Obama Will Win June 25, 2008
Posted by sdpurtill in : Politics, Money , trackbackThis post is more about media control than who I support in the upcoming election. I will be voting for McCain since he’s not going to rape the rich but dislike both candidates equally (sorry grandpa).
You can’t put a price on the power to control people. Look at history up until the last few decades - the ability to influence a large group of people was very limited due to the distribution constraints. The most widespread form of media prior to TV was the newspaper. If you controlled the papers, you could have your way in that region. Then came the TV and with it a larger market to penetrate. Then came the media conglomerates who bought up networks, newspapers, magazines, and of course, MySpace. Which brings us to today where we have Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch at the healm of two of the most influential media companies that have ever existed. News Corp alone has a media reach of over 4.2 billion people - yes, that was a “B”. (wikipedia this if you think I’m lying)
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the political bias the networks have - CBS, NBC, ABC are all extremely liberal. The only right wing network is FOX, which is on the extreme neo-con end of right wing (makes conservatives look like idiots). The big story this election that hasn’t got nearly enough coverage is Rupert Murdoch and who he is supporting. The man that owns the only right wing network, a flurry of newspapers and - yes this will be important - MySpace.
I’ve been following Rupert Murdoch in this upcoming election since I think he is the only media mogul that matters in the US. He controls what FOX News gets to say, and since it is the only right wing network out there, whoever Murdoch puts his weight behind is going to get a good 50% of the vote. A few weeks ago, he threw his weight behind Obama with a New York Post article about him. The NY Post is a trashy publication, but when asked if he had influenced the editors to put Obama on it at the D6 Conference Murdoch said “yes” without even flinching. Now I’m not sure if this was meant to be a joke or of Murdoch is actually supporting Obama in the upcoming election.
It got me thinking. Murdoch has backed the Republican party for the last century (the guy’s old), what would make him switch right now? It could be very simple. Did McCain block a business deal that Murdoch tried to do in the past? Did McCain go after Murdoch for something he did in the past? It could be complicated to (I wouldn’t know where to start). Maybe Murdoch and Obama have an agreement if Obama becomes the next president (Obama passes some exceptions to anti-trust laws?). Whatever it was, I’m sure if Murdoch decides to back Obama it will have to do with something McCain did to Murdoch in the past.
No matter what you think about FOX news, it does have a lot of influence over conservatives since it is the only station they can turn to where they aren’t constantly maligning President Bush and the Republican party. I know everyone thinks they’re so smart and have the power to form their own opinions, but we’re talking about middle America here. This isn’t San Francisco or New York City that McCain needs (he’ll lose them anyways), it’s the states that always vote Republican but could flip this year if News Corp. decides to put it’s money on Obama.
In the coming weeks we’ll see who Murdoch ends up supporting, but if he decides to back Obama, a win for John McCain will be impossible. I will say this once:
Whoever Rupert Murdoch backs for the 2008 presidency will win.
Comments»
Interesting perspective. I think I would agree with you there. And I definitely agree that people are VERY influenced by the media. Maybe not everything they see they believe… but what they see often enough they will. So if they constantly see candidate X being portrayed in a positive light, and it _seems_ like he is liked by everyone. Well… they will start thinking that way too. Scary.
By the way, love the font on these comments.
I realize the point of your post was simply to raise some sort of awarness in what could-be rotating tables at Fox but to me, you said more in your opening statement than the other parts.
To start this off let me first establish my bias as you did yours:
I hope Fox does back Obama, McCain will make a terrible president. I have no political stance (I am actually against the party system in genreal) and therefore have formed my opinion simply on the candiate I think will do the best job (which still will acomplish little)
I guess you like the way George Bush is doing things if you support John McCain. Sure he won’t “rape the rich” but he will continue to rape the poor and pass their still living bodies to the head of the oil companies for some sloppy seconds.
You say you don’t like any candidate but yet you will vote for one. I hatd every candidate that ran in the last few elections and so I didn’t vote for any candidate. I will vote for Obama because he is what we need, a new face, un-corrupted (as of now) with no personal agendas brought on by money-making deals made in the past. Maybe he will make the small amount of rich people pay more through taxes but it is better than making the increasing amount of poor people pay more money. The rich people just keep getting more rich and that is always how it has been. Does it seem right to hold on to riches (which you know full well are temporary) or spread them throughout to those who are less-fortunate? This is simply a question of your moral beliefs, I do not think that by electing Obama the rich people will actually help the poorer.
I am not saying you are rich or that you don’t contribute to lower classes without anticipating monetary reward, I am only suggesting that putting the well-being of others to the side so that the country can continue to be run by the rich and for the rich, especially when there is an actual,rare chance for change, is a pretty selfish way of thinking, especially when you can see, clearly, the damage done by things going the way they have been currently going.
“Does it seem right to hold on to riches (which you know full well are temporary) or spread them throughout to those who are less-fortunate? This is simply a question of your moral beliefs, I do not think that by electing Obama the rich people will actually help the poorer.”
So are you saying that rich people, who, in general, have become rich because of the things they have achieved and hard work, should be penalized for their hard work? Yes, I do believe the rich should get richer - most deserve it. Work hard and then get your money redistributed to a bunch of leeches then come back and tell me that’s fair.
This isn’t about poor people leeching off the rich, this is about poor people becoming poorer while the rich continue to grow wealthy.
I could take this in so many directions.
How do feel about the war in Iraq?
Do you like how the economy is in it’s current state?
@Sam great point - if the “rich” don’t have incentive to work hard (because they get rewarded) they will just go elsewhere. It’s not the government’s job to redistribute money.
@Earl - if you look at Bush’s policies (and not just the media hype) you will see that he is doing quite a lot to help the poor. including things with oil (alternative fuels, car mpg standards, increased prospecting for oil).
How can you say Obama does not have an “agenda” he most certainly does. He isn’t some fresh faced person. He’s been quite involved in politics for a while. He’s just very good at presenting himself to the media - because he doesn’t talk about his policies. Make no mistake though, many of the plans on his agenda WILL severely hurt the economy.
Also, have you talked with anyone who has been to Iraq or who _really_ knows what is going on? We are winning. Fighting is way down. Oh, and when was the last time the US had a terrorist attack? Seven years ago.
Seven years ago. that’s right. Do you seriously think that is even close to a decent argument? How often did we have terrorists attacks before, on a scale to 9/11? America wasn’t like Iraq, with many attacks daily, it was one unfortunate event.
I never said Obama had no agenda, I said that he doesn’t have a corrupted agenda (yet). What are the policies that you say “WILL severely hurt the economy” because at 12 billion dollars average a month in Iraq I am sure it can only get better.
The US dollar is worth less than the Canadian dollar…
“Also, have you talked with anyone who has been to Iraq or who _really_ knows what is going on? We are winning. Fighting is way down.”
First, yes I have. What are we/have we won? What have we accomplished exactly? More soldiers have committed suicide in Iraq than in any previous war due to the hopelessness they feel while there. Only one percent of polled Iraqis feel more secure, sixty-seven feel less secure since the beginning of the war. The majority of the soldiers have no idea what they are fighting for in the long run. They have no idea what the main objective is.
“you will see that [Bush] is doing quite a lot to help the poor. including things with oil (alternative fuels, car mpg standards, increased prospecting for oil).”
Have you ever done research on the attempts to popularize electric cars? Ever heard of the EV1? Basically, it was a car that GM manufactured that ran entirely by batteries, it was affordable and the few people who were able to get one absolutely loved them. GM would not let people buy them, only lease them and you had to be rich to get one because, although they were originally well priced, the demand got so how with such little amounts of cars, the price rose. Being leased meant GM could take it back at any time and they did, they took every one and crushed them (except for four which were made impossible to drive and donated to museums). If you don’t already see the problems with this, and have 90 minutes to learn something new, watch this movie that has been uploaded to GoogleVideo http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7202740060236675590
Now talk about what George Bush has done for the industry.
Obama won the primary because of money coming from Silicon Valley. Simple as that. In addition, his top contributors and top industry contributors are law firms. These aren’t the type of people who support for no reason. And don’t think it’s only because they are good citizens who want change.
Sam, right on the money. Obama wants to increase dividend and capital gains taxes on the wealthy, calls poverty a “moral shame”, and wants to raise payroll taxes by an astronomical percent. See comparison from nbc here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5zy5Y4Jl8A
and the explanation from cnn here
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/27/news/economy/obama_wealthy_taxes/
If I’m rich, an aggregate 40% of my money goes to the government to do with what it wills… and the government sure has a great track record of spending money well, like Earl said.
no major networks are “liberal.” msnbc has only recently gone opinionated. liberal’s try to be objective. republican’s just open their mouth and bullshit comes out.
i’m a conservative, but i don’t trust anyone else who says they are.
and, the economy is tanking because of republican policy. you can’t run supply side economics forever without making sure consumer power can buy the innovation. consumer power was pulled out of thin air to create demand for all the new goodies the free market was creating - through credit cards and inflated home values and pure optimism. but now that’s reached its limits. now, even conservatives and free marketeers need to be thinking about how to get purchasing power back in the median/lower median family income. if not, depression. big time.