are quite wrong – the internationalist tradition was uniquely strong in the australian labour movement – very close to the dutch experience
making it just a money question was part of the elites modus operandi & i think that was the point i was making – the more the worker was concerned with his own interests, or a union was concerned with its own interests – they were doomed as organisations & to a certain extent as a movement & a class
those who are employed – all on the anti worker contracts that have replaced real jurisprudence – which is like working as a temporary – are scared of losing what they have – so fear as i poointed oujt becomes a political practice. so too the benefits that are drawn from the white skin privilege of being australian – whether you are english italian yugoslav or lebanese – are a part of what destroys a working class as a class
the american union movement was emaculated from the beginning & developed into a collection of gangsters in brotherly relations with the elites
england is the home of shame – of how a workers movement can be destroyed & people witness it – piece by piece & do nothing. the kind of england they live in today is the poorer for its absence.
& given that these fuckers always talk about rights & laws – they do not exist for the poor or the marginalised & the attack still continues

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 11 2007 20:03 utc | 14

I go back to what you said DM “militant unionists were always only looking after themselves” that includes the Frank Hardy’s and the Jack Mundy’s, the Gene Debs too; that always. As for the ‘not in my lifetime’ bit I was alive when the Holland government in NZ armed the students with pick handles and made them special constables to break the wharfies strike.
It was a dark day for NZ not only because the wharfies didn’t get their, at that time quite reasonable demands met, but because it created a siege mentality in the minds of waterside workers who then felt alienated from the rest of us and did regard their industry as a private club. Because of course by breaking heads and subjecting families to further deprivation the solidarity needed to win over the long haul was guaranteed.
The gullible fools will never be as rich as those they aspire to be like and they will see many of their children chewed up and spat out by a system which cares only for those with money. That is why they are gullible fools and that is why I would never make that compromise myself.
Of course once the people motivated more by ideals than self became successful – ie respected community leaders, other less selfless types sought to imitate them to gain power, that has happened.
Now most so called liberal democracies are through the other side back to social agitators knowing that they are in it for the long haul. Although even at the height of union lazy largesse, say the ACTU when Hawke was PM in Oz there were still some unionists who did it for what they believed in and never gave an inch, refused all bribes etc.
all militant unionists are always in it for themselves is untrue, the only basis I can see for such a statement is that it was made by someone who has either gone through the world without looking or is blinded by preconceived bullshit.
Shall I tell the children of the woman whose family home is just a spit away from where I am typing this and who was standing on a picket line in support of locked out workers when some idiot small businessman ran her over and killed her a few years ago, that their mother was only ever looking out for her own interests? She wasn’t a locked out worker but she had friends who were so although militant, was she selfish?
That would be a lie. A lie told so that others who can no longer care about fellow humans can feel better about their own lack of humanity. Doubtless the kids have already been told by idiots that their mother was stupid or selfish, which is how the rot spreads.
As a relevant aside if ever there was proof that nothing good comes from allowing old and dead to pass their assets on to their children; leftish politics provides it, how many of the most useless unmotivated and corrupt lefty politicians and union leaders have been the sons and daughters of lefty pols and unionists.
Exactly the same problem arises when Murdochs try to pass their assets on, the kids only know what it is to have and to use not how to plan and to get so they abuse their position. The concrete money part is the least of what Rupert will leave behind, which is why he is continually plotting a line of succession. The important part is the power. With wealth comes power. It is the casual handing of power from one generation to the next that is both unjust and destructive.
History never repeats- sort of. The Roman Empire and the amerikan empire appear totally different beasts on the surface, one was achieved solely by occupation and colonisation whereas the other only uses colonisation as a last resort. But these are pretty superficial differences really; they have developed as the mechanics of society have changed, the internal dynamic driving both empires, man’s greed and lust for power has remained the same.
Both empires will follow a similar trajectory, even if the surface changes to the way humans interact causes the amerikan empire’s velocity to run faster. That empire and will wax and wane over a shorter time frame and although it won’t be history repeating, in the sense that everyone won’t do the same things exactly the same way, it will mean that the course can be plotted before it happens by using the Roman Empire as a model.
Man’s intermittent realisation that humankind is only strong enough to beat the bastards who exploit us if we work together, rather than have each only worry about themselves, also follows a pre determinable path.
Trade unions as a means of humans organising themselves, sprang out of the industrial revolution and the creation of paid employment.
Now that the bastards have caught on and have organised the way people are employed to make co-ordinated co-operative action as difficult as possible, it is more likely that the next time the rest of us wake up to ourselves and understand the real meaning of words like solidarity, that we will organise ourselves using different social groupings ie not occupational groups.
Maybe we will organise on the basis of what we consume but more likely we don’t even know yet because we can’t predict the future exactly but we can predict that the greedy will over reach themselves as they always do, that some people will have had enough, that they won’t be in it for themselves but they will be capable, focussed and angry, and they will lead the next age of humans before things.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 11 2007 20:25 utc | 15

History never repeats – I was being quite tongue-in-cheek with this remark

Posted by: jcairo | Dec 11 2007 23:45 utc | 16