She grossly miscalculated the numbers in more ways than one. There are nowhere near as many Murdoch haters as there are defenders of freedom of speech.
This line from Niki Savva’s op-ed this morning reminded me of a great paragraph in Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
In capitalist society—or in a society that contains a capitalist element of decisive importance—any attack on the intellectuals must run up against the private fortresses of bourgeois business which, or some of which, will shelter the quarry. Moreover such an attack must proceed according to bourgeois principles of legislative and administrative practice which no doubt may be stretched and bent but will checkmate prosecution beyond a certain point. Lawless violence the bourgeois stratum may accept or even applaud when thoroughly roused or frightened, but only temporarily. In a purely bourgeois regime like that of Louis Philippe, troops may fire on strikers, but the police cannot round up intellectuals or must release them forthwith; otherwise the bourgeois stratum, however strongly disapproving some of their. doings, will rally behind them because the freedom it disapproves cannot be crushed without also crushing the freedom it approves.
Schumpeter expands his argument in the next paragraph:
Only a government of non-bourgeois nature and non-bourgeois creed—under modern circumstances only a socialist or fascist one—is strong enough to discipline them. In order to do that it would have to change typically bourgeois institutions and drastically reduce the individual freedom of all strata of the nation. And such a government is not likely—it would not even be able—to stop short of private enterprise.
In a liberal democracy you would expect that the kind of state-sponsored media attacks we’ve been witnessing should fail – and it reflects very poorly on our politicians that they have even made the attempt. Or course it reflects much more poorly on the UK where these attacks have succeeded.
If this is correct, you should see the UK reassert itself in short order.
Driftforge
21 Mar 13 at 9:24 am
Not yet, Sinc.
Tom
21 Mar 13 at 9:30 am
Proof yet again, that the vile harridan simply has no idea and should never have reached the position she’s temporarily occupying in the first place.
Rabz
21 Mar 13 at 9:35 am
I’ve never understood this hating Rupert Murdoch thing, he’s elderly now and worked hard and seems to have lived a fairly blameless life. He closed his paper down when the phone hacking thing blew up, what more could he do. He’s 83 years old.
candy
21 Mar 13 at 10:02 am
Candy, its simple. Rupert Murdock is always prepared to look, and allow his publications to look, at all sides of an issue. He also permits them to cover matters of interest to the man in the street, thereby making his publications popular and successful.
This is all that’s needed to hate him because, of course, anyone contradicting the elitist intelligentsia is, by definition, evil. This was the case with global warming, where debate was never an option, just closing down any contrary view, and its even more so with this rabid government who, rather than making any attempt to address real issues to lashing out at the press because they’ve stopped covering up for them.
Iren
21 Mar 13 at 10:33 am
Niki Savva, “Under her(Gillard’s) leadership the government has declared war on foreign workers, the media, miners, single parents, the rich, and business groups generally. Without producing any discernible benefit.”
Niki, you forgot to include, ‘Anyone who pays for Electricity.’
Anne
21 Mar 13 at 11:00 am
C’mon you people why not cut Gillard some slack. After all she has been getting away with this “I know what’s best for you” stuff all her adult life and now her life has turned upside down because even her Labor colleagues have discovered that she is not all that bright. She now knows that she will not be remembered as not even a half decent politician, let alone a half decent PM. Her epitaph will read; “She was an untrustworthy and mendacious individual who ran one of the most incompetent Governments in history. May her like never be seen again on the political stage in Australia”.
Robbo
21 Mar 13 at 11:30 am
Murdoch’s commercial success has come from giving a large section of media consumers a product they like well enough to pay for – one that they can identify with. The weight of money says the fact that the News ‘house style’ is populist and generally Centre-Right is reflective of the political and social tastes of the consumer, rather than evidence of the Murdocracy pushing its own political line against the current of public opinion.
An unpopular, incompetent and Leftish government can hardly accept this simple argument without tacitly admitting that it is seen as unpopular, incompetent and socially dissonant by large sections of the voting public.
Much more convenient to pretend evidence of bias, partiality, unfairness and (even) criminal behaviour by proprietors – and then a simple political step to claim this as a given fact by introducing legislation to control these evils.
Simple, that is, unless the Fuckup Fairies have taken-up permanent residence in your Cabinet Room.
Dr Faustus
21 Mar 13 at 1:39 pm
EXPLAINED: EVERYTHING.
wreckage
21 Mar 13 at 4:14 pm