By Christian Marx
Right-wing regimes have a history of censorship and obfuscating the truth. From Mussolini to Hitler to Pinochet, one of the first actions of Fascists is to totally control the media. All dissenting progressive views are silenced. The media becomes merely a propaganda and disinformation unit to brainwash and divide the populace.
It is rather ironic that people of a right-wing bent repeatedly and noisily call left-wingers Fascists. Laughable! Fascism by its very definition is very much a right-wing philosophy. At its most basic definition, it is the merging of the state and large corporate power. Unions are crushed and all workers find their working conditions under attack. The media becomes an echo chamber of hatred against minorities, intellectuals, the poor and anyone else who is not wealthy and white.
One of the most familiar clichéd babblings from the lunar right is “You oppose freedom of speech”. Freedom of speech is fine, but scapegoating and stereotyping minorities is not free speech, it is bigotry and has NO PLACE in a civilized society. When the fourth estate, largely controlled by corporations begins to spread hate and unhelpful stereotypes, bad things happen. There are many unstable and easily influenced people in our society. History has illustrated that when media propagates hate and division, evil ensues, and in extreme circumstances, millions can perish. This is precisely why there are racial vilification laws in place. They are designed to protect the marginalized from unfair and hateful attacks.
Another very noticeable trait from the right, particularly on Facebook, is to report people. When they are soundly beaten in a debate, they either resort to foul abuse or very often will report their protagonist to Facebook for the most absurd reasons. The author of this article was recently reported to Facebook for calling one such person a “simpleton”. The result was a 30 day ban from Facebook. I kid you not! It is fair to say which side of the political spectrum Facebook is sympathetic to!
Some of the sickest abuse from many right-wingers is totally ignored by Facebook, including death threats, but this doesnt seem to breach Facebooks “community standards”.
Not only do the right own and control all mainstream media, but it appears they also run Facebook too!
Another familiar catch cry from the lemmings is “ABC is communist” or “ABC is a far left organization”. Excuse me while I laugh. If the ABC appears far left to you, you may just happen to be lunar right-wing. The ONLY television station with a charter that ensures it MUST remain neutral is apparently “Communist”. Time and time again, independent audits have confirmed that the ABC is indeed centrist. Contrast this to the commercial stations that have no such charter. They are flagrantly and blatantly biased. Particularly channel 9 and 10. We won`t even mention Sky News! Even more biased are the horrific publications such as The Herald Sun and The Australian. No nuance or intelligent analysis is to be found within these rags. They push the narrative of bash unions, bash refugees, bash Muslims and repeat ad nausea.
Not happy with their monopoly of spin, the right must also try to gag the ABC, as it is too honest and apparently a threat to the commercial propaganda machine. We see recently the appointment of Murdoch stooge, Michelle Guthrie as CEO, and the dozens of far right ideologues infiltrating the ABC such as Janet Albrechtsen, of the militant far right organization, the Institute of Public Affairs.
Ultimately it appears that the right will scream bias and howl with derision when civil minded folks take them to account for their racial and religious hate. They call us “totalitarian” and “Stalinist”. Yet it is not the left that want to destroy the only balanced non-partisan media in Australia. The hypocrisy runs deep within the right. The irony is astounding.
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