Cancer in Murdoch's Empire Metastasizing

Now we've learn that Murdoch has been paying off people to keep quiet about his illegal and monopolistic activities on this side of the pond as well. Hundreds of millions of dollars of hush money and his control over much of the news media have kept these stories out of the public eye for years.

According to a New York Times article, in 2009 a Murdoch subsidiary, News America Marketing, was involved with computer hacking against a competitor, as well as monopolistic activity. The company is involved in newspaper advertising inserts. After this and other legal entanglements, NAM wound up paying more than half a billion dollars in legal judgments and pay-offs to other companies to drop their lawsuits.

The CEO of NAM, Paul V. Carlucci, reportedly required his employees to watch a scene from The Untouchables in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat. This, apparently, best illustrated his business philosophy.

One would assume that a guy like that would be tossed out after costing the company so much money. But no. Carlucci became publisher of The New York Post, and continues to lead News America.

(Why do so many conservatives like Jack Abramoff and Carlucci like to pretend to be gangsters?)

Then there are the two Scotland Yard officials who resigned over the weekend because of their involvement with Murdoch's companies and their attempts to influence the investigations of their crimes. Apparently there has been a long history of coverups with Murdoch.

We can only hope that, as it was with Watergate, the coverup will get the guys at the top even if the actual crimes they incited didn't.

Years back it used to be illegal for one organization to own newspapers and TV stations in the same town. And there was a limit on the number of media outlets one company could own. But Murdoch has successfully lobbied to remove these restrictions so he could build his media empire. It still is illegal for foreigners to own American TV stations, which is why Murdoch became an American citizen. Not because he believed in the American way, but because he wants to buy our country out from under us.

Notice how the roll-back of regulations on media ownership have benefited the right-wing's biggest booster and the official propaganda arm of the Republican Party, Fox News (official because Dick Cheney required only Fox News to be shown in his presence)?

Conservatives are always worried about too much power being concentrated in the hands of the government. Why aren't they concerned about too much power in the hands of guys like Rupert Murdoch, who is an American by convenience only?

At least with government we can vote for the guys, and effect real change. (Remember the 2008 and 2010 elections? It puts the lie to the idea that it doesn't matter who you vote for. Your vote really does count.) With international corporate monopolies like News Corp, Sony, Merck, Exxon, BP, etc., the only control we have over them is what government can do through regulation and taxation.

And conservatives are doing everything they can do to eliminate what few remaining regulations and taxes there are that restrain people like Rupert Murdoch.

We need to put stop the growth of international media conglomerates like News Corp and Comcast/NBC/Universal. These monopolies are corrupting our police, our laws and even our mindset -- reality TV as pushed by Murdoch and his ilk is a blight on the soul of humanity. They need to be broken up before they do irreparable damage to this country and the world.