TO: RUPERT MURDOCH
DEAR SIR,
You tried, you say. You tried to influence public opinion on the war in Iraq. You wanted Fox News to help send America into an illegal, immoral, unjust, unwise and foolish Pandora's Box of human devastation? (Or as I have found myself often referring to it over the past 3 plus years when reacting to the latest downed helicopter, the latest Baghdad marketplace body count, the latest report of children-dead-for-want-of-any-kind-of-sane-medical-support-structure, the lastest count of murdered professors, the lastest example of graft and theft we were told not to investigate, the latest refugee count, the latest example of the fox investigating the henhouse: "The Big Fucking Mess." Another variation: "A Scam and Sham.")
Manufacturing consent to war by media moguls, not exactly anything new, I realize. Anyone who knows even a little of the history of journalism, or who has seen "Citizen Kane," (have you?) knows that persons with control of mass communication have used and abused that power and privilege and public trust to sell or to ignite their favorite pet conflicts, promulgation nourished steadily on a diet of manure. Now you freely admit, not to most anyone's surprise, that that was a conciously intended use of the global media empire you own, most especially, the cable channel, Fox News; even, I might speculate, its ultimate raison d'etre. And just because it is nothing new, does not make it any less immoral.
You know the power of media, Mr. Murdoch, and you know the power of power, the ethics and morality concerned therewith are found, not in the having of, but in the nature of the utilization of that power.
A rhetorical question for you, sir. If we teach our children that what was done to Saddam Hussein was done because he was a monster, then what should we teach them should be done with people like you?
You can't take it with you. You can take it with you. Whichever. Leave everything boxed up in crates in a dark Xanadu-like hall. Take your conglomeration to hell with you. Don't take it with you. Give it to someone looking to use it to solve global warming. Whatever. But go find your personal 'Rosebud' and leave the rest of us human beings the hell alone.
MOST SINCERELY,
HISSYSPIT
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hissyspithttp://www.newshounds.us:80/2007/02/08/murdoch_we_supplied_the_war_and_the_pictures.phpMurdoch: We Supplied the War and the PicturesReported by Judy - February 8, 2007 - 1 comment
Leave it to Keith Olbermann to tie Rupert Murdoch to William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish American War. (With video.)
Olbermann began a segment on his MSNBC show "Countdown" Wednesday (February 7, 2007) with the story of Hearst sending illustrator Frederic Remington to Cuba after the explosion of the USS Maine. When Remington could not find any fighting to illustrate, Hearst sent a telegram back telling him just to supply the pictures and Hearst would supply the war.
From that, Olbermann jumped to Murdoch telling the international gathering in Davos, Switzerland, recently that Fox News had tried to influence the nation's agenda toward war in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And he went on to say that since then, Fox News has been critical of the way the war has been executed. (Does he watch the same network that we do, so that he doesn't have to?)
Olbermann interviewed Air America Radio's Rachel Maddow about the meaning of Murdoch's admission. Besides saying that it undermines Fox News' claim to be free of spin and without an agenda, Maddow said it suggests that Murdoch may be feeling ... But I don't want to spoil it.
VIDEO AT LINK
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