A long time ago in America Teddy Roosevelt was jealous of both the British and French empires. He reasoned that America needed one too and set out to correct that imbalance. With the backing of a newspaper baron he agitated to usurp Spanish interests in the Caribbean and the Pacific and when an American battleship mysteriously exploded in Havana harbour that brought the start of the Spanish/American war.
America quickly gained control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and that jewel in the Spanish crown - the Philippines, but the American people declined to annex them as colonies, so the American government appointed dictators, declared themselves the " protectors " of these islands and ruled by proxy. That continued until the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in the second world war.
Democracy is all about " free speech " and that delivers enormous power to the owner of newspaper conglomerates. Just such a man holds a commanding position in this twenty-first century and Rupert Murdock can be said to be part of the reason that Australia has had seven prime ministers since the end of the John Howard era.
His extreme right wing view of life has encouraged individual politicians with a similar outlook to block many reforms. His various media interests are critical to encouraging public opinions and a similar pivotal role is being performed in America where Donald Trump unexpectedly won the presidency. This fog horn of right wing bias tends to drown out logic debate by independent media and guides the thinking of the masses.
The laws that separated ownership of television and the print media are being constantly relaxed. Newspaper circulation is rapidly diminishing in favour of this new phenomenon - Facebook - and as a consequence public opinion is now influenced by shadowy regimes that have the resources to fund contributing networks to keep fraudulent news stories alive in the public mind. These can - and do - influence the outcome of elections.
Australia has just had a leadership change and once again groupings are starting to coalesce which will make if difficult to secure many of the critical changes that have long awaited decisions and implementation to modernise the Australian economy. Some of those decisions will be unpopular - but necessary - and once again the parliamentary vote will be heavily influenced by an outside source that is answerable to no political party.
Commercial gain plays a big part in this machinations. Power delivers money and power itself is an aphrodisiac. Since the days of the " Dark Ages " the world has had a precarious balance between the forces of the " right " and the "left ". In the twentieth century the balance swung sharply left and we gained a shorter working week, holiday pay and the era of pensions that sustain the aged and incapacitated. That century was a balance of wars and immensely improved individual prosperity. The good times seemed destined to roll on forever.
We live now in uncertain times. Remuneration for the masses is stagnant while the big end of town prospers. China is emerging as the new superpower and the amount of CO2 in the air is fast reaching a critical level. The world population has passed seven billion and there are doubts about this planets ability to feed the numbers which will live here by mid century.
This situation is not promising. Few can feel certain that we will not be looking at new faces and another new government a few months from now. Even if the voters use the ballot box to install a different political party it will still be influenced by that persuasive fog horn of outside opinion that encourages factions to divide and stifle progress.
It seems doubtful we can survive and still maintain that " free speech " mandate unless some sort of volume control is imposed.
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