Thread by @jeffjarvis

I've just read former Australian PM @MrKRudd's barn-burning book, "The Case for Courage," a grand polemic against Rupert Murdoch, "the cancer on our democracy that is the Murdoch media monopoly." A few key quotes in a 🔥🧵:

"Murdoch manipulates our democracy in multiple, sometimes crude and occasionally subtle ways.... In Australian politics, Murdoch's power is near-complete.... We are beginning to see the radical Americanization of Australian politics." - @MrKRudd

"Murdoch works overtime in cultivating a climate of national anxiety, fear & anger.... They overwhelm our natural sense of optimism, enterprise & generosity of spirit, transforming us instead into a frightened & fractured people--a nation of us versus them & fuck everybody else."

"There are those among us, however, whose mission is not to solve these problems but to manipulate them, exacerbating fear, anxiety & uncertainty for a much narrower set of political purposes. These are the professional fearmongers of our age..." - @MrKRudd

"Their mission is simple: to so paralyze the people w/fear that it induces a psychological reaction on the part of the voting public that causes them to cling to conservative politics, under the illusion that, by doing so, certainty can somehow magically be restored." - @MrKRudd

"Taking on Murdoch is hard. People are frightened of his empire because of the damage he can do to a person's or an institution's reputation. Murdoch and his editors behave like swaggering bullies, threatening anybody who stands up to them." - @MrKRudd

"It's time--in fact, it's well past time--that we stand up against the bullyboys who run the Murdoch empire, and against the Murdochs themselves. For once a bully is finally confronted, we often find that their much-vaunted and much-feared power begins to crumble." - @MrKRudd

"Whether we like it or not, we are in a war against Murdoch. And the sooner we realise this the better.... Increasingly it feels like being controlled by a local variant of the Sicilian mafia... Acting against Murdoch takes courage. Real courage." - @MrKRudd

"To take on Murdoch in a full-blooded assault will take courage. But there is no alternative. Not just for progressive politics, but for the future of the democratic project itself. Otherwise, we permanently surrender power to an unelected syndicate." - @MrKRudd

"News Corp can no longer be treated seriously as a media company. It is in effect a political party in active pursuit of its own far-right ideology and the active defence of its business interests." - @MrKRudd

"The cancer Murdoch represents at the heart of our political system is about to metastasise. Unless we act." Amen, @MrKRudd, amen.

In the United States, journalism itself must recognize the cancer within. Apart from @brianstelter, too few in media cover this vital story. And elsewhere, too many media companies ally with Murdoch against the net. We need an honest self-examination of the corruption within.