today’s fun fact:
Ralph Nader’s recent book “The Good Fight:…” was published by an imprint of HarperCollins called ReganBooks. HarperCollins is owned by NewsCorp, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
Ok. now what are we to make of this fact? In the first place, Murdoch has a history of using his assets to influence political decisions that benefit him economically. NewsCorp’s flagship news outlets are unabashedly partisan. In some cases, partisan to the point of propagandist. For example, 70% of folks who identified Fox news as one of their primary news sources, when polled about certain facts regarding the casus belli in Iraq were factually misinformed.
But on the other hand, given the premise of enormous concentration of the publishing industry, how is one to get a book published without involving oneself with some kind of wacky multinational corporation? And if one is a real threat, then one will certainly not get heard.
So the question here is not about Murdoch’s motives, but Nader’s. What the hell do they have on the guy to make him choose to be such an obvious pawn?
And then to take this creature and have it mouth the truthful words of outraged righteousness, its at once brilliant and frightful in its deviousness. Because it smears the truly righteous outrage with the tar of the pretender.
Its a clever ploy. Like the agent provacateur, only in reverse.
It has worked many times before, and worked so well, that we are unaware of it.