Rupert Murdoch:inevitable social and political upheavals to come

Outbackjack: Rupert Murdoch’s warning of the “inevitable social and political upheavals to come” might very well be spawned from the masses of underemployed youth who are left in Team Australia’s dust, writes Jonathan Green.

His somewhat counterintuitive observations on growing income inequality may have taken the headlines, but what exactly might Rupert Murdoch have had in mind when he spoke of the “inevitable social and political upheavals to come”?

A telling line there from his speech to G20 finance ministers, a reflection on the possible consequences of a generation of young people, from bereft and penniless pockets across the affluent West, left without jobs, prospects, hope or connection.

Whatever mayhem is in store will no doubt be grist for the inflated daily misanthropies of his tabloid press, so there’s a positive, but Murdoch seems genuinely alert to a deepening social divide and the gathering dysfunction that straddles it.

As Paul Kelly wrote in The Australian, reporting his proprietor’s address:

The lack of opportunity for the next generation was “especially troubling” along with the “inevitable social and political upheavals to come”. This was because the unemployment rate for people under 25 years in the US was 13 per cent and in the Eurozone was 23 per cent. It was twice as high in Spain and Greece and parts of France and Italy.

Outbackjack: And here?

The Brotherhood of St Laurence crunched the numbers in early September.

It found that 15 per cent of Australian 15-24-year-olds were underemployed: they had some work, but not as much as they either wanted or needed. The rate was the highest it has been since 1978, when the Australian Bureau of Statistics began compiling numbers around youth underemployment.

And actual joblessness? Among the 15-24-year-olds the rate is rattling pretty stubbornly at about the same level of 15 per cent. Combine the two, and according to the Brotherhood, “more than 580,000 young Australians are now either underemployed or unemployed. Overall, this represents more than a quarter of 15 to 24-year-olds in the labour market.”

According to the Government, this is an issue of industry and motivation. While they might dream of “lifting” the young un and underemployed are presumably “leaning” for the moment.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews may have ruled out drug testing them, but still wants them to work harder for their meagre unemployment benefit, a rate of benefit they won’t be able to access in full until the age of 25; never mind the six month wait for benefits and job search diaries that will fill libraries.

According to Treasurer Joe Hockey, “We need people under the age of 30 to earn or learn.”

“There isn’t a crisis,” says Education Minister Christopher Pyne.

Try fruit picking, says Employment Minister Eric Abetz:

There is no right to demand from your fellow Australians that just because you don’t want to do a bread delivery or a taxi run or a stint as a farmhand that you should therefore be able to rely on your fellow Australian to subsidise you.

Meanwhile, there are 580,000 young Australians with no good reason to get up in the morning.

They’re across the country, in regional centres stripped of life and purpose, in outer suburban sweeps detached from the jobs, infrastructure and resource lifeblood of the cities of which they are only nominally a part.

Is it here, in the great boondocks of welfare dependent apathy and creeping disdain that Mr Murdoch’s “inevitable social and political upheavals” will arise?

Will it be among a growing and increasingly hopeless underclass, a quarter of our young population who lack even the humdrum social connection of work, never mind an instinctive affinity with Team Australia.

The outcome? Some will turn to drugs. Some to crime. Some to simple indolence. Some will struggle desperately against a conspiracy of circumstances. Some will succeed. Some will be radicalised, their heads filled with talk of jihad and visions of violent glory.

National security legislation whistles through the parliament, unspecified foreign destinations are proscribed, the capacity of the media to reflect on the operations of our secret police is constrained … all of it deemed essential to subdue the threat of terror, particularly the challenge of the “lone wolf”.

Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars are pulled from GP-based mental health programs. Program funding in youth psychosis services is cut or uncertain, the entire provision of mental health is a place of policy limbo pending review.

And what do we know about the most recent lone wolf, the man who ran amok in the Canadian parliament? That his actions were as likely the result of drug and mental health issues as radical Islam.

We’ve been asked to take the parallel to heart.

Stopping radicalised young Australians from boarding whatever flight it may be that runs direct to Damascus is one thing, nipping the deep social roots of radicalisation and disturbance is another.

It may be that these men act out their violence not because, as is so often argued, they hate the things we are … it could be because those things “we are” are applied with such inequality, or in some places not at all.

The result will be illness, anger, despair and perhaps jihad … but it might also be a broader sense of unrest and deep dislocated disturbance for a generation left in Team Australia’s dust.

Even Rupert Murdoch can see that.

ABC News

chronology: Right Wing 'Caveman Capitalism' does not work Jack, never has. Reaganomics turned entire Districts of Detroit and Philadelphia into shanty towns, and Boris Yeltzins Russia was surreal in the extreme. A takeover bid in Russia back then was a car bomb under a competitors car, or a snipers bullet in the back of the head.
Some poor Russian kid who was boarding at a local school here lost her Mom and Dad when they were sprayed with machine gun bullets at a Moscow traffic stop. Guess that was a successful takeover bid.

LiptonCambell: The man stands to make a fortune if he does something news worthy. He knows he's not a media sweetheart, and he's playing the role.

He doesn't mean anything. he's just trying to stir the pot

Outbackjack: I am not so sure McLipton. Maybe he is starting to read the writing on the wall.The growing gap between the rich and poor in western countries cannot continue to grow without people being deny opportunity and railing against it.We did have the U.K riots only recently. as a clear example.

chronology: Jack, can you clear up some confusion about Sir Rupert? He is said to be an American, Australian, Chinese, Israeli, Citizen. Is Sir Rupert heading for the Guiness Book of records for belonging to more countries than any other person?

Outbackjack: As far as I know he was born in Australia but became an American citizen so he could buy U.S tv networks and papers that restricted foreign ownership.

On behalf of all Australians we humbly apologise to all americans and the rest of the world.

Outbackjack: Anyhow here's an insightful comment by Rupert Murdoch before the Iraq invasion of 2003

The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in the any country."

chronology: Interesting Jack, but I think Sir Rupert also has other citizenships as well, probably through marriage.

Sir Rupert seems to be trying to balance a Business Empire stretching from everywhere from Cuba to America to China to Europe to, well everywhere. He also has to try and keep people friendly from Kings and Presidents to working class soccer fans in England who were burning his newspapers in the streets after the Hillsborough incident. By comparison, even William Randolph Hearst had an easy ride compared to Sir Rupert, Hearst was hated as much as Sir Rupert, for all the same reasons.

'Everybody hates the Boss' as the saying goes. I had to laugh when he appointed George W Bush's cousin as head of vote counting for Fox News in one election, 'am sure Mr Ellis (Mr Bush's cousin) will be unbiased and fair in his commentary' is all you can muse.

Outbackjack: Murdoch is a far right idealogue. He is that committed to controlling the ideas in society that he doesn't seem to mind losing lots of money.Which makes sense really if you want to exercise true power and pay for it.

Murdoch owns about 70% of the papers in Australia which is quite scary. The billionaires led by Gina Rinehart (her dad was notorious for appearing on 60 minutes and saying he did not care about the workers who died in his asbestos mines) actually tried to takeover Fairfax newspapers so they could control what was published.

Having lived in Western Australia for a longtime and moving to the east coast recently it amazes me how many people read the Daily telegraph ( Terrorgraph) . It shocks me how biased and reactionary it is.Yet in the workplace and roadhouses a lot of people still read that nonsense.Its brainwashing on a huge scale and you soon begin to understand why we have such disgusting policies towards refugees and want to start wars when you read a few pages of this filth.


Fortunately newsppapers are in decline and none so more than the News Corp (News limited). The Australian Newspaper lost about $30 million last year and you know what.News limited threatened to sue for the leaking of this information.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/news-corp-threatens-8216action8217-over-leaked-accounts-20140821-106j2d.html

chronology: Interesting Jack. Sir Rupert lost all political influence in the North West of England in a lightning flash, when his 'Sun' Newspaper ran a sensationalist story about the Hillsborough Disaster. The Sun was (still is) a gutter tabloid with stories about Vicars arrested at Gay Parties and teenagers having broken bottles smashed into their faces, also lots of nude photos of women, very much to the taste of it's readers. But Sir Rupert ruled the circulation war with his tawdry rag. Then came the Hillsborough story and there was a mass boycott of the paper, anyone who purchased the paper was shunned as a 'traitor', Sir Rupert had never faced such widescale mass action, he also lost all influence in the region overnight. To this day his newspaper has never recovered.

Outbackjack: Yep I remember Hillsborough.I was almost there and my dad being a Liverpool fan meant we would probably have been in the Leppings lane end.

They shut the ground for a few weeks and I remember going back there to watch my team the Owls play.The bars were bent down to the ground and you knew that had been done by people. As for the Sun.Being a paperboy at the time I remember the reporting and scapegoating of scousers.This was racheted up a notch with the Jamie Bulger incident. It was in a way benign racism as a lot of scousers have Irish descent being the English main port for ireland.

chronology: Well 'The Sun' had an uphill battle to recover it's sales. but it is a still a notable marketing success by Sir Rupert's management team that the paper is selling well again. What seems to have set the Newspaper on the road to recovery is that consumers could buy it on line with the developing Web based sales, so there is little if anything groups angered by the coverage of stories can do to influence people who want to buy the paper.

dave3974: murdoch has a lot to answer for