Drive-ByMediaVille
Maclean's has a long-form piece up about our fine Premier.
It was published online yesterday under Nancy Macdonald's byline and it clearly serves to pre-pump the Resurrection of the Sparkle Ponies that will be put in motion in the B.C. legislature tomorrow.
Why the need for the pre-pumping?
Well, that way the glorious story of the resurrection can then be puked-up, pre-packaged and pablum-filled, on the national media cycle soundbite stage starting Monday night.
As such, the Maclean's bit must be seen to be 'balanced' using as many faux torpedoes of shillophancy as possible.
And one of the biggest blasts of fauxianism in the piece is the following:
"...(I)n 2004, (then premier Gordon) Campbell shunted his deputy (premier, Ms. Clark) to the children and families’ ministry, known for swallowing careers in foster-care scandals and child death tragedies, a curious demotion for his most able minister. Clark’s thrive-on-challenge bravura couldn’t offset talk of a rift—a pre-emptive move to clip the wings of a potential rival. Nine months later Clark announced her resignation, to spend more time with Hamish, then 3, she said..."
Did you catch that bit of double-edged propagammon?
Because, as anyone who was paying attention at the time knows, there was, indeed, wee bit of subtext to Ms. Clark's sudden resignation from provincial politics in that Railgate-tinged year of 2004.
And Macleans' Ms. Macdonald suggests (wink-wink, nudge-nudge), that it it might have had something to do with a shunting of Ms. Clark off to PoMo that began when the Knotty Gordian flipped her out of the disaster she made of the Education ministry into the MCFD.
Of course, what Ms. Macdonald does not mention is any connection whatsoever, either personal or familial, with a very fine fellow named Spiderman and/or the Boyz that were involved in Railgate.
In fact, nothing whatsoever is mentioned about the Boyz at all.
Including the pre-Railgate work that one of them did for Ms. Clark's former husband who had become, as Ms. Macdonald of Maclean's succinctly puts it...
... a legendary Liberal organizer...
And then, as the piece winds down, Ms. Macdonald completely ignores the fact that Ms. Clark is the front for a pay-to-play operation that was most recently bought-and-paid-for by a certain subset of the purveyors of all those Sparkle Ponies who will give a most supportive analysis of the resurrection on tomorrow evening's national news.
Meanwhile, as for the (not so) gaudy job numbers that will the thrown around on those same national news broadcasts?
Well.
None of them....
As in, not one single one of them...
Is guaranteed to go to a Canadian, let alone a British Columbian.
OK?
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Ms. McDonald's piece is actually filled to bursting with those damnable faux torpedoes that appear to be fueled by press release reflexology and/or 'deep' background...One of the ones I found to be most egregious was the cursory description of a recently announced program that will facilitate the training single welfare Moms for certain types of 'in demand' photo-op operable jobs to show how 'progressive' Ms. Clark's government is...Nothing whatsoever, of course, about how truly anti-progressive a government is that keeps funding the boondoggle-driven bridge-building bund with the people's billions while it makes the elderly pay for their own wheelchairs, won't pay for 'extra' Christmas gifts for our most vulnerable kids, and throws the adult disabled out into the street....And don't even get me started on the payout of hundreds of million dollars per year to private schools while the public system is being simultaneously strangled...Sheesh.
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12 comments:
I'l be watching this week to see if the NDP can actually bring their A game and call bullshit on a host of issues. More than 300 million per year to private schools, what crap!
Ms. Macdonald must have shin splints from tiptoeing through the cow pies in the field from which she gathered her offerings. But one paragraph in particular sums up her reluctance to provide an accurate assessment about her friend.
“She would run the province the way Jim and Mavis had raised her, she promised: never overspending, always living within her means. She described her modest, childhood home near the Oakalla prison in suburban Burnaby, the family’s blue Dodge Rambler. Her dad, she noted, had not only made sure his debts were cleared and the house was mortgage-free before he died; he’d even pre-paid his funeral expenses. She’d govern the same way. By reaping LNG’s riches, she said, B.C. could leave future generations better off. That narrative clinched her an election she stood no statistical chance of winning.”
A responsible journalist might point out (however timidly) that BC’s debt has risen to record levels at a record pace since she took over. “That narrative” before the last election was used to sell a lie to the citizens of BC, and her ‘balanced budget” is in reality built on unfulfilled obligations to the most needy of those citizens while maintaining or increasing the corporate handouts which continue at a blistering pace. And she has NO plan that isn’t built on fantasy to pay any debt.
But hey, she has a nice smile.
As an unrepentant "car guy", the journalist lost me at "the blue Dodge Rambler".
In 5 decades of being involved in "all things cars" this is a 1st for me, seeing "Dodge" and "Rambler" in the same sentence.
Just say'in.
I wonder if the rest of the Fact Checks in her story are as accurate?
Cheers,
Gary L.
Questions about the Maclean's piece: NDP leader Adrian Dix delivered one of the lamest election campaigns in history---yet the piece suggests Christy authored one of the "greatest comebacks" without noting the bar was set pretty low for Christy. Why call her one of the most "powerful" female politicians, someone who's at her best with her back against the wall, when the real power players, all male, assiduously keep her out of the kitchen and hidden from public view for over two years after parachuting her into the safest seat in BC? The BC Assembly is very polarized, and Christy shot to the top, alright, but not before detouring to become radio-host and failed mayoral candidate, a re- definition of "straight" to the top. The absurd assertion that she introduced the "most progressive" social policy in the country omitted, as it would have to, that BC has had the highest (i.e., worst) child-poverty rate in Canada for twelve years running. Also omitted was that her supposed "overhaul" of the teachers' federation was illegal. Small thing, right?
Maclean's twaddle does succeed in illustrating what we in BC already know too well: just like Christy says people can make up their own minds whether they like her or not, stuff like honesty, integrity, and public trust are, in BC Liberal-ese, merely a matter of opinion---and whomever gets into power, no matter by what means, gets to have their opinion rule. We already know Christy's opinion about her involvement in the BC Rail scandal.
But, as I've said before, things must be pretty bad if the usual BC Liberal campaign propaganda has to come out this far before the next fixed-election date---now that voters are forewarned about manipulative pre-election polls, and the Opposition has a new leader in John Horgan who's willing and able to actually contest the next campaign. Probably why the Christy-saving LNG card's being played now instead of later (rest assured, there'll be no LNG flowing anywhere within the next two years, but, with all the shit the BC Liberals are in, better crank up the hoopla now---maybe even distract from the health-worker-firings-and suicide.)
Thanx for the link, Ross; it says two things: first, the BC Liberals are still playing us for chumps, and, second, Christy the LNG-Girl needs rehabilitation even before they trundle her out for a rare, but in this case obligatory public showing in Monday's sitting of the Asembly.
LNG, of course, is so critical to the quickly-aging Princess Warrior that Petronas can hold the whole province to ransom. Otherwise the backroom boyz are more than content to keep her amused in the Premierial rumpus room while they get on with pillaging the province (have they fired the sitter yet for letting Christy out with "OM on the Bridge"?)
And whaddabout Site C? Was that a convenient distraction to the Health Care thingy? I thought she was going to do a Hard Hat Photo-op in July in spite of the court challenges. Course its still only mid-July.
The oil spills have conveniently floated away, the land deal in Coquitlam just 'disappeared' and Mt Polley is back in operation, sans cleanup.
What a girl!
The BC Liberals are as always are full on 'full of it'. The province has never been so terribly mismanaged for the self-interested 'Liberal' family and their corporate fiends. The long term best interests of the rest of us that just want truth and good government For this generation and future generations have been disrespected and played as suckers way too long.
The Maclean's puffed up spinerrama advertorial ... 'Christy - Princess Warrior' piece should go to a every North American journalism school and be posted as a classic example of the great fall and fail of media to inform. No wonder we are in the mess we are in.
As always Ross you and your intrepid posters enlighten the Black Ops of the established 'captured media'.
It's going to be an interesting next few weeks... Doubt, drought, forest fires, Cabinet liars, photo ops and more Black Ops.
News Flash!
Job Fair July 28 - 30 in Fort St. John on behalf of Site C Contractors ATCO and Morgan Construction & Environmental!
Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes, and all those irresponsible court cases.
And what will be the bill for cancelled contracts when Chrispy loses THIS one? Never mind, charge it to the LNG revenue stream.
If the BC Libs and Ms. Clark are in such good shape and have nothing to worry about this far ahead of the next election, how come all the endless ads running on youtube, etc? In the ad someone says, I remember when the NDP was in power; all they seemed to care about was their union friends (that type of thing) .. ha ha ha .. a pretty sickening ad actually and what a bunch of hypocrites. That's obviously meant for folks that don't have much in the way of a brain.
Between the federal gov't and the BC gov't, they have taken over the media and youtube, especially the feds. I, of course, skip the ad the second I see it.
As for McLean's. Someone was buying me a subscription for this magazine for a few years. I asked them to stop the subscription and they did. This is an example of why I stopped it.
sd--
Re: the 300 million...every single year...Bat guano in the extreme, indeed...Interesting that there was no mention of that illlustrious academic tourism that was trumpeted back in the Lib Leadership campaign, eh?
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Lew--
Not one mention of the lead debt balloon in the entire piece...And, more immediately...How about this bizarre garbage of deliberately under budgeting forest fire fighting costs (i.e. ~$100 million less than the 10 year average).
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Anon--
Oooohhhh...Priceless...Great catch!
My wife and I had a three-on-the-tree slant-six wagon when we were in college...brick of a car that I wish we still had somehow...Not a Dodge decal to be found anywhere in that rebuilt AMC-made Kenosha Cadillac!
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scotty--
Excellent point about the campaign that was run, on both sides, by two guys that now run the same PropShop...Interestingly, we only read one side of that 'Guy's' story in the Macleans/Macdonald piece
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Thanks Bill--
The weird thing about this is that we usually get closer to what is really goin' on round here when the National proMedia pays a little attention.
Good example was that 'Jobs, Jobs, Jobs - Not!' smack down of the Lotuslandian pro-media herd awhile back.
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John's A--
Thanks for the heads-up...Will dig around a bit...Please send links if you've got 'em.
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way to go Chrispy! Give Site C to an Alberta company. How much sales tax do you REALLY think will accrue in beautiful BC? Morgan Construction AND Environmental Inc? Any connection to Gwynn MORGAN?
You make me sick.
JA--
Oh boy.
Here we go again.
Because while British Columbians are always 'first-in-line' they are often not chosen.
German ferries anyone?
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another media outlet shrilling for the cons. she may call herself a B.C. Lieberal, but really, they are more aligned with the federal cons than anything else.
The people of this province have voted this bunch into office more than once. As things got worse and worse, they continued to vote for them. Her photopness promised trillions of dollars and a 100K jobs. what did we get? More child poverty, more homelessness, less health care, less education in the public system, etc.
The people can live with their actions and in some cases will die because of them.
let the burning of the province continue. the b.c. lieberals couldn't even get it together to follow a report on how to deal with the forests after the 2003 fires and report.
Alberta keeps looking better and better all the time.
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