 |
| Art symbol of "the sword" by Stilleben.steenwick--wikimedia commons |
A man with a fortune, a cache of millions and with legions who follow his words.
This can create us a terror for sure.
And who is that man whose boots on the ground might unleash our world's greatest fears?
It is the man with the pen, but not just one pen with which only to scribble a bit.
It is a man with the many, the pens he controls to unleash like the swords they become.
These weapons can strike with passion and power that grow in their risk to us all.
And now he continues to make folks again attack in the ways that can grow.
Like the giants of war, and the tyrants that rule, this master of mayhem controls.
His pen swords strike quickly, or quietly still, enter the heart and then leave.
Sometimes the aim is to cripple; sometimes the aim is to kill.
When men cannot fight, they are caught and enslaved to help in a far greater war.
The weapons of words can cross East and West from places his aim might be best, while governments struggle and moan.
He weakens with words all the time, everywhere, as folks hunger for facts and ideas.
When he captures a village, a city, a town, his strong, bitter fruit.creates internal distress
Yet have people asking for more.
As bigotry flows from those pens he controls, it can mix with the blood on the ground.
For nothing creates more trouble than pens who are poised to do more than that.
His headquarters are here, his offices there, on battlefields growing with words.
And when he is caught, he escapes once again, from the power within and without.
He makes trouble wherever he goes.
And what has he done and why is this man the dangerous man that he is?
Rupert Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and a number of media outlets that have been accused of echoing a message of consistent bigotry,that targets minorities and sets crowds on fire with words.
In 2011 Rupert Murdoch's empire was in trouble over a hacking scandal in Great Britain. that was reported spread to other places. The News of the World was revealed to have hacked the telephones of many people from celebrities to ordinary children, from royalty to the victims of murder. A court found News of the World guilty of accessing phone messages illegally, causing his powerful newspaper in Great Britain to be closed and unleashing a series of scandals all over much of Western Europe and parts of the United States. Yet Murdoch was said to be gleeful about the publicity and the fingers pointing to him and his empire of minions who had worked with him to create that empire.
Fox News is one of the most popular broadcast networks in the United States. Take a drive across America, and one will find virtually every office, hotel and motel lobby, and even banks, turned exclusively to Fox. News broadcasters and commentators are mixed with politicians and preachers who use their pulpits to preach the negative, especially about minorities.
When there are racial incidents in the United States, Fox News is on tap to magnify the worst and focus on the negative, especially when it involves a minority.
And the aim is often to discredit those who try to calm, or at least neutralize violence, as President Obama tried to do with respect to the Ferguson riots and the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, by a policeman that set off those riots. In fact Fox never misses an opportunity to discredit the President. In the case of Ferguson, Obama was accused of “inflaming the riots.”
But not just Obama did Fox attack at the very beginning of his Presidency. Murdoch's Fox folk led the way toward finding fault with Bill Clinton on the very day of his inauguration, against all previous protocols and courtesy of the press. In fact they did it every hour on the hour throughout most of Clinton's Presidency, long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And the news channel was out in front with news broadcasters urging impeachment, despite legal opposition underlining the shallowness of their accusations.
There is far more, of course, from the power of a man who stops at nothing to bring about his aims. The problem is, as the world's tensions grow, misinformation can broaden the fear and prejudgments that can fuel a far greater response to the terrorists blow in France.
Fox News reported that there are “no-go zones” in France, where non-Muslims are afraid to enter. Indeed the reports go further by saying that the mission in these zones has been to impose sharia law on the entire population of those areas.
Then the lies continued to grow and repeated by Bobby Jindal,Governor of Louisiana, in his recent visit to France.
And this comes as the tensions grow greater in a country reeling from extreme terror following the publishing of the cartoons by a media outlet known as Charlie, that had ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad and other religious and political figures through cartoons that were regarded by some to be at best inappropriate and others as a simple expression of press freedoms. The lies about the no-go zones were so bitter, however, as to prompt the Mayor of Paris to threaten Fox News with a lawsuit, something difficult to achieve across international borders and complexities of international laws.
The response to the misinformation of Fox? More Muslim demonstrations ensued. More Muslims beginning to think they are being targeted by the West. The danger according to experts in security and terrorism. It creates a recruiting tool for those on the edge of decision, the young, the poor, those living on the edge of the culture, and even the moderate folk.
Murdoch has the freedom to move, as does his freedom of press. But there are laws against lying in print. And his apologies and explanations come far too late, for it is well known that people continue to believe the lie long after the truth is revealed.
This makes for a dangerous man, one who offers the world through his powerful media ways that continue to undermine democratic leadership and the peace of society.
It is the kind of tyranny, that unlike the press and the powers of old is far worse with the reach of the Internet and social media. It multiplies to the masses, forming crowds of protest and dividing the people, pitting them one against another. Along with it, many Evangelicals foment unrest by simply saying it is God's punishment and part of God's prophecy.
We all are a part of the world, a world that is rocked by fear and suspicion, divisions, reduced influence by the middle class, and a widening gap between the rich and the poor, so that a mere 800 people control nearly half of the wealth of the world.
Murdoch is one of those people whose wealth and power exceeds almost anyone else. And with that power he can influence the direction of thought by false words that can topple reason and rational response. It is what makes him a dangerous man.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Say something constructive. Negative remarks and name-calling are not allowed.