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The billionaire CEO of the multibillion-dollar corporation that recently purchased the news media outlet Politico has said that its newly acquired employees will be required to support Israel and the capitalist world order.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the German publisher Axel Springer, said that Politico staffers will be required to adhere to a set of principles which include “support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy, among others.”
“These values are like a constitution, they apply to every employee of our company,” Mr. Döpfner told WSJ. People with a fundamental problem with any of these principles “should not work for Axel Springer, very clearly,” he said.
I mean, how refreshing is that? How often does a billionaire corporation buy up a media property and just straightforwardly tell you they’re going to be using it to push propaganda? They even say what the propaganda will be. It makes you feel like your intelligence is being respected.
German publisher Axel Springer, Politico's new owner, said support for Israel, for a united Europe and a free-market economy 'are like a constitution, they apply to every employee of our company.' Those who disagreed 'should not work for Axel Springer' https://t.co/WInT6lGvdk
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) October 17, 2021
Supporting global capitalism and defending the Israeli apartheid regime are both very standard positions promoted by all billionaire media outlets in the western world; they just aren’t normally honest enough to tell you that. Normally they pretend to be an objective free press reporting truthfully about what’s going on in the world; their executives do not customarily come forward to explain the specific establishment biases its reporters will need to promote if they don’t want to be fired. That sort of thing normally happens a lot more subtly.
Can you imagine if Jeff Bezos had purchased the Washington Post in 2013 and been open about the fact that billionaires need to buy up narrative control to protect the status quo upon which their sprawling kingdoms are built? If he’d just come right out and announced ahead of time all the ugly plutocratic propaganda his outlet would be promoting on his behalf? I think that would have been far better than the feigned objectivity we normally get from these people.
Döpfner is reportedly worth over a billion dollars, and Axel Springer is worth an estimated $6.8 billion. He is married to the daughter of a former management board member of Deutsche Bank. So propagandizing the public in favor of “a free-market economy” as opposed to a centrally planned economy or an economy built to benefit the needful and the environment is a no brainer.
Döpfner has called himself a non-Jewish Zionist, and has long called support for Israel “a German duty.” While I am sure there are better ways for Germany to atone for its past than to back a racist apartheid ethnostate which imprisons a persecuted ethnic and religious demographic in an open air concentration camp to the geostrategic advantage of today’s genocidal imperialist western power based in Washington DC, the transparency is refreshing to hear from someone who will be manipulating public thought on such matters going forward.
[Thread] The Washington Post presents itself as an adversarial newspaper.
But it consistently defends the interests of the wealthy and powerful (including its owner Jeff Bezos).
My new @MintPressNews piece:https://t.co/5pEttPREcQ
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) June 18, 2021
And I just think that’s wonderful. If the Germans can spread some of their world-renowned frankness throughout the operation of mass-scale plutocratic propaganda, we’ll all be better off for it.
As soon as someone rises to a certain level of wealth, they very often begin buying up narrative control in the form of media outlets, conveniently placed advertising in news media, PR firms, online platforms, funding for think tanks and NGOs, “philanthropy“, and other ways of manipulating how people think at mass scale. This is because if people weren’t trained how to think about things, they would never consent to allowing so much of the world’s wealth and power to go toward so very few people who are so consistently ill-suited to rule the world for the benefit of everyone.
Plutocrats who fail to manufacture the consent of their subjects have historically wound up with their heads in baskets. That’s why they work so hard to manipulate the way the public thinks, acts and votes, and that’s why our society is as messed up as it is.
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36 responses to “Refreshingly Honest Billionaire Says Media Purchase Will Be Used For Propaganda”
fake news.
stop discrediting yourself , lose the NTY from your repertoire and lexicon
“While I am sure there are better ways for Germany to atone for its past than to back a racist apartheid ethnostate which imprisons a persecuted ethnic and religious demographic in an open air concentration camp”
Are you writing about China?
What’s wrong with promoting the values that brought peace and prosperity to Europe?
What’s wrong with support of the state that finally, after two millennia, is there to allow for perpetually prosecuted people to get together and defend their rights to life, liberties and freedom from prosecution?
What is wrong with with promotion of the only economic system that allows everyone freely participate in exchange of goods and services for betterment of everyone?
What’s wrong? The answer is obvious – the socialists (national or international) don’t like when someone expresses the ideas they hate. Especially if this someone can actually afford to express these ideas publicly.
Calling Israel an apartheid state is so intellectually dishonest. Why is anti semitism not bigoted prejudice? BTW WaPo and NYT and many others constantly show their colors in supporting everything Leftism espouses and treats their tenets as gospel to be preached incessantly and interjected into most “news” articles. Too bad for you if one owner decides to NOT except a culture of a Leftist rag. Deal with it like everyone else has to deal with the cult madness of Leftism.
great piece 🙂
I would use the term corporatism or something else, not capitalism. Even crapitalism is probably better. What country was ever capitalism for more than a few decades before morphing into corporatism like Americastan or something else?
You’re a sad, unfunny clown like your Dearest Leader Xho Xiden, ChiCom puppet. Rather than worry about what “capitalism” does or doesn’t morph into, ask yourself, “WHY hasn’t the socialist horseshi’ite I dream of and long for NEVER worked in ANY country it has been tried (47 countries to date, “genius”).
Quit being a lazy, whiny, demanding, walking alimentary canal commie, get a job, take responsibility for your useless basement dwelling incel life.
Propaganda is merely telling that part of the truth which the teller wants to tell. If the telling can be held together intelligently, interestingly, and convincingly without obvious compromise, it will be good reading. Who would be against this? I’m anxious for this changed publication to begin
here, here! as always.
the status quo is a dead rat. only the flies survive. tiny blood suckers spreading shit.
and pieces of dead bodies.
that’s why my god is shit.
because mierda makes soil and soil makes plants and
plants feed me and the creatures i eat.
make sure we NEVER forget what Kissinger said, “Who contorls the food controls the people.” now on cue ll the rich guys are buying up soil and harding it. Bill Gates is the owner of the largest plantation ever known. and it is entirely fallow. Huhmmm….control much? Shelter is another one of their major toys: E.g., Blackrock owns 45,000 homes in California….mostly empty. If this leak of info is representative of more Wall St hedge funds operations, then they will reduce supply and jack up rents, sales prices et al and maybe NEVER SELL or Rent as they could recapture their down payment by refying and pulling out cash from equity (the gain in value) which would then be untaxable as all billionaires have dumped their incomes for borrowing to avoid income taxes.
they have two safety valves: one is inflation. what do they care. their fake squeals are only to keep the poor downtrodden. and two, they already own whatever they need.
besides Nathan Rothschild–anyone heard of them?–while Echeuer of UK said, “I’m not afraid of labor. Whoever controls the currency controls the Government, and I control the currency.”
Gould said, “Labor unions!? Huh! I got enough money to pay half the poor to kill the other half.”
of course this is only the UK and US; no reason for Australia to follow along.
At Axel Springer, Politico’s New Owner, Allegations of Sex, Lies and a Secret Payment https://nyti.ms/3aJCXEj
NYT =New York slimes = fake news extraordinaire
God knows we had serious problems in our societies and our media during the first half of my life (I’m now in my mid 70s). But something happened, quickly and drastically, in or around the 1990s. The upshot of what happened (exactly what happened, no one, I suspect, yet fully understands) was a sea-change, a polar reversal in our values. I’ll cite but one trivial example. When I was in college, it was not cool to be rich. It was so uncool that some students buried new blue jeans in the sand to make them acceptable to wear on campus. We made fun of the rich, at how they wasted their lives chasing money, and our burning desire (not for all, but for many, perhaps most) was to make an impact on the world, a good impact which would make the world a better place. Then seemingly overnight, out of nowhere (or so it seems as I look hazily back) being rich became really cool, making money and enjoying the “toys” it could buy became our raison d’etre. Until we figure out what caused this sea-change, this sudden and complete inversion of values, we won’t be able to reverse it, even to imagine how to reverse it.
The answer in a nutshell is, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, who destroyed the working classes in the name of productivity and efficiency. Less than ten years after they took office, it was cool to be rich and the plutocrats were in charge.
No, Pasha, that’s been noted a million times but has no explanatory power concerning the sudden sea-change in public values, OUR values. Please remember that Reagan had to posture as a kind of cowboy everyman, not as a rich movie star, to gain office. Trump’s wealth, to the contrary, was one his biggest selling points. THAT, the thing that happened TO US in between, is what we must try to explain.
In the USA, it was the end of the draft and the beginning of the “all volunteer military” the rich no longer had to fight – and could quit pretending to give a damn.
You mean like the show Lives Of The Rich And Famous? Rap pushing the thug life, drugs, hoes, cars, cribs and money? Economists in the eighties telling corporations to look out for the stockholders instead of their employees?
The plan is to replace journalists with AI anyway. Not that it will change a lot because in the internet era, most of them have spent their time copy-pasting press releases (from the CIA, government, industry…) and have looked askance at the very few who tried to check what they were told or asked questions that might make the man uncomfortable – or even angry.
Worldwide media has reached such an obvious point of saturated/coordinated propaganda that those behind certain curtains no longer need to hide. Now, they can come forward and blatantly ram through our faces what they are doing – because the chance of any repercussions ended decades ago. Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials: “Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” https://seaclearly.com/2020/11/21/the-times-they-are-a-changin
Yeah, I support a free market economy also, which is definitely not what we have, we have a managed monopoly just like what the communists had, for them corruption was the only avenue for power, ditto the current USA. different premise, same end,
liberal talking points are cynically mouthed by psychopaths who feel no embarrassment when they call the horrible monopolist corporate oppression we are forced to endure a “free market” What they mean is tyrants are free to abuse you in the market so that no one but insiders makes any headway.
These billionaires represent none of those things they insist employees attribute to them, they probably sell weapons to Israel in the open and to their adversaries in secret, double tapping on profit.
Conflict is good for business, lies better than the truth.
Some good news that will upset the purveyors of propaganda:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/10/china-and-japan-show-signs-of-a-closer-relationship/
I just need to make a bridge. If you don’t know what this is about just read the room and play along. Jerusalem is Moscow.
In Germany news are basically controlled by two women Friede Springer (79) and Liz Mohn (80), both widows of the men that funded the empires they inherited. Fired Springer is the matriarch behind Axel Springer and Doepfner is basically just a generic CEO who will pretend to control the company. Liz Mohn is in control of Bertelsmann (although oficially she withdrew this year).
Among those two they control almost 90% of german newspapers and magazines, as well as most private tv stations.
Both are conservative, pretty much german Rupert Murdochs and no law is passed without their consent.
Thanks for that Christoph.
Vultures of a feather flock together.
(Apologies to the avian species).
Apparently, Doepfner controls Springer’s shares.
At Axel Springer, Politico’s New Owner, Allegations of Sex, Lies and a Secret Payment https://nyti.ms/3aJCXEj
fake news.
stop discrediting yourself , lose the NTY from your repertoire and lexicon
Caitlin, I admire your work immensely, but want to tell you that the Palestinians are a money-grubbing welfare state…with many wealthy Palestinians enjoying a very nice lifestyle along the Mediterranean beaches…the reason they get so much dosh from the Arab nations is because THE ARABS DO NOT WANT THEM IN THEIR COUNTRY. Maybe you know that they tried to take over Jordan when that country let many Palestinian refugees in? A good friend of mine, an Egyptian, Muslim lawyer, laid it all out for me. None of the ME states trust them at all. And what kind of people encourage their kids to “sacrifice” themselves daily on the altar of Yasser Arafat’s insistence on no compromise, no recognition of Israel as a nation- state? Furthermore, there never was a functioning Palestinian state before the creation of Israel. ( I’m NOT happy with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and very displeased with the Israeli settlers’ constant land grabs).The Palestinians have learned to play the “victim” card very well, and provoke the Israelis’ to attack them on a daily basis, giving the media plenty of newsreel to keep the grievances going. I used to automatically support the underdog, but taking a closer look, sometimes the overdog deserves respect!
Nobody likes a good joke more than I do and this one is definitely first class! Here’s another one in the same vein: in apartheid South Africa, in the early 90s, a white guy is tried for running over a black kid and killing him.
The judge says to him: “And at what speed was this kid walking when he threw himself under the wheels of your car?”
“Palestinians are a money-grubbing welfare state”
Totally unlike the media oligarchs… like Bezos, for example, that uses various forms of welfare to avoid taxes on his properties and in supporting his workforce.
hallelujah contact with an alternate reality
The U.S. government at one time tried to apply some rules to the press, but those days are long gone. The Fairness Doctrine, which was discarded by the Reagan administration, required some minimal standards of balance. The broadcast media requires a license to operate, I believe, where they need to demonstrate their worthiness to use the public airwaves. In practice this systems shuts out independent voices. In the 1990’s microradio appeared on the U.S. scene for a while. These were inexpensive radio operations that were low-powered enough not to require a license, usually operated by one person, like a blog. I think the FCC created some rules that shut them down.
Checking into things Politico had a right leaning slant but Politico was sending mixed messages in recent years. The new owner wants to let the loyal base know the faux red rag is under control.
A billion dollars for a eight letter red colored brand with a puff of infrastructure. Makes one wonder how much is Catlin’s brand worth. Or mine. https://chasingthesquirrel.com/ ???
Life is strange indeed. If Politico is worth a Billion Caitlin is certainly worth a Million.
That Dopfner dude obviously didn’t attend the Right schools.
Then again, perhaps he’s just using reverse psychology or ignoring the advice of his PR machine.
Let’s face it though, when you’re worth billions of dollars, you can say or do anything you fucking like.
It’s not that nice or refreshing. I noticed in the Bush regime that when propaganda is so well cemented that the next step of control is to flat out say what they’re doing. That’s the last step of stabilizing propaganda.
I’ve long believed the US two party system are the two legs of progression of the forward march of the oligarchs. The difference of Democrat and Republican is covert vs overt. The Republicans flat out say what they’re doing while the Democrats hide and beat around the bush but do the same things. Sometimes they have to ease up and go a little slower then we get an Obama type administration that the front pretends to be progressive, then when stable we get a Trump. The more outrageous they can be the faster they can advance their agenda. A Republican swing is the test of how stable their (oligarch) level of control is.
Nah, it’s not EXACTLY like Sunday Morning in Shaun Of The Dead, when dead eyed hungry zombies have already taken over? Sneering, “nothing would fundamentally change,” is not exactly new material for our slavering, senile kleptocrats. They’ve no longer any reason to spew obvious prevarication, obfuscatory BS or blatant lies; it’s not like any of us can DO anything about it? Those at the bottom hear these lies in their nightmares. Those, capable of believing or buying into media’s casual lies were BORN spouting specious bullshit & now have to believe harder & harder or Tinkerbell will pull up the ladder and fly off without them.
Regarding Nice or Refreshing, did you miss that Caitlin was expressing a favourite literary device popular in her own country. ie: “Tongue In Cheek”
Yes, I love everything Caitlin has to say! I was contributing my idea of the reason why.