Does anyone else think it’s strange the most important figure in American media is an eccentric right-wing Australian billionaire? And that one of the other most important (probably the second most important within wingnut media) figures is a Korean cult leader?
This is weird, right? It’s not just me being a Pat Buchanan nationalist, is it?
Davis X. Machina
Hey, Murdoch’s an eccentric, right-wing American billionaire — he bought his citizenship fair and square with real money, because he loves America, and not because of any possible restrictions on foreign ownership of various and sundry, no you betcha.
MikeJ
Is Murdoch the final judge for the cutest dog contest? Aren’t they announcing something tomorrow?
Incertus
We outsource everything now. (Insert birther joke here.)
DBrown
The loony moony has been around far longer than the Ausie down under tea bagger want-a-be but since that nutcase and self proclaimed king of the world, we must accept his leadership over all repug-a-thugs… or at least those who get a pay check from his rag.
cleek
not all foreigners are evil, you know – only those who don’t vote Republican.
MoeLarryAndJesus
And don’t forget that prick Arnaud de Borchgrave, who is some sort of Belgian princess or something…
dfd
Ultimate Mogul Cage Match!!!!
Rev. Moon v.s. Rupert Murdoch
This Sunday on Pay Per View
srv
Is there any Republican paper or think-tank that actually supports itself?
r€nato
Murdoch is threatening to delist News Corp. content from Google searches.
O noes! Please, Mr. Murdoch! Liberals would HATE it if FoxNews.com articles couldn’t be found with a Google search!
EconWatcher
If you think it’s funky here, look at Italy. As I understand it, Berlusconi basically has a media monopoly, uses it to promote himself to head of state, and uses his elected position (until recently) to assure prosecutorial immunity for all of his business dealings–including those of his media monoply. Nice.
When you look at it that way, maybe we don’t have it so bad.
Tuffy
Dougj, you over-estimate the Moonie Times’ influence.
SpotWeld
Yeah, “wierd” left the picture a while ago.
It saw what we did to irony and thought it was a good time to get.
Norman Rogers
How long have you hated America?
Seriously, it’s not weird. America embraces the weird. America sucks up to weird. America loves weird like it loves nothing else. America is where weird comes for leisure time and discreet shopping.
lonesomerobot
let’s be honest: i’m more australian than rupert murdoch is. i was born in the country AND still retain my citizenship there. rupert murdoch renounced his australian citizenship in order to own the large percentage of media outlets that he does in this country. it’s illegal for foreign citizens to own over a certain slice of the media pie in america. so rupert murdoch is an american, as much as michelle malkin and that guy who won the nyc marathon this year.
bemused
How many rightwingers even know that the Wash Times is owned & run by Rev Moon? They only follow Fox/Rush & wingnut papers/blogs which I doubt have ever mentioned that paper is a Moonie outfit. I bet they have no idea.
“You do know that the Wash Times is owned by Moonies, don’t you?” would be a great question to ask an obnoxious R relative or coworker & see if he/she is thrown for a loop.
trollhattan
The natural course of delicious semi-unfettered capitalizzm will, I suppose, lead us to a significant PRC media presence here. First hire: Jonah Goldberg, who will argue the Tibetians are librul nazi facists who threaten our freedoms.
r€nato
@EconWatcher:
that’s all pretty accurate, and it’s a testament to the failure of the Italian left that they can’t beat this guy.
Zifnab
Also symptoms of the corporate media. The guys screaming “America! America! America!” loudest are the ones getting foreign paychecks.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you’ve got folks lying their asses off about the Constitution, the nationality of the President, and the contents of any given piece of legislation, all taking money from people with no nativist affection of the the US.
This is about as Fifth Column as it gets. Following the GOP playbook, it’s not surprise to see these guys labeling everyone else as Fifth Columnists.
r€nato
@bemused:
especially if they are ‘born again’ or some other fundie flavor.
Moon asserts he is the Messiah, right? How can any ‘fundamentalist’ square that with their own dogma?
Cat Lady
Given the rightwing fucktards enumerated in the last post, I’d say where right wing media is concerned, “weird” has become a feature and not a bug.
Zifnab
@Tuffy:
So does the NYT, the WaPo, ABC, NBC, CBS, Reuters, the AP, FOX, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Forbes, Bloomberg, the Nightly Business Report …
The moonies got what they paid for.
beltane
Well, if you thought a pluralistic democracy was a force for evil in the world, this is the way you would go about eliminating it. Hiding totalitarianism under a cloak of “freedom” and flag is highly effective. To introduce fascism in its more familiar form of some uniformed, gun wielding generalissimo would be too obvious, better to go with the sexed-up blond pod women you see on Fox.
Let’s face it: our country has become something straight out of a bad movie. A really bad movie that never ends.
licensed to kill time
@r€nato:
Heh. I heard he is also thinking of charging for content/access to FoxNewsCorpse stuff. It would be sweet indeed to have teabagger bucks going down the Foxhole drain leaving that much less to fund the inevitable tea party candidates.
El Cid
It’s only weird if you think there’s something wrong with making an investment in right wing media which pays off with many more times your original investment in tax cuts, favorable government programs, subsidies and regulations.
bemused
@r€nato:
Moon was crowned as Messiah or some damn thing at a Capitol building a few years ago, attended by legislators. Now that was a shining moment is american history.
The Grand Panjandrum
You are being awful mean to Jake Tapper’s sister organizations, aren’t you?
AhabTRuler
No, because even a really bad movie wouldn’t be as banal.
Zifnab
@r€nato:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you suggesting that fundamentalist Christians would embrace convenient hypocrisy for immediate financial or political benefit in an attempt to push an unrelated theocratic agenda?
Unpossible!
When Moon starts supporting civil liberties for minorities, gays, and women, when he pushes for higher taxes or taxes on religious institutions, when he openly and loudly opposes the death penalty or the brutal and expensive military actions in foreign countries, when he propagandizes for renewable energy rather than fossil fuels or public health care rather than private insurance – THEN his Messiah complex becomes an issue. Not a minute before.
The only “Messiah” the fundies recognize right now is President Darky McHitler.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Don’t forget, Alexander Hamilton was one of the Founding Fathers. He was sort of the late 18th century equivalent of Murdoch, only much smarter and less evil.
Midnight Marauder
@Zifnab:
Exactly. It’s not DougJ who’s overestimating the Washington Times. He’s just acknowledging the reality, which is that a newspaper with a circulation less than some regional papers, somehow has reporters and editors all over the media landscape on a regular basis. There’s nothing legitimate about the paper to begin with, so every time someone affiliated with the Washington Times appears on television, or one of their articles is referred to by a legitimate media outlet, it’s a huge net plus for them.
The fact that the shakeup going on over there is even a story–and that the Unification Church didn’t walk away years ago from their multi-billion dollar negative investment–is remarkable in and of itself.
Dr. Loveless
OT, but y’all might want to send this kid some good wishes to offset the deluge of wingnut bile that has undoubtedly begun to descend on him.
http://www.edgesanfrancisco.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=&sc3=&id=98884
Citizen_X
Oh, and not only is the Moonie Times management in turmoil because of royal discord amongst Dear Father’s sons, now they’ve brought in armed guards to seal off the management floor. Guess they’re afraid of a case of armed Sacked-Manager-Rage.
If Moonie bigwigs go postal, can we change that saying to “going Moonie?”
EconWatcher
@r€nato:
Well, as I understand it, the main party of the Italian left waited until about ten years ago to dump the Hammer and Sickle from their emblem. So I think they have issues…
Bubblegum Tate
@r€nato:
Supposedly he’s been doing that for a while, to which Google keeps responding, “What’s stopping you?”
kth
Imagine for a second if the New York Times were owned by a cult leader from Korea, and CBS owned by a lefty foreign-born billionaire (say, George Soros!). You’re goddamn right it would be a major issue if the shoes were on the other feet.
Bubblegum Tate
@Dr. Loveless:
What a cool kid. I feel so bad for him that he’s going to have the Freepers, teabaggers, Malkin’s WInged Monkeys, etc. making his life a living hell.
R-Jud
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Judging from his portraits he was also pretty hot. Unlike Rupey.
Midnight Marauder
@Dr. Loveless:
And this is in Arkansas?! Surely, this is some kind of experimental Onion article, no?
Zifnab
@EconWatcher:
They have Mussolini Redux as their opposition candidate. I don’t care if they drove around the street waving flags of Stalin and speaking Russian. If they’ve got a popular agenda and competent officials, they should be railroading the opposition at the local level at the least.
The problem with the Italian government right now is a lot like the problem with the Russian government – who else you gonna vote for? Get some trusted mayors, some populist parliamentarians, and some wonkish progressives in the fight. Otherwise, don’t come crying because they elected Kang and not Kodos.
Citizen_X
@Bubblegum Tate: Call up Anchor Baby on the Rageline! I want a report on this kid’s counters stat!
Zifnab
@R-Jud: Rupert Murdoch is 80 years old. When 80 years old you are, look as good you will not.
Alexander Hamilton was too busy getting shot in the face by Aaron Burr (the 18th century Dick Cheney) to really hit the scary grampa stage of his life.
trollhattan
On a related note: Rupert’s minion vs. Comedy Central:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/hannity-to-address-protest-video-questions-tonight/?hp
Popcorn time!
GReynoldsCT00
@r€nato:
that would be quite the public service!
Brachiator
@r€nato:
Apparently, Murdoch is going Galt, but it won’t just be with Fox News:
To pull the Times of London is no small deal. The short term effect is to reduce the number of news resources available on the Web.
There could be more of this in the future, and it could lead to serious distortions in the perception of news coverage. Say, for example, more newspapers pull their online stories from the InterTubes, but Fox News ramps up its availability.
Ironically, I think the result of Murdoch’s move will be to hasten the demise of physical newspapers and spur the rise of web news sources totally unconnected to current media — until they get bought out.
The pending buyout of NBC by Comcast may also threaten to further shrink news and media outlets.
Blunder Down Under
Rupert Murdoch is a Brown Eyed Mullett!!!
Had to go here for that:
http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html
R.M. is pretty much one of Australia’s most toxic exports.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@trollhattan: Wow. The Daily Show writers will be able to take a break since the shows will start writing themselves for a while.
Calouste
@Dr. Loveless:
Pledging allegiance in school has kind of been out of fashion in Western Europe since 1945. Well, maybe not in Spain until 1975.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@R-Jud:
Yeah, but we’ll never know whether he paid those artists a little bit extra to brush up his nose a little bit or something. I’m sure if Rupert could manage to get every photograph ever taken of him airbrushed, we’d all think he was a handsome guy, too.
R-Jud
@Zifnab:
Fair enough. FWIW, I am not lookist or ageist– one of my most rewarding relationships was with a guy several
yearsokay, decades my senior, who was funny and warm and smart but not really hot at all– picture Dick Cheney, only thinner, and with a soul.Still, after a brief search, I cannot find any evidence that Murdoch ever approximated Hamiltonian goodness, even in his prime.
maus
The same ones praying for Detroit to fail.
slag
He’s white and not European. What’s the problem?
maus
@Norman Rogers: America embraces the hate. America sucks up to hate. America loves hate like it loves nothing else. America is where hate comes for leisure time and discreet shopping.
”
fix’t.
MacsenMifune
Doug you feel the same way some, emphases on some, Germans felt when some Austrian peasant started calling the shots.
Violet
@r€nato:
I saw that yesterday and about fell out of my chair laughing. Does Rupert not know how teh interwebz work? He’s going to hide his content from the most used search engine and the charge for whatever people can find? Talk about taking your bat and ball home…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Cat Lady:
I believe it was HST who coined the phrase “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro“. Too bad he didn’t live to see Orly Taitz on the TV. HST would have loved every minute of it.
Fight Club
I have this dream where there’s a cage match in which Rupert Murdoch gets a butter knife and Google gets a chainsaw. Now that’s pay per view gold.
Beauzeaux
America does not embrace the weird. America tolerates the weird, or simply looks the other way when palms are greased with vast amounts of money.
Japan embraces the weird. They cultivate it. They prize it.
ksmiami
All I know is that Murdoch is a sick MOFO and a small, petty, mean man, but then again that describes like 95% of the current GOP. Hmmm…
Rhoda
At one point 45% of Americans believed in death panels.
I am not surprised.
We are stooopid.
licensed to kill time
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Gosh I miss Hunter. He would have creamed the teabaggers, committed poetry with Palin, plasticized Beck for posterity. And made us all laugh like frenzied hyenas on a two week binge. He bought the ticket, took the ride.
R.I.P. HST.
LoveMonkey
No sale Doug. Compared to William Randolph Hearst and Remember the Maine(tm), your Australian guy is just a wannabee. His cable news network attracts on average less than one percent of the population.
As for the Rev. Moon, he is the proud owner of a completely failed newspaper that wouldn’t even exist today as a going concern if it weren’t being fed money.
With these guys in the cockpit, your boogieman media sat by while this country elected a black president with a muslim-sounding name only 7 years after 911.
Yawn. Just another version of your continual troll of your own blog.
Martin
@Beauzeaux:
Well, I think the distinction is that the Japanese apply style to their weird. The US is, unfortunately, a relative desert of style and class, so our weird tends to come off more like some kind of collective mental illness rather than something worth embracing.
ppcli
It’s not unique to the U.S. British papers have been controlled by a series of foreigners for almost a century.
Canadians Max Aitken (= Lord Beaverbrook), Roy Thompson (= Baron Thompson of Fleet) and more recently Conrad Black (= Lord Tubby of Westmount), plus Aussies like Murdoch and Czech Capn’ Bob Maxwell.
.
Rich people want influence where the action is. That used to be London and now it’s the U.S. One of the easiest ways to get that kind of influence for an outsider is to buy up control of information flow.
JGabriel
The Purity Spiral(tm) continues:
Noted, though it’s hard to see how it could be made any weaker after Bush/Cheney.
.
Norman Rogers
@maus: Oh, bah. As if.
America embraces weird like it is nobody’s business. Our culture is wrapped around small, weird, oddly shaped people and our love of all things weird is why everyone wants to come here and watch our films and listen to our music and play our video games. Japanese weirdoism is pretty bland, actually, Aside from Hello Kitty and manga, what do they really have?
joes527
@Fight Club:
Two men enter. One man leaves.
I _wish_ NewsCorpse would flip google the bird. There is no question about who would be the loser in that exchange.
Funkhauser
I submit Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-born immigrant.
arguingwithsignposts
Really? Bland? We have people from America who fetishize japanese culture as well. I can’t recall their name right now, but there’s lots of freak in Japanese culture. Not to mention, they have some great filmmakers and weird cult movies (think “Old Boy”). And I do believe several of those video game systems were developed by the Japanese, amirite.
So, not so much.
licensed to kill time
More Washington Times wisdom:
MoonieTunes.
arguingwithsignposts
@trollhattan:
Note the attempt at false equivalency by the NYT blogger, talking about the “Earlier” tag at the top of the teabag footage, and how a commenter smacks that stuff down:
Doh!
Martin
@JGabriel:
So, 100% pure opposition is the self-described ‘GOP brand’ these days. Nice to see that everyone is on the same page.
arguingwithsignposts
Wha?!?! Is our BoB commenting at the Times?
Calouste
@Norman Rogers:
Fixed for ignorance.
LoveMonkey
TPM. Or, this …. read ’em and weep.
The Washington Times is basically dead. Outside the self-referential world of the mediablogorrheasphere, and the bubble of the Beltway, it is completely irrelevant now. Like Tony Blankley’s heretofore-enormous ass, it is now a shadow of its former self.
But here, it’s the pride and joy of “the second most important” in the all-powerful world of “wingnut media.”
Next, an article about the scary impact of the powerful Reader’s Digest on American minds.
licensed to kill time
@arguingwithsignposts:
Not enough creepy flat affect vibe.
Midnight Marauder
@Norman Rogers:
Bland? The Japanese? Clearly, you haven’t seen too much from Japanese culture then. Besides all the batshit crazy game shows they have, all I have to say is this:
Tentacle erotica
Linkmeister
@Beauzeaux: If you want confirmation of that, read Charlie Pierce’s newly-published “Idiot America.” Part of his thesis is as follows:
1. Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units.
2. Anything can be true if somebody says it on television.
3. Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.
Norman Rogers
@Calouste: Bwah! Good one.
I went looking for my copy of “I think I’m turning Japanese” but it must have gotten thrown out with my copy of “China Girl.”
Martin
@licensed to kill time:
No tractors, natural law, hairy armpits, reference to pizza topping costs, or why Obama had an inadequate childhood – none of the really important BoB issues.
JM
… are not the ones who faked the video.
Stan Black
No, you’re not applying the Buchanan shade over this window of weird. It is weird.
bemused
@arguingwithsignposts:
Referring to BoB as “our” BoB is very disturbing. I think we all have a BoB (uncle, bil, dad) in our families & that’s all anyone should have to pretend not to know.
Mark S.
What is the Reverend Moon’s IQ?
licensed to kill time
@Martin: Right. Also no 7 Liberal Arts, oil shale, wind mills don’t work or scary links to surreptitious pics of women he’s stalking. Scary how we have absorbed the BoBmind…
arguingwithsignposts
@bemused:
Look at it in the sense of “our collective cross to bear,” because he won’t leave or shut the hell up. Even with the pie filter.
Cat Lady
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Maybe in a few years Taibbi will fill HST’s shoes, but in the meantime he’s got the journalism covered, and Shatner can be on the Palin poetry beat.
dfd
@licensed to kill time: The deified Rev. Moon has an IQ of 147, one point less than Glenn Beck.
dfd
oops, responded to the wrong post. My bad.
bemused
@arguingwithsignposts:
You make a good point. He just won’t go. At least with my relatives & friends, we tacitly agree to leave 99% politics out of the conversations. I’ll never forget the Christmas day when my brother walked in the door making Bush jokes not knowing my other brother & sister in law were very firm republicans.
Stooleo
OT Hey, Did you know that Orly Taitz has a blog.
licensed to kill time
@dfd:
Where’s the certs? Fax them to John Cole immediately or I call foul!
licensed to kill time
@Stooleo:
Careful, there has been malware associated with that site. (Other than the mental malware from Taitz’ brain).
russell
You forgot to mention his army of miniskirted spokesmodels.
Zifnab
@LoveMonkey:
Murdoch’s cable news channel might have a scant 3-5 million viewers nightly. But his stories get picked up and propagated across all the other networks. Same with the WaTimes. It’s the Swift Boaters writ large and run day after day after day.
@LoveMonkey:
They made GW a viable candidate in 2000, and they certainly didn’t hurt his election chances in 2004. Sure, the media hasn’t been batting 1.000, but right now we’re arguing over exactly how much welfare the insurance companies deserve in the health care bill. And the two front Asian land war trundles on, with no end in sight.
Change is long and slow in coming. Don’t pretend the media hasn’t had a heavy hand in that.
Midnight Marauder
OT, but just when you thought Wolf “-$4500 on Celebrity Jeopardy in real life” Blitzer couldn’t be any more of an incompetent toolbag, he goes and does some shit like this:
Wolf Blitzer Questions How Hasan’s Lawyer Can Represent ‘Someone Accused Of Mass Murder’
It’s his fucking job, Wolf. I know, that’s a strange concept to a putz like you. What, are you going to spend tomorrow chastising all the military lawyers who worked for the
Worst of the Worstprisoners from Gitmo as being traitors?What a fucking putz, this guy.
Comrade Darkness
@MikeJ: Yeah, they say they are. Good luck to Bitsy. If I burn a milkbone on an altar and offer it to the constellation Sirius do you think that will help?
noncarborundum
@Midnight Marauder: Clearly Blitzer does not understand the principles of the American justice system. In addition, anyone who uses the English language in a professional capacity should be fired on the spot for coming out with the phrase “gun downed”. Also.
Demo Woman
OT.. A friend of mine son’s wants a laser pointer. He’s stationed in Iraq and wants a newer model with a green beam or something for presentations. I asked my techie son and he scoffed cuz why would someone still use laser pointers.
Does anyone know brands that might be functional?
aimai
I’m old. I refused to say the pledge of allegiance when I was nine or ten over the Vietnam war.
aimai
Beauzeaux
Japanese weirdness exceeds American weirdness by a wide margin. For example, take a look at some wonderfully weird Japanese toys.
I still miss a very strange Japanese game show called “Feeling Couple” that used to air here in Los Angeles. It was something like a hybrid of The Dating Game and Jackass, only much stranger and more Japanese.
Neutron Flux
@Midnight Marauder: This Wolf person you refer to has been dead to me for over two years. I am much better off for it.
Comrade Darkness
@Demo Woman: Think Geek is generally a good source for stuff like that.
Demo Woman
@Comrade Darkness: thanks
LoveMonkey
Yes, even Harry Truman was afraid of Rupert Murdoch!
Chuck Butcher
As a thought problem, because empirical evidence isn’t there:
Is the Republican Party of today a media construct rather than a political entity? IOW are it’s policies and candidates a function of media construction or are the political?
LoveMonkey
@Chuck Butcher:
Both, Chuck. The GOP today is a patchwork coalition of unlikely bedfellows, and at the same time, it rides on the wheels of this thing called the “conservative movement” which has never actually existed in the sense that it changed the country the way the progressive movement has changed the country. The conservative movement is mostly a myth, eh? Remember, I live here in Arizona, and even here, it’s hard to find the results of the thing.