By Anthony Haritos
Yes, we were cheap. And we were very nasty. Yes, we did fuck your mind over. Yes, it’s true; we did twist your moral compass completely out of shape so that you’d never ever remember you ever ever had one.
Because – and this is a tad difficult since I feel we’re now old pals – you never ever had one.
Here’s the rub, baby. We worked very well together. A great team. So good in fact, they’re gone now. All of them. And there’s no one left to speak for you.
IN THE BEGINNING …
“It’s time now to round up all these subversives and traitors.”
When supporting the NO vote in The Voice includes this Facebook statement we have a problem.
When it was preceded by “Witch” and followed by “She should be charged with treason”, it’s not just Professor Marcia Langton who has a problem, nor the two authors, but all of us.
The last time we went through this routine bigtime the footnote was,
“Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me”(1)
Given the movies documenting the descent from first line to last, one might suspect the line was placed mischievously. Yes, daily life is filled with boredom but …
This post isn’t to slag the creators of the comments nor defend the Yes vote, which is facing imminent defeat yet which on balance one can only advocate.
It’s however reminding how people can be easily transformed into cauldrons of hatred, and of the ramifications.
Germany 1930s from which the “Then they came for me …” poem sprang, saw Nazi media manipulators along with media and munitions Barons slavering for favour oversee the transformation.
(I feel like a crashing bore writing this stuff, ‘cos we already know this, It’s elementary, my Dear Watson, isn’t it?)
But us, Australians circa 2023; sophisticated, first-world, well-travelled etc, transformed?
Apparently yes.
Murdoch’s News Limited is gleefully consolidating its ability to twist our psyche into a contorted horror show.
No healing or counter will come from slavering Opposition leader Peter Dutton and his cabal whose only course is to ram the dark message home.
It’s inevitable: Blackfellas are going to face a more hostile, racist Australia than last year. What else besides?
(My fellow) Australians, don’t get sucked into feeding this growing vortex of hate.
Berlin mid-1930s images show a society going along just dandy until one morning footpaths were covered with shattered glass.
Australians are still at the Falling-In-Love stage with Fox News’ younger relative Sky News. Have we publicly considered its raison d’ etre? Why does it exist? Why that particular agro one-dimensional format? It’s new, glittering, polished, seductive, and we’re bunnies in the spotlight.
The polished art form which Fake-News-Obfuscation became during the 2016 US Trump-Clinton election was then ripe for export. Where next? Down Under?
CODA. Giving away trade secrets …
Orwell’s 1984? No, we’re Huxley’s Soma-fueled Brave New World, ‘cos you’ll never know you’ve been incarcerated nor that you’re on the stuff.’
We’re warm honey trickling through your veins. We’re here merely reminding you of what you already instinctively know. We’re a global money-spinning machine, baby, just keep dropping in the coins and we’ll keep pressing your booster buttons. We’re here for your pleasure. Relax, and enjoy. We’re The Future, baby.
We’re the voice.
(1) 1946 post-war confessional prose by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). Wikipedia:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me –
And there was no one left to speak for me.
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See you later – don’t come back.
I for one am not sorry to see you go, and I hope your evil empire dies out soon.
It’s good news, the best since Adolf’s suicide, and may the family follow soon. The damage done by a strident, greedy self fixated dill, (that is what he actually is) cunning and successful in media business though he is, is long lasting and deep. U K has been merde dogged into Brexit, with its economy kneed in the nuts, USA social and political life is lower than a bug’s balls, being merde dogged into plummeting ignorant divisiveness. Australia has been treated as a stray mutt to be starved and kicked, merde dogged. Horrible…
Little Murdoch is just going to be Big Murdoch’s sock puppet.
Phil, best news I’ve heard since Louis XVI got the chop.
There will only be ”Blackfellas are going to face a more hostile, racist Australia than last year”” if Australians continue to vote for the candidates of the LIARBRAL NOtional$ COALition misgovernment.
He hasn’t gone yet – he has made himself ‘Chairman Emeritus’.
Emeritus is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in “professor emeritus”.
There is a plumbing term that comes to mind, something about being difficult to flush !
As someone with a cast iron, fixed in re-enforced concrete all encompassing black ban on all things Murdoch, Rupert retiring interests me less than squat.
There is a moderately priced bottle of Scotland’s finest 12 year single malt tucked away in the back of the cupboard to be opened and savoured with a dram or two when Rupes shuffles off this mortal coil, ceases to be and joins the choir invisible.
I’m thinking the toast will be “hip, hip, hooray and about bloody time”.
“Chairman Emeritus” …. What a wanker! Now all we can hope is that the sprog hasn’t got it in him. Time to descramble the egg. Time in Oz to render NewsCorpse to death notices only, as we watch all the amenuenses posing as journos, dangling from Rupert, meet their maker.
Good riddance.
And you can bet that if Lachlan does anything the Arsehole Emeritus doesn’t like, Ol’ Rupe will be in like Flynn to redirect things. Not that it’s likely because, from all acounts, Lachlan is even worse.
So, while this is welcome news, it’s not going to make any real diifference.
We can only hope that when NO prevails, indigenous Australians will turn on Senators Thorpe and Price when they realise they have been shafted – again – and that there isn’t something better in the offing. A treaty instead? If NO succeeds then almost certainly not.
Unfortunately a symptom of Niemoller’s prose has been inverted in past decade and used by RW elites and neo-Nazis….
Some of the US feedback on Murdoch’s retirement is far more incisive and cutting vs. anodyne respect given to him in Oz media.
Here’s one form a CUNY person:
‘Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis
I wish I could celebrate news of the departure of the single most malign influence in English-speaking democracy, Rupert Murdoch, but I fear Fox will only be worse under son Lachlan & that this is a means to solidify his power before Dad’s death.
We have Rupert Murdoch to curse for giving us Trump, Brexit, and a right-wing news monopoly in much of Australia. I also blame him for launching media’s war against the internet–because he was pissed off he failed so badly online, a story rarely told’
https://x.com/jeffjarvis/status/1704875058445852943?s=20
Chairman Emeritus kinda reminds me of Trump still calling himself president.
I am just flabergasted that after the telephone bugging scandal they were allowed to flourish.
The TRUTH newspaper made for better reading with the page 3 beauty than the current Australian with its “even handed debates” that make you throw it in the bin, too toxic even for the compost. I hope Fox gets hit with another billion in the courts, the lying bastards.
And then his parting wish that we make the world a better place…………………..i started to vomit. Die already you old shit.
Holy snapping arseholes!
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/tony-abbott-nominated-to-fox-corporation-board-of-directors-20230923-p5e6zy.html
What about Saint Scummo? Surely they could hire him to kiss their rings and gambol about like a sycophantic crawler of a jester.
Chunderman Emetic Rupert the Rotting.
”Australians are still at the Falling-In-Love stage with Fox News’ younger relative Sky News.”
Uhm ….. Fact Check: The latest statistics I have regarding uptake of Lie News is about 3% of the surveyed watching public. Hardly a wonderful financial success ….. without the benefits of the taxation concessions legally provided by the ATO.
Chairman Emetic is really protecting his own backside from legal liability both presently & fin the future legal action resulting from the Trumpery ”We wuz robbed” 2020 election matters.
New England Cocky,
And we might add Lachlan as well from the Kangaroo Court of Australia:
“The Voice ‘No Campaign’ is driven by the lies of spineless News Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch.”
Recently the ABC Drum spent some time praising Rupert Murdoch as a great and creative Australian.