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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Murdoch and Pellicano scandals II"

19 Comments -

1 – 19 of 19
Anonymous Anonymous said...

But here's the difference. The Pellicano thing was sordid but it was an in-house affair involving people IN the business. There were villains and victims, but, as the Corleones might say, it was 'business'.
Newscorp employees, on the other hand, hacked into the emails and other data of 'civilians'. It wasn't a dirty game between players but a dirty trick played by a powerful organization on hapless citizens.
If a Hollywood moguls wiretaps another Hollywood mogul or movie star, it's illegal and there's gonna be trouble. But if a Hollywood mogul tapped Sailer or any civilian's email or whatever, it would be far more grave.

True, there is double standards. We saw it with Enron and Wall Street. Enron guys got jail time, Wall Steet guys did not. If Wall Street were run by Arab-Americans, Mormon-Americans, or Japanese-Americans, media would have called for blood and government would have acted. But Wall Street is run by the same kind of people who run media and government. and so...

And we still hear of Emmitt Till but who hears of nyugen hoang.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_knockout_game_racial_violence_and_the_conspicuous_silence_of_the_media.html

Blacks can have a black agenda conference but whites cannot even book a hotel for a white agenda conference.

'Who, Whom' matters. Even so, two wrongs don't make a right, and what newscorp did was rotten.

7/16/11, 2:05 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anthony Wiener did get in trouble though.
And Blago, like Ryan before him, is in hot water.
I guess the rule is "it's okay to play the game but don't be TOO greedy".

7/16/11, 2:07 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think I kinda get it. Federal or local prosecution of corruption and crookedness is not really about ridding but about saving government/business of corruption.

It's like this. Suppose there are 10 respectable rich guys, each one with a mistress. But they keep it, wink wink, discreet. Even the wives may know about it, but appearances are kept up. This way, the funning-around is well-managed and kept under wraps. But suppose one of the guys starts whoring around with lots of girls and calls attention to his behavior. All of a sudden, the evils of 'womanizing' becomes a BIG ISSUE, and it threatens even the discreet womanizing of the rest of the guys. So, the other guys gang up on the 'overly greedy or horny' guy, censure him, and kick him out of the club.
So, it could be the Illinois politicians and liberals weren't as offended or bothered by Blago's corruption as by the sheer-ballocity or ballsiness of it. Daley ran a corrupt system too but he kept things under the radar and made it seem respectable. And when revelations of corruption came up, he made the right speeches, fired the right people, etc.
We see this in gangster movies too. In GOODFELLAS and CASINO, the bosses finally decide to get rid of Joe Pesci. Not because the gang bosses are offended by Pesci's criminality. They are all crooks too, after all. But Pesci is so out of control that he brings unnecessary attention to the whole 'semi-legit' operation of organized crime. It could be feds went after Blago cuz his erratic and out-of-control crookedness began to threaten the smooth-and-under-the-radar crookedness of the Democratic Party embodied by the likes of Daley, Emanuel, and Obama. It's like you can skim off some of the profits but don't take so much that EVERYONE begins to notice. I guess Blago was too ambitious and got tired of playing the game. He wanted to rise faster and to the top, and he stepped on too many feet and feelings. If he weren't stopped then, he might have led the entire Democratic gangster machine over the cliff with him. He didn't know when to stop or when to shut up.

CASINO JACK had a similar message. It says Abramoff was no worse than others. He was more greedy to be sure, but his blatant greed was, in some ways, a sign of his honesty. He understood politics and lobbying as cash cows and milked them for all they were worth. In contast, career politicians and businessmen play the same dirty game but more discreetly to remain 'respectable' in the eyes of the world. In some ways, they are the bigger phonies.

It's like a nouveau riche pig may be embarrassing in a "I'm a wild and crazy guy" sort of way, but he's more honest about his greed than casual-hip-boho riche people who'll do anything for a buck but act like, gee whiz, money really doesn't matter to them.

Anyway, Newscorp got 'too greedy' this time. Other media guys hate Newscorp for many reasons, but one reason could be Newscorp's over-greediness might ruin it for everyone because--let's face it--all news organization play loose with the rules to get their scoops.

7/16/11, 2:33 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's like 'I take bribes, you take bribes, it's okay for all of us to take bribes... but don't be a dumbass and stuff $200,000 inside your refrigerator'.
Go after stupid(embarrassing and attention grabbing)corruption to preserve smart(respectable and legitimate)corruption.

7/16/11, 2:38 PM

Anonymous RKU said...

One interesting detail that came out about the "Murdoch Scandal" is that the Murdoch people were apparently hacking the phones of and subsequently blackmailing some of the top police officials of Scotland Yard. Supposedly, that's the reason those police officials helped whitewash and derail the original investigation of the phone-hacking scandal when it first came up a few years ago. Apparently, they were also hacking the phones of some of the top elected officials as well, which apparently helped keep them obedient.

Now if ordinary newspapermen seeking scandalous gossip about media celebs in order to increase circulation are able to so easily blackmail the top police officials in Britain, it makes me wonder what other groups might be blackmailing top security and political officials in Britain, for considerably more nefarious reasons. And the same for America as well.

7/16/11, 2:42 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

But here's the difference. The Pellicano thing was sordid but it was an in-house affair involving people IN the business. There were villains and victims, but, as the Corleones might say, it was 'business'.
Newscorp employees, on the other hand, hacked into the emails and other data of 'civilians'.



Oh, stop it. The victims in the Pellicano scandal were "civilians".

And "Newscorp employees" is disingenuous. You could just as easy describe Pellicano as a "Paramount Pictures employee". It would be equally stupid.

7/16/11, 2:58 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

True, there is double standards.

And true, you're cool with that, since those double standards work to your advantage and our disadvantage.

Which is fair enough, in a certain cynical sense. But it leaves you in a weak position to wag your smugly moralizing finger at others.

7/16/11, 3:01 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

One interesting detail that came out about the "Murdoch Scandal" is that the Murdoch people were apparently hacking the phones of and subsequently blackmailing some of the top police officials of Scotland Yard.

The Murdoch people!

Do you get these talking points direct from The Nation? The people in question were "Murdoch people" in what sense? exactly? In the sense of being hired by some people way down the ladder at a paper owned at some remove by News Corp?

7/16/11, 3:05 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can recall CBS News pushing blatant forgeries in an attempt to bring down an American president.

For some reason the FBI were nowhere to be seen on that one. Neither was the FCC or any other media watchdog. And nobody suggested that CBS ought to lose their broadcast license over the affair.

Who/whom, indeed.

7/16/11, 3:43 PM

Anonymous Fred said...

Janene Garafalo had guest roles on both Seinfeld and the Larry Sanders Show.

7/16/11, 5:15 PM

Anonymous Auntie Analogue said...

No one cares about the Pellicano affair because we no longer live in history, because we - and more and more so our young and their progeny - instead live perpetual adolescence in the everlasting Now.

The terrible prison of the Everlasting Now is, of course, the crucial consequence of media pervasion that Marshall McCluhan seems to have missed. In fact the Everlasting Now is what McCluhan's "global village" really always was, and ever shall remain.


What media portray manipulatively as "scandals" are really low production cost 'panis et circences' with which to divert the perpetually adolescent populace from what's really going on, which is the systematic reduction of US citizens to nothing more than membership in the global cheap labor pool.

7/16/11, 6:00 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tabloid newspaper hacks phones. Yawn.

Mossad took control of the USA's telephone system computer code in the 90's through two front companies - and after the infamous Fox news expose by Carl Cameron the entire story was flushed down the memory hole.

Our phones are permanently tapped and this is one reason your favorite politician talks a good game but then votes like a terrified puppet.

Btw thanks Steve for never bringing this issue up. It's because it's another silly conspiracy, right?

7/16/11, 7:30 PM

Blogger Jeff said...

There are lots of similarities between The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

IMHO, The Larry Sanders Show is much better than Curb, yet never really seemed to get the recognition it deserved (I guess it was the early days of HBO, when no one really cared about it).

7/16/11, 8:37 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

So you're saying journalists are always paying police for information, I did not know that.

7/16/11, 10:09 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sanders was hit or miss. Seinfeld had a much longer run and was consistently funny. No comparison IMO.

Dan in DC

7/16/11, 10:53 PM

Anonymous All in the Nielsen Family said...

Larry Sanders was well appreciated in its day, but that was back when HBO occupied a less rarefied cultural perch. You had some other diverting shows like "Dream On" and "Oz" but then "The Sopranos" came along, simultaneous w/ the combination of broadband and SWPL micromarketing creating the new, status-conscious Appointment TV.

Not being a subscriber I rarely got to see it during the first run, but a decade afterward I was surprised to see how it's held up (contrasting with "Arliss" or the later gay mortician show). There was really no equivalent Elaine character, but Penny Johnson was great as Shandling's assistant.

7/17/11, 6:45 PM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

I don't know anybody involved, I just watched a lot of The Larry Sanders Show.

7/17/11, 10:26 PM

Blogger tillkremlinerrs said...

Here I think is the proper analogy:

NewsCorp/Rubert/James = Egypt/Mubarak/Gamal

7/18/11, 5:56 AM

Anonymous Fred said...

Steve,

Sunday's Curb Your Enthusiasm had classic farce plotting. If a friend of yours has it DVRed, you should bring over a jar of wine/applesauce and ask to see it.

7/19/11, 11:28 PM

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