Introducing the new “ABC free” AUSTRALIA… now with extra ignorance, selfishness and cruelty
(Or why we need the ABC)
Since the coalition’s Murdoch lead victory in last September’s
federal election there has been a palpable shift in our national
narrative. The images of a sun burnt country forged by convict sweat and
hard working immigrants is fading fast, and in its wake a new story is
being fashion.
It is a tale of well intentioned, hard working corporations, (who really just want to keep us all employed),
being squeezed by draconian regulations and pushed offshore by rampant,
out of control wages. It’s the chronicle of a government being driven
into the red, not by cutting taxes for the wealthy and turning a blind
eye to the corporate “offshoring” of profits (read “legal” tax evasion),
but by those lazy unemployed/disabled bludgers on welfare, and their
“anti business” environmentalist buddies. It’s the saga of nation
overrun by so called “illegals” intent on subverting our immigration
laws for the sole purpose of suckling endlessly on OUR government teat, (Ironically most of whom are coming here LEGALLY as refugees).
These new LNP/Murdoch sanctioned mantras are repeated so often, and
with such earnest conviction it seems people are finding it pretty damn
hard not to buy into it. There are even those in the Labor party who
seem quite happy to have joined the chorus.
I hear it everywhere I go, everyday Aussies out there parroting the
coalition’s vitriolic hatred for anything even vaguely related to the
unions, the unemployed, the environment, asylum seekers, disability
pensioners, ABC lefties, foreign aid, etc.
So why all the negative jawboning?
Well, if you read the papers Australia has, up until our recent
electoral liberation, been a nation under siege by left wing “special
interests”! Because of this evil leftist scourge we have been forced to
endure such indignities as the 2nd highest standard of living in the
world (after Norway), the planets largest houses, one of the
worlds best/most affordable health care systems, quality education,
disposable incomes such that we can afford to be the be the worlds
leading per capita emitters of of CO2, and the dubious privilege of
ranking 69th in our per capita refugee intake (49th in overall terms).
When you lay it out like that it’s easy to see why we have all been
so unhappy, we have been really suffering! Clearly something had to be
done.
But seriously, something has happened to us. If you listen to the
rhetoric, it would seem we are no longer a nation that strives for the
fair go, but rather one that values our own perceived self interest
above all other concerns.
I scratch my head and wonder, how did this happen? When did Australia
become a place that embraces the social and political agendas of the
most ignorant, selfish and cruel among us?
It wasn’t that long ago that Australian public opinion was DEEPLY
CONCERNED with the environmental legacy we are leaving for our children.
As recently as last year people seemed happy to talk about the scandal
that is corporate tax evasion. There was even a time, in living memory,
when refugees that came here by boat were welcomed with a broad smile
and a hand up.
So what happened? How did the social and moral imperative get
banished from our national narrative? Did it happen by accident, or by
design? And if by design, then by who’s hand?
And then there’s the bigger questions. Exactly who’s interests are
served by these apparent changes in our attitudes? And is anyone
standing against the tide?
The sculpting of public opinion has a long history and there are many
tools, such as fear and scapegoating, that have been used to great
effect through out the ages. “Group think”, for example is an
extraordinarily powerful weapon, (after all who wants to run outside the herd, everyone knows how dangerous that is). The truth however has never been a necessary component when seeking to sway the prevailing sentiments of the masses.
William James, the father of modern Psychology notably once quipped
“There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people
will not believe it”. This rather glib observation was most infamously
put into practice by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, (a man on whom the power of the press was most certainly not lost), who used the simple “lie, repeat, lie, repeat, lie, repeat” principle to whip up the greatest genocidal frenzy in history.
More recently Goebbel’s philosophical musing “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play”
has been turned on it’s head by the irrepressible Rupert Murdoch, our
prodigal puppeteer d’jour, who, like some gruesomely wizened “whack a
mole” has popped up here again to lead his relentless political cheer
squad for which ever side will acquiesce to do his bidding. It would
appear that, in spite of his meddling hand being beaten down in UK and
much of the USA now being hip to the fact that “FOX NEWS” is an
oxymoron, if you hand the old boy a monopoly he’ll show you he’s still
got it.
One rather startling revelation that came out of the UK’s recent Levinson enquiry into press standards
, was was that Murdoch had actively lobbied former UK prime minister
John Major to change the Torries policy on the EU, lest he engage in
willfully biased coverage in order to “hand the election” to Blair’s New
Labor (a party/man seemingly more willing to do his bidding).
Major refused to allow Murdoch to dictate policy and was duly slammed by
the Murdoch press, who came out swinging hard for Blair.
So in spite of the Torries having had a clear lead in the polls up until Major’s “disagreement” with Murdoch, the Torries, (much like Gillard),
found the power of a vindictive, inflammatory press mobilised against
them simply too great to overcome. Blair was elected and the rest, as
they say, is history.
While the Brits were duly outraged, you would think something so
blatantly corrupt as seeking to dictate government policy in return for
favourable press would raise a dubious brow from someone back here in
Aus; but much like the “March in March” (a mysteriously unnoticed gathering of over 100,000 Australia wide) somehow it failed to be deemed newsworthy enough to make any significant impression on the Australian mainstream media.
So… If a media baron is dictating government policy in return for
press support, but no one ever hears about it, is the political process
actually being subverted? Probably, (but then who has time to worry about such things when we are all so busy hating and punishing refugees).
Or… If a crowd gathers in the city and no one is there to report it,
did it really gather? Maybe it did in the hearts and minds of those who
were there, but for anyone else, or in the archives of history?… Well
maybe not.
We have been told a lot of things recently, (much of it negative),
about everything from the unions to environmentalists, from asylum
seekers to the NBN. And while it’s easy to put a question mark over
anything a politician might say in an effort to popularise their chosen
policy agenda; I can not help but wonder if a press core that is
practically a monopoly, (and known to actively pursue it’s owners personal agendas), is actually telling us the whole truth, or even any small part of it?
Like many others I can’t quite shake the feeling that we’re being fed
a grab bag of skilfully crafted misinformation, half truths and
innuendo designed to direct our hostility toward the poor and
disenfranchised, or anyone out there pushing for a fairer, more
sustainable policy agenda.
According to the official story, Australians are apparently (on average) far richer than we were 10 years ago… but for some rather opaque reason we just don’t feel it.
I can’t help but wonder why that is?
Is it because we feel more entitled than we used to? (If we don’t
have a car, a mobile phone, a laptop, an ipad, a kindle, a 50″ TV,
Foxtel, Quickflix, a yearly overseas holiday, and at least 3 restaurant
meals a week we think we are suffering an intolerable injustice?).
Is it that we are constantly being assaulted by the relentless
negativity of a 24 hour news cycle, telling us that our unfettered
access to “more stuff” is being threatened by the poor and
disenfranchised?
Or maybe it’s that the wealth is only going to the top end of town, and no one else is reaping the benefit?
It’s perfectly understandable that when we are feeling squeezed we
like to have someone to blame, but it is worth asking ourselves, is our
anger being misplaced?
Here we are, literally seething with contempt for refugees, single
mothers, greenies, protesters, students, socialists, the disabled,
lefties, intellectuals and the all those former bank and manufacturing
workers that have now joined the ranks of the unemployed. Meanwhile the
gap between the haves and have nots is at an all time high. Our trusty
government is busy reducing taxes for the top end of town, Corporate
profits are breaking records left and right, (but strangely
corporate tax receipts are not, Google, for example, had revenue of over
$1 billion in Australia in 2012, and yet paid only $74k tax).
CEO’s wages and share options continue to defy gravity, and our banks,
whilst being incredulously profitable, are shipping jobs off shore
faster than you can say “transaction fee”, and so it goes…
*(brings to mind a joke I heard recently: A banker, a Daily
Telegraph reader and a refugee are out to lunch. The waiter puts down a
plate with twelve biscuits on it; the banker takes eleven, nudges the
Telegraph reader and says “hey watch it mate, that refugee wants your
biscuit”)
Everyone knows trickle down economics is bunk, and yet we keep buying into the myth, lauding the lords and kicking the powerless. The cognitive dissonance simply staggering!
So my question is this…Who’s interests does this new hateful
narrative really serve? Murdoch and his buddies in the 1%, or those of
us in the mortgage belt?
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not blaming Murdoch. We all lobby for
our own interests, and why should he be any different. What I am saying
however is that a virtual monopoly concentration of Australia’s media
in any ones hands is dangerous. We need visible, diverse mainstream
media to give a balanced range of views.
We also need some measure of mainstream media presence that is not
driven by profit, or dictated to by advertising revenue and share holder
values. We need a media that is prepared to objectively challenge the
veracity of the story as told to us by Murdoch, (and given the governments proposed changes to section 18c of the racial vilification act this is now more important than ever).
In short, we need our ABC.
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