OTTAWA — New Democratic Party MP Don Davies says it never occurred to him when he innocuously snapped a photo at an anti-racism march in Vancouver last month that he would suddenly become the latest target in an increasingly vicious Canadian political culture.
That single act would result in the Vancouver MP being described in the House of Commons, and in a news release from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, as a cheerleader for "anarchists and anti-capitalist mobs" and a defender of the rights of "violent foreign criminals, war criminals and bogus asylum claimants."
It was even argued by one of Kenney's colleagues that the photo shows that Davies and the NDP may be sympathetic to anti-Israel terrorists, human smugglers, violent anti-capitalism protesters, and anarchists who believe the Canadian state is an "illegitimate occupying power" on aboriginal territory that should be known as Turtle Island, not Canada...
{snippety doodle-dandy}
...While some say little has changed in the often-brutal history of Canadian politics, others suggest a new level of U.S.-style wedge politics is having a major impact on political discourse involving both MPs and "civil society" groups.
"It sounds like some of our toxic political strategies have moved north of the border," said David Mark, a Washington-based senior editor with Politico.com and author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning....
8 comments:
All of us need to stop and reflect on the importance of independent media, one dedicated to speaking truth to and about the politically powerful.
Postmedia and its predecessors have followed a strategy to serve vested interests instead of the common interest. That has been so evident that we are surprised when they do something honest, straightforward and ethical.
Yes, it's crazy and mixed up and guess what?
It's mixed up because there are now more of us than them. I just realized that we don't have to listen to the Harper Government anymore. It doesn't matter to Don Davies what they say. They've lost.
Let's now move forward, taking the people along with us but leaving their politicians behind. We're all in this together. Sounds good, yeah!
I gave up on reading NatPost ages ago. I never expected to worth reading to come out of them. It's strange but kudos to them. As Norm Farrell points out, we need real news and ethical journalism in this country and presumably papers need readers. "Build it and they will come".
Good points all.
And I agree to varying degrees.
But just looking at this from the nuts-and-bolts perspective about editors and reporters and columnists sitting/skyping around deciding what to cover and chase, it really does look to me like there has been a bit of sea change there at Postmedia.
Would be good to hear from somebody who knows about those nuts-and-bolts.
One thing I would like to know is, specifically....Who would have made the decision to greenlight the teaming up of the OCitizen's Mr. McGregor and the NaPo's Mr. Maher to go wild on robocalls...
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".Who would have made the decision to greenlight the teaming up of the OCitizen's Mr. McGregor and the NaPo's Mr. Maher to go wild on robocalls.."
Well, wouldn't that just be that evul Librul media that we are always hearing about.....The idea that a media dominated by the Criminal Rupert empire, Rusty Limpballs and the yellow press loss leader NaPoo started by Conrad of Crossdressing is anything other than Corporate and neo-con is so laughable my gut is hurting as I type!
Fair enough koot--
But ask yourself this...Would we have seen this, say, two years ago?
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Well, for quite a while Mike De Souza has been getting up the Harper government's nose on environment & science issue, getting access to briefing docs etc., and there are other good Postmedia reporters on science or the environment. I don't know how that has happened; maybe the people who hire reporters are different from the ones who hire pundits.
Excellent point about De Souza.
And I think reporters and pundits are apples and oranges. Heckfire, that is pretty obvious even at the NYT.
But I think there really has been a change in overall tone at PMedia. I've heard from someone in the trenches who does not disagree. Post coming...
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