What Really Motivates The Murdochs, Tucker Carlson, And Fox News?
What Really Motivates The Murdochs, Tucker Carlson, And Fox News?
In response to my shared Facebook memory of yesterday, (FB link here)
which was a broadside against Tucker Carlson from a year ago, a Facebook friend replied by saying that in effect, all these guys are about is running a scam to get rich. That they are driven by greed, which is a natural outgrowth of American Capitalism. That Carlson is a clown in an empty suit who is just playing to a "niche" market to fulfill a demand and get rich off of it.
We had some back and forth, which I think is worthwhile posting. I'm not trying to get in the last word or win a debate. It's a teaching moment that I thought should be socialized, because I'm sure others have had the same thought and I wanted to address it.
This is, in my view, an example of how we are conditioned to think by oligarchs who have an agenda. (the real establishment oligarchs, not the nouveau rich Billionaires who recently fell into money) Their agenda is to divide, paralyze, and manipulate, so as to neutralize us as a potential opposition threat. If we can be made to adopt a modern form of the Manichean heresy, the belief that "evil is natural", and actually runs the world, that is the first step toward acceptance, accommodation, and even resignation to it. Which is what the oligarchy wants. There is nothing natural about any of this.
So here is our little dialogue. I invite comments
____They are just exploiting their market niche, making big bucks. This is American capitalism. Since when does a blowhard, ignorant jerk get to make millions by just running his mouth? Since there is a market for it. Pretty simple.
(me) seriously ____? You think it's all about the money? I'm actually surprised you would say that.
____Tucker carlson is all about the money. The folks pulling the strings are just using him. He's an empty suit. If it wasn't making them rich, we wouldn't be hearing it on Fox.
(me) well, one question...you think Josef Goebbels and Alfred Rosenberg published "Die Stürmer and Völkesche Beobachter to meet market demand in Germany and make money? They did make money, but do you think that's what motivated them?
____Maybe them, maybe not. I didn't say anything about them.
(me) _____ well, think about it. Media conglomerates generate culture. Propaganda is cultural warfare that creates its own market and demand. Ideologically Carlson is a Nazi. Rupert Murdoch is a propagandist by his own admission. He studied Tabloid journalism under Lord Beaverbrook in England, the owner of The Daily Express, who was his mentor. Beaverbrook taught him that all news coverage is propaganda. His newspaper was one of the two leading ones in England which were pro-Hitler and Mussolini in England until the war started. That's where Murdoch comes from, he was Beaverbrook's protégé.
Hitler made his fortune with his book, "Mein Kampf". It financed the Nazi Party, their newspapers, paid for his luxury mountain retreat, Berghof, the Wolf's Lair estate in the German forest, and after consolidating power the book became mandatory for every household, thus making him even richer. Even though Germany became fascist, their economy was still profit driven until wartime. Goering, Himmler and others became fantastically rich by profiting off of the slave labor of work camps, and accumulating the looted art treasures of Europe. Goebbels became rich, as did Rosenberg who owned the Nazi press. So they were all greedy and became obscenely rich.
So I'm saying something about them. And I'll ask again, did Goebbels and Rosenberg go into the media business to make money off of a pre-existing market demand, a niche, in order to get rich? Or, did they use propaganda to create a movement with a growing membership in order to seize power, set up a police state, commit genocide, start a war, and happen to become rich as a result of the process as well?
If you have experienced greedy insufferable assholes in business and the _____ profession or in general in your lifetime it is understandable that you might believe that the love of money is the main source of corruption in America. But greed only serves the purpose of oligarchs like Murdoch as a tool to get people to work for them. But it is not what motivates them. What motivates them is what comes out of their mouths, the purpose of which is social and political power, control, and authority. That is their goal. They create their own market for that purpose. That is how the oligarchy used Trump.
It's never been about the money. Fascists are driven by the self-hatred which they project onto the world around them. Their "product" is rage, which is an addictive drug, not an emotion. They use rage like drug cartel kingpins use heroin to create their own market. And the goal in this case is greater than wealth, it is to create a society in their own image, where those who are not considered "fit to live" are either eliminated, or just "let go" through economic triage.
Ideologically, methodologically, Murdoch and Carlson are the same as Rosenberg, Hitler's publisher, and Goebbels, Hitler's propagandist. Both rich men. Both war criminals. (Rosenberg tried and hung for publishing propaganda which contributed to the Holocaust) Both Nazis who were driven not by money, but by hatred, whose product was rage.
Murdoch and Carlson haven't committed their greatest crimes yet. But they are both criminal minds who will, if allowed to continue. And they are both very rich men. Carlson was rich before Fox. He is one of the heirs of the Swanson frozen food empire. He was rich in the fucking womb. It's never been about the money for him ____, not for one minute.
Once you realize that, you'll know that these guys are not a "natural" outgrowth of American Capitalism. They are a lab engineered cultural virus which has mutated. Then you'll know how to fight them. "Vaccinate" the population. Help them build an immunity to fascist propaganda. That's what a political movement for justice should do. To the extent that hasn't been done, that is why we are fucked.
