Media moguls prove the importance of alternative media

Image in the June 23 issue of the Melbourne Age sums up the obscene wealth that Gina Rinehart now wields in her takeover bid for the Fairfax media empire.

Our persistent supporters who take Green Left Weekly out into the street week after week (yes, even on the chilliest of winter days) have come up with a few more smiles, nods and words of encouragement as, out there in the corporate media, the billionaire bosses have been mercilessly wielding the axe and whip.

Our growing team of new volunteers around the Green Left TV project have also been warmly congratulated and encouraged. More people now appreciate the importance of the alternative media.

In typical 21^st century corporate style the bad news that thousands of jobs in Fairfax and News Ltd will go over the next few years was delivered via a video messages posted on their media websites. This is calculated to send a wave of fear through their workforces: Which of us is going to have security tapping us on the shoulder and promptly escorting us out (also 21^st century corporate-style)?

The Gina Rineharts and Rupert Murdochs of the world are very conscious that they wield both an axe and a whip. Cutting jobs to “restructure, reinvent and transform” their media empires is just business to them at one level but they make damn sure that they exploit to the hilt all the potential to terrorise their workers in the process.

This is all the more important in the media business which – as Rinehart the latest media mogul demonstrates in her bid for control of Fairfax – is not just about making money. Her billions would multiply much faster being kept in digging minerals out of the ground and shipping them to China! It is about power.

And when Rinehart refused to sign the charter of editorial independence she underlined this.

As the richest person in Australia (and the second richest woman in the world) Rinehart has more money than us ordinary mortals cam comprehend. Take this as a comparison. While our supporters worked hard to raise $84,130 for the raised so far this year for the Green Left Weekly fighting fund, Gina Rinehart’s wealth increased at a rate of nearly $600 per second last year. Two million dollars per hour.

A Green Left Weekly buyer said to me in the street: “What does that money really mean? Can she really spend it? Is it really worth anything if other people like us don’t work for her.”

That sums up the real social position of these billionaires. They are like the slave owners of old. Their fabulous wealth is made and given value by the sweat of the slaves. But the slaves need to feel the whip to keep slaving and that is why the billionaires and their CEOs become specialists in inflicting terror on their wage slaves.

In the media industry such terror is also used to get journalists to present and sometimes invent the “news” in the way that their bosses. In the various media empires, the public broadcasters included, regular threats increasingly instil and internalise a culture among journalists of delivering what is demanded to keep the job

It is only through permanent struggle that alternative media projects like Green Left Weekly maintain their independence and viability. The voluntary efforts of many people, not least our regular readers and (with GLTV) our viewers, is critical to this.

As billionaires Rinehart and Murdoch strike fear in the hearts of many as they “restructure” the mainstream media, you can hit back by chipping in online to the Green Left Weekly fighting fund and do your bit in the battle to tell the truth.

Direct deposits can also be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).

Protests slam Philippines-Australia military pact

Anti-war and progressive groups in the Philippines have requested Australian solidarity against a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement between Australia and the Philippines currently before the Philippines Senate for ratification.  On June 6 there were two anti-war demos against this Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which is seen as part of a US-led military build up in the Asian region aimed at China.

The US used to operate massive military bases in the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship. But after he was toppled by peoples power uprisings, these agreements were revoked. However, subsequent Filipino governments have used VFAs to effectively re-base siginificant US military forces in the Philippines, particularly in and around the southern island of Mindanao where insurgent  (left and Moro national liberation) groups report that US special forces and even drones have been used against them.

Filipino anti-war activists are concerned that a VFA with Australia will be used to help further repress liberation movements. Article 5, para. 1 of the Philippines-Australia VFA provides that the “Visiting Forces” may temporarily use such defined land and sea areas, air space or facilities, of the Receiving State mutually determined by the Parties, for “combined training, exercises, or other activities mutually approved by the Parties.”

According to the Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), each year Australia spends $4.0-4.5 million on “bilateral military cooperation”. These include “high level policy talks,  training of approximately 130 Philippine defence personnel in Australia, and visits by senior officials”.

The military relationship, says DFAT, is “focussed on counter terrorism, maritime security and assistance to the Philippines Defence Reform Program”.

During former Philippines President Gloria Arroyo’s visit to Australia in May 2007, a bilateral Status of Visiting Forces Agreement was signed, and this pact is now being considered for ratification by the Philippine Senate.

“About 50% of the US war fleet is in the Asian region (it is projected to rise to 60% by 2020)  and the anti-war movement here sees Australia as the major military partner of US imperialism in the region,” Reihana Mohideen from the Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses – PLM) told Green Left Weekly after the protests.

“The VFA with the US was signed in 1998 and it has allowed a permanent presence of US military forces in the Philippines without having permanent bases in the Philippines like there used to be under the Marcos dictatorship in Subic and Clark. It has allowed a permanent US military presence especially in the south, in Mindanao, under the guise of ongoing military exercises.

” We know they have participated with intelligence personnel in on-the-ground operations against Moro liberation movement. We have had reports, recently, of drone attacks very similar to those being carrioed out by the US in Pakistan. This is a stepping up of covert and overt military intervention in the Philippines.

“Another aspect is the question of who has legal jurisdiction over these ‘visiting’ military forces. And it has been found that the Philippines has no juridiction.

“There was a case of the rape of a young woman by a US soldier a few years ago where the US asserted its legal jurisdiction over the offender.

“In the light of this experience we now have a similar agreement that has been signed with the Australian government. It is only now that this agreement has come before the Senate that the movement has been made aware of its existence.”

Australia, added Mohideen, is the “number one military ally of US imperialism in the region” which had its own direct interests such as mining.

“Australian mining companies are ravaging Indigenous communities in Mindanao and in central Philippines. This is a real concern.

“The Senate is now deliberating the ratification bill. It has been delayed because six Senators oppose it. If eight Senators oppose it this will block the bill when it is reconsidered in July. So we are calling for urgent solidarity from the movement in Australia in our struggle to block this military agreement which is going to be detrimental to the people of the Philippines.”

Tax dodgers and bloody hypocrites

IMF boss Christine Lagarde.

How outrageous is this story?

Just days after International Monetary Fund boss Christine Lagarde lectured Greek people to pay their taxes or not expect any sympathy from the rest of the world, it was revealed by the British Guardian that her salary of US$467,940 a year plus US$83,760 in  additional allowances is tax-free. What a bloody hypocrite.

Like top United Nations officials and the Queen of England, the IMF chief enjoys tax-free status.

Queen Elizabeth of England (once judged the world’s richest woman – that crown is now being held by Gina Rinehart) agreed to voluntarily pay some income and capital gains tax for the first time ever in 1992 but only did this as a PR stunt to arrest her declining popularity with her subjects.

The rich in every country have the means to minimise the taxes they pay. The late Australian media mogul Kerry Packer was infamous for telling a Parliamentary inquiry in 1991:

“Now of course I am minimizing my tax and if anybody in this country doesn’t minimize their tax they want their heads read because as a government I can tell you you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.”

That’s an attitude chronically embedded in corporate culture.

Last year, the Australian Financial Review reported that billionaire mining tycoon Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest “has never signed a corporate income tax cheque for any of the listed companies he has run in the past 16 years”.

BHP paid just  $6.4 billion in income tax on $67.9 billion in revenue — just 9.4% — in the financial year to June 2011. Other big companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google paid a fraction of the 24% of gross profits paid by the 925 biggest companies in Australia while small businesses paid an average of 40%. Most workers in Australia pay a overall tax rate of between 26-34% on their incomes before paying more in indirect taxes like GST.

To say the least it is more than a bit rich for rich people with tax-free status or well-paid tax avoidance lawyers and accountants to lecture Greeks about paying tax bit is true that one contributing factor to the Greek sovereign debt is, as Stathis Kouvelakis explained in his article “The Greek Cauldron” in New Left Review, is that not only did the rich pay little tax (if any) but that a series of conservative governments since the 1950s had offered exemption from taxes and special access to public-sector jobs to a privileged client base of small business operators and professionals.

The IMF and other banks just want to get things back to what they consider “normal” for capitalism: where the richer get richer and avoid taxes while the rest work harder and pay higher taxes!

Well it may be “normal” in their eyes, but we in Green Left Weekly call it a crime.  Tax the rich or better still get rid of the rich altogether and build a new  society based on shared and renewable resources.

If you agree with us please support our people-powered independent media project by making a generous online donation to our fighting fund today.

Direct deposits can also be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).