Murdoch gets Wall Street Journal

According to the Boston Globe, the Bancroft family has accepted Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation’s bid for the Wall Street Journal.

The takeover had been controversial even among many in the political left, who saw the Journal as a rare source of factual reporting. Those on the left, who oppose this deal and believe that the “facts” reported in the Journal more often support their views, have failed to answer how it is that the Journal could report facts objectively yet continue to be a cheerleader for capitalism and the conservative cause.

What I think is really going on here is that many on the left are as deeply invested in capitalism as anyone on the right. Just as Professor Robert Terrell (my favorite professor) denounces the ruling class for war crimes and thievery, yet favors the indistinguishable-from-Republican Democrats despite their collaboration in imperialism and capitalism for only one coherent reason: he wants to protect his IRA.

To the extent that the status quo is built on propaganda, Murdoch’s purchase of the Journal can only widen the discrepancy between reality and the illusions by which this society is governed, and thus hasten its collapse. I therefore welcome the acquisition, in the spirit of Vladimir Lenin, who argued that “a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.” Authoritarian communism might not have worked out in the Soviet Union, but that does not mean that capitalist republicanism is the only alternative.

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