Tag: politics

• 

  LALA’S BOOKNOTES: Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the epic fight to control the last great media dynasty broke a family—and the world, by Gabriel Sherman

  ‘Bonfire of the Murdochs’ by Gabriel Sherman traces Rupert Murdoch’s ruthless creation of a $17 billion global media empire. It exposes a toxic “Darwinian” succession war pitting his children—Lachlan, James, Liz, and Prue—against each other. Ultimately, the patriarch destroyed his own family to secure his right-wing corporate legacy.

• 

  ELISABETH ‘LIZ’ MURDOCH: A comprehensive profile of ‘the exiled queen’

  Widely considered the sharpest Murdoch child, Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Murdoch’s ambitions were constantly thwarted by her father Rupert Murdoch’s old-fashioned primogeniture. She walked away to build her own successful production company, Shine, which Rupert later bought. Though she often played the family peacemaker, Liz ultimately joined the Nevada lawsuit to stop brother Lachlan’s uncontested takeover of…

• 

  JAMES MURDOCH: The Redemption of ‘the Rebel Heir’

  James Murdoch, the rebellious youngest son, initially started a hip-hop label before returning as a corporate modernizer. His dad Rupert ruthlessly used him as a human shield during the 2011 phone-hacking scandal. Appalled by Fox News’s right-wing extremism, James eventually resigned and led his sisters in a failed legal bid to steer the media empire…

• 

  RUPERT MURDOCH: The man who wanted everything

  Rupert Murdoch built a $17 billion global media colossus, only to destroy everything he loved in the process. Driven by childhood trauma, he approached business and family as a ruthless “Darwinian struggle”. Resembling a tragic King Midas, he engineered a devastating succession war that permanently fractured his family to protect his right-wing legacy.

• 

  How Jeffrey Epstein manipulated the elite: A deep dive

  Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t a master criminal who tricked the world; he was a mirror for the elite. This essay explores the ‘Cloud of Common Sense’ that hovered over his network, explaining why billionaires sought his ‘Amoral Space’ and how a system of ‘Concentric Circles of Enablement’ treated his victims as ‘Disposable People.’

• LALA’s BOOK NOTES: ‘CEO, China: The Rise of Xi Jinping’

  Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, relies on his personal narrative and emotional mobilization, rather than just wealth, to secure his true political power. He enforces absolute Party supremacy through ruthless anti-corruption campaigns, pursuing pragmatic economic modernization strictly without Western democratic values to achieve the “China Dream”

• LALA’s BOOK NOTES: ‘Liem Sioe Liong’s Salim Group: The Business Pillar of Suharto’s Indonesia’

  This biography explores how the Salim Group mastered Indonesia’s political economy under Suharto to build a massive conglomerate. When Suharto fell, the empire nearly collapsed. Offshore, Filipino banker Manny Pangilinan fiercely protected their Philippine assets, famously blocking a desperate sale of PLDT to rival tycoon John Gokongwei.

• Getting away with it

  I was driving home my friend at almost midnight when a taxi from the right lane swerved in front of me to make a left turn. As I instinctively pressed the brakes, I noticed that a motorcycle driver was speeding on the left lane and would most likely hit the swerving taxi. I held my…